Texas A&M’s Mike Elko reveals the biggest change he wants before college football’s return originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
As college football embraces its new era of NIL and the transfer portal, many have questioned the need for a clear and singular point of leadership. The current leadership model leaves each conference to govern themselves. The concern with that model is that it blurs the lines of protocol when more than one conference is involved.
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The recent Dabo Swinney tampering press conference is a great example. In that press conference Swinney accused Ole Miss coach Pete Golding of wrongdoing. Under the current model, the ACC has no jurisdiction over the SEC. Nor would the opposite be true. Resulting in the question of how does college football, specifically the Power Four, govern itself?
On a recent appearance on The Hard Count, Texas A&M head coach Mike Elko questioned the NCAA’s leadership structure and advocated for a commissioner style model. According to Yahoo Sports, Elko questioned the current governance model. Claiming there is no centralized authority.
Elko argued that college football needs a singular decision maker. Conference realignment, NIL reform and guidelines, playoff expansion as well as changing the football calendar to coincide with the academic calendar have all been ideas debated. All of which would become easier hurdles to clear if there was a singular governing voice.
J.D. Pickell spoke with Elko and asked him if he could tweak one thing about college football, what would it be? “Put somebody in charge,” Elko said. “It’s a $1.2B industry without a singular voice making decisions for the betterment of college football.”
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“I think until we get that, we will continue to flounder within some of those areas,” Elko continued. “What’s best for the SEC isn’t always what’s best for the other conferences. At some point, we’re going to have to have somebody making rules for the betterment of college football, enforcement of rules and all of it.”
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Elko’s comments fall right in line with similar comments made by Nick Saban, James Franklin, Lane Kiffin, Deion Sanders, Chip Kelly, Gus Malzahn, Sonny Dykes, Mike Gundy and Ryan Day.
Gundy and Sanders have both advocated for not only a Power Four commissioner, but an NFL-forward model. Franklin and others have even advocated for Nick Saban to take on that role as someone every coach and program would respect.
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Despite repeated mentions by coaches for the need of a singular college football commissioner, the NCAA has made no announcements or had publicly aware conversations about this topic in any official capacity.
