LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- During my week (mostly) off the grid, I read the allegations that television money is responsible for the greed that is deconstructing college football.

Guilty as charged.

I've gone back to the stories from two years ago when the Big Ten, ACC and Pac-12 pledged their love and affection for each other with something called a scheduling alliance.

I've laughed.

I enjoyed the comments from Alabama coach Nick Saban, calling the loss of traditional rivalries "sad."

That made me think that if somebody as powerful as Saban isn't a fan of this trend and still can't do anything to stop it, what chance does any other coach or administrator have?

I looked at the quotes from the folks at California and Washington State, two of the schools left behind by the collapse of the Pac-12.

My reaction? Who will be next? Somebody in this part of the country?

But in the dozens of pieces I've read about Conference Realignment, Part XVII, the comments from UCLA coach Chip Kelly struck me as the most sensible and honest:

"Do it like the NFL, where there's the NFC West, the NFC North, the NFC South, where it's the same thing and we all get together," Kelly told Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times.

"But I think there should be one conference in all of college football and just break it up like they do in the professional ranks. ... That makes the most sense. There's your travel question. There's all those other questions."

Touchdown, Chip Kelly.

Do it like the NFL, because college football is professional football. It's football's equivalent of Class AAA and AA baseball, a minor league feeder system, except, unlike baseball, the NFL draws all the benefits but none of the expenses. (That's another column, but the point is this is professional football.)

Do it like the NFL because now there is more free agency in college football than there is in professional football, and the players are being paid (even more than they were making for handshake deals and summer jobs they didn't have to work).

Do it like the NFL because the players invest so much time and energy in their craft that they are legitimately professionals and getting an education can be an inconvenience for many of them.

There was a time when a full-sized offensive lineman was 260 pounds. He enjoyed a couple months off in the winter and two more in the summer and then played his way into shape during training camp. That time disappeared long ago.

Do it like the NFL and determine the 64 schools schools that actually have the resources, the finances, the fan support and the resolve to compete at the highest level of the game.

There may not be 64 teams. Then make it 48. Or 40. Or 32. The suits who are  chasing the TV deals and creating the current chaos need to take 10 minutes to figure that out. The programs that simply don't have the juice or all the credentials can compete at a lower level. No shame in that.

Then organize everything in a way that is reasonable for players, coaches and fans. No school plays in a conference with a team that is more than one time zone away.

Put Rutgers and Maryland with Virginia and Maryland, not UCLA and Washington.

Leave USC and UCLA with Arizona and Arizona State, don't send them to Penn State and Purdue.

Put Oklahoma State back with Oklahoma, Texas A&M back with Texas Tech and West Virginia with Pittsburgh. Hey, I thought Louisville and Cincinnati was fun (and easy for Cards' fans to attend).

Who knows, maybe Kentucky, Louisville and Indiana would land in the same league?

Geography should matter. Rivalries should matter. Tradition should matter. History should matter. Common sense should matter.

And athletes other than football players should matter, too. The time-zone hopping will be challenging for some of them.

But college football plays once per week. If you're serious about the game, you travel by private plane. You stay in comfortable hotels, surrounded by five-star training staffs.

You know, like professional football.

Life will not be as glorious for the basketball, volleyball, soccer, swimming, baseball and softball players who will have to zig-zag across America because somebody at ESPN or Fox Sports thought it was a delicious idea to put Oregon in the same conference with Penn State or South Carolina in a league with Oklahoma.

They're making it miserable for those athletes.

Not that it matters. It's football, and only football, that matters.

So let's call it what Kelly calls it — and do it the way the NFL does it.

Until then, they're simply making a mess of a great game.

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