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Chip Kelly calls for football to split from other sports, players not being paid ‘the biggest travesty’

Keith Farner

By Keith Farner

Published:

Chip Kelly is calling for a 64-team conference in the Power 5, and a 64-team conference in the Group of 5. Speaking ahead of UCLA’s appearance against Boise State in the LA Bowl on Saturday night, Kelly spoke about major changes to college sports alignment.

“Our softball team should be playing Arizona in softball,” he said as UCLA gets set for the Big Ten next summer. “Our basketball team should be playing Arizona in basketball. But because football left, and they said, ‘Well, how do you do that?’ Well, Notre Dame’s independent in football, and they’re in a conference in everything else, I think we should all be independent in football.”

Kelly explained that the football teams would play 7 regional games, and then play teams from other areas of the country on a rotating basis.

Kelly said he believes 132 teams should share the same TV contract, and name, image and likeness should give way to revenue sharing.

“That’s a lot of games, and there are a lot of people in the TV world that would go through with it,” he said. “… That money now needs to be shared with the student athletes, and there needs to be revenue sharing and the players need to get paid. Because the players are what the product is, and the fact that they don’t get paid is really the biggest travesty.”

Keith Farner

A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.

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