Envision a day when the Hokies and Cavaliers’ football programs were not grouped with any North Carolina schools but were joined by the likes of Maryland, Penn State and Notre Dame.

Ideal? Almost certainly not.

But what if the above were part of a structure that maybe, just maybe, could prevent the demise of major college athletics as we know it, including traditional ACC basketball ?

Such a notion, in the form of a 70-team college football Super League governed outside the NCAA, would be worth appraising, right?

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But the idea would require shared sacrifice for the common good, and in today’s callous and toxic college sports environment, such concepts are virtually DOA.

Blinded by money and power, university presidents, administrators and coaches, plus conference commissioners and television networks, all are culpable.

Some realize their missteps and yearn to be part of a solution. Others are stridently unrepentant. Still others are resigned to an unsightly future that will test the patience of even the most ardent fans.

Watchful reporters at national outlets such as The Athletic , Sportico and Yahoo have written that College Sports Tomorrow, a group of sports franchise owners, executives and college officials, has modeled an inclusive college football Super League.

In theory, the plan would not only halt the consolidation of power in the SEC and Big Ten that threatens the remainder of Division I, but also afford conferences a return to conventional membership for other sports.

Assured of football inclusion and revenue, the storied Pacific 12 could reconfigure. Likewise flush in football, Clemson and Florida State could drop their legal challenges to the ACC’s grant of media rights and exit fee and continue competing with UVa, Virginia Tech, Duke, North Carolina and friends in men’s and women’s basketball and Olympic sports.

Led by Len Perna, the CEO of search firm TurnkeyZRG , College Sports Tomorrow also includes North Carolina athletic director Bubba Cunningham, Syracuse chancellor Kent Syverud, West Virginia president Gordon Gee, Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam and Brian Rolapp, the NFL’s chief media and business officer.

These are folks with taxing day jobs, and yet they invested their time and brainpower to craft a detailed proposal, a copy of which Sportico obtained. They offered thoughtful plans for an all-encompassing television package and collectively bargained revenue sharing between schools and athletes, NIL opportunities and transfer limitations.

Documents obtained by Sportico show the proposed divisions for a college football Super League.

Perhaps most intriguing, CST’s Super League includes all 67 programs set to compete in power conferences this season, plus independent Notre Dame and Pac-12 castoffs Washington State and Oregon State. Those schools are grouped into seven geographically sensible divisions of 10 teams each.

Virginia Tech and Virginia are matched with West Virginia, Notre Dame, Maryland, Penn State, Pitt, Boston College, Syracuse and Rutgers.

Moreover, an eighth division includes 10 teams from the current Group of Five conferences that would rotate into the Super League annually via a promotion/relegation process similar to soccer’s Premier League. A 16-team playoff would follow the Super League’s 14-game regular season.

Meanwhile, the Group of Five’s other 56 teams would compete in an eight-division Under League that featured a playoff among the division champions, each of which would be promoted to the Super League.

The “why” behind the Super League effort is clear.

The 12-team College Football Playoff debuts next season and is contracted with ESPN through 2031.

As evidenced by their revenue demands from the College Football Playoff’s impending expansion and new television contract, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and his Big Ten counterpart, Tony Petitti, have no regard for others.

Indeed, had the ACC, Big 12 and the other Bowl Subdivision conferences not acquiesced to their ultimatums, the SEC and Big Ten were poised to break away on their own.

Never mind that they already enjoy massive advantages in regular-season media revenue. They must have more.

“We were 100% confident and made it clear that we were only going to do a deal that worked for us,” Petitti told Yahoo’s Ross Dellenger.

Given that breathtaking arrogance and pettiness, rest assured the Big Ten and SEC would have no interest in the Super League — unless the money was astronomical.

There would also be the complexities of voiding contracts among ESPN, Fox and FBS conferences, plus ESPN’s just-signed agreement with the College Football Playoff. Perhaps even more unlikely, conference commissioners would have to relinquish control of football to a Super League executive team.

Seventy permanent teams might prove too unwieldy, if all 70 wanted in. There’s also the matter of a proposed Group of Five restructuring that would essentially divorce those schools, including James Madison, Liberty and Old Dominion, from the power conferences to stage a separate championship.

Former Tennessee and Louisiana Tech coach Derek Dooley, a UVa receiver from 1987-90, is heading that charge, according to The Athletic’s Chris Vannini and CBS’ Dennis Dodd.

Alas, no matter how worthy the idea, don’t expect the Big Ten, SEC or networks to loosen their tightening and lucrative chokehold on college football — regardless of the collateral damage.

2024 College Football Playoffs national championship game photos

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