I have talked about this on my podcast and want to have this in blog form too.
College football has always been the Wild West compared to other big time American sports and that is a true as ever. Does the NCAA have any real power over CFB? What will the conferences look like in ten years? What is going on with the transfer portal, NIL, and paying players? The answers change every day.
This chaos is part of what makes CFB so great. Below I have mapped out what I think an ideal CFB season would look like. It maintains what is great about CFB, but also cuts out some of the ridiculous and unnecessary things. This isn’t a prediction and I’m not naive enough to think everything below will happen. It is simply a vision that I believe would benefit the sport.
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1. Say Goodbye to Week Zero
Let’s simplify things: eliminate Week Zero. Instead, have Week 1 be the actual start to football season in America. And what better way to start it than by having the ONLY game be Army vs Navy. Put all eyes on this game to start the year instead of throwing it in the middle of December right before the CFP is about to start. This would be such an awesome way to still celebrate how amazing this game and the players in it are, while also having it kick off football season.
Week 1 will be 15 weeks before Thanksgiving (more on that later) and every other team will start playing on Week 2. For reference, if the CFB season I am laying out occurred this year, that would mean Week 1 would have been August 23rd while Week 2 would have been August 30th.
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2. Rest of the Regular Season: 11 Games in 12 Weeks
Currently, teams play 12 regular-season games with variable conference schedules (8-9 conference games depending on the league). Here’s the ideal adjustment:
- Schedule: 11 games over 12 weeks, allowing one bye week per team (This would be 11 games in 13 weeks for Army and Navy)
- Conference Play: Every team plays 9 conference games. Uniformity across Power Four and Group of Five conferences is better for determining the best teams in each conference.
- Non-Conference Games: Power 4 teams must play 2 non-conference Power Four/Notre Dame matchups. This helps maintain traditional rivalries (like Florida vs. Florida State or West Virginia vs Penn State) and ensures high-caliber matchups early in the season.
Why this change?
- Eliminate Irrelevant Games: No more Alabama vs. Mercer blowouts. These games don’t help determine playoff-worthy teams. Now Power Four teams will Noel be playing other Power Four teams in the regular season.
- Tougher Schedules: A more rigorous slate helps identify the truly elite programs.
- Easier to Compare Teams and Conferences: Let’s imagine a scenario where SMU were to be 9-2 and Tennessee was 8-3. Instead of arguing who has more wins, we could look at non-conference evidence. If SMU played Ole Miss and had their doors blown off, losing by 21 points, while Tennessee beat Ole Miss by 10, that helps us determine who is better. And in general, if the SEC played the ACC 20 times and went 16-4, then we clearly know the SEC is better than the ACC and that should go into determining the CFP teams. Or, if the ACC went 11-9 vs the SEC, we can say “Oh, wow, the ACC and SEC were pretty even and the ACC even has the edge. So a nine win ACC team may be more impressive than a 8 win SEC team.” More non-conference games gives us more evidence of which teams and which conferences are better.
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3. Rivalry Week, Conference Championships, and Playoff Timing
- Rivalry Week: Two weekends before Thanksgiving
- Conference Championships: Held the weekend before Thanksgiving.
- Bye Week: Thanksgiving weekend serves as a universal bye, giving players and coaches a well-deserved break.
- Playoffs: Begin the weekend after Thanksgiving weekend (more on that below).
This schedule maintains the rhythm of weekly games while still providing players time to recover for the CFP.
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4. The Ideal College Football Playoff Structure
- 16 Teams Total
- 5 Automatic Bids: Power Four conference champions + highest-ranked Group of Five champion.
- 11 At-Large Bids: Open to the best remaining teams, regardless of conference.
Key Principles:
- No Amount of Guaranteed Bids: No guaranteed spots beyond conference champions. If the Big Ten deserves six teams, they get six. If they deserve two, they get two. If the Big 12 and/or ACC has just one deserving team, so be it.
- Seeding Based on Performance: Teams are seeded 1-16 based on merit, not conference affiliation.
- Reseeding: After each round, teams will be reseeded just like in the NFL playoffs. For those who aren’t familiar with how the NFL does it. After Round 1, there will be 8 teams left heading into Round 2. The highest remaining seed will play the lowest remaining seed, the 2nd highest remaining seed will play the second lowest remaining seed and so on. This will continue throughout the playoffs.
- Flexibility: Things can always change. If the Group of Five auto-bid keeps getting demolished, I have no problem with revoking their auto-bid and having it be the Power Four conference champions and 12 at-large bids. The same applies to Power Four conferences—if future realignments diminish certain leagues’ competitiveness, their auto-bids can be reconsidered. We could even switch to a completely at-large tourney with no conference auto-bids.
Playoff Schedule:
- Round of 16: The weekend after Thanksgiving weekend. Games will be played on campus.
- Quarterfinals & Semifinals: Consecutive weekends thereafter. Games will be played on campus.
- National Championship: Always held on December 31st at the Rose Bowl.
Why the Rose Bowl? It’s the most iconic venue in college football. The “Granddaddy of Them All” deserves to host the sport’s biggest game annually, preserving tradition while adding prestige to the championship. And the final day of the season will be the final day of the year, which lines up well. Then we can give everyone January 1st off and January 2nd will be when the next season starts to kick off.
All CFP games will be held on campus with the exception of the Rose Bowl. Why? Because home CFP games are so much better than a bunch of bowl games. I understand that bowl games and especially the New Year’s Six bowl games hold a special place inside the hearts of CFB fans. In this modern era of CFB, they don’t need to be front and center (other than the Rose Bowl). Those and every other bowl can still exist, but it will be outside of the playoff.
On campus CFB games have such a better atmosphere than bowl games. It also gives higher seeded home teams a much better advantage, similar to the NFL. It benefits the fans and local communities too. Fans of the home team do not need to spend thousands of dollars traveling around the country to different bowl games. And local economies will be bolstered by the all the people coming into town for the games.
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5. Addressing Coaching and Transfer Portal Chaos
One of the current challenges in college football is the distraction caused by coaching hires and transfer portal decisions during the postseason. To maintain focus on the games, there will be no official coaching changes or transfers allowed until January 2nd and the transfer portal will be open from January 2nd-31st so players and teams will have a whole month to decide what to do.
This will be the one transfer portal window all year. Players will also be allowed one free transfer during their careers. If they transfer again, they will have to sit out a year. Exceptions to this are if a players graduates or their coach leaves, they get a free transfer. This still reasonably gives players the ability to play for up to three schools in their CFB career, while not encouraging them to transfer a million times on a whim.
This keeps head coaches, assistant coaches, and players focused on their current teams during the playoffs. The way the transfer portal works now is terrible. Imagine you’re the backup QB at Ohio State and they are making a run to the national championship. You have been at Ohio State for three years and have not really played. You only have two years of eligibility remaining and you also know the guy in front of you will likely be here for two more years. You decide that you will transfer to another school in order to actually play. With the way it works now, you would have to decide between two options:
- Option 1. You abandon your team during the CFP run when they may need you in case the starter gets hurt, in order to ensure you go to the best team in search of a QB. While this would set you up well for the next two years and help your dream of making the NFL, you also will carry the guilt of feeling like you abandoned teammates while not getting to partake in a National Championship run with guys you have spent the last three years battling with. Since you feel pressure to transfer ASAP, you may run the risk of rushing your decision.
- Option 2. You opt to stay and help your team with their playoff run. You feel good about doing this, however, by the time the season ends with you losing in the National Championship game, all the good programs looking for QBs have been filled and now you have to transfer to a much worse team than you other wise could start for.
Why are we making these players go through these agonizing decisions? This new Transfer Window gives players plenty of time to make their decision and still allows them to start spring semester on their new team, so they’re there at spring practice. It also encourages them to stay at a school for at least a year, rather than transfer a couple months later in April.
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6. The Long-Term Vision: Super Conferences?
Looking ahead, it’s hard to ignore the possibility of college football evolving into two super conferences:
- The Big Ten: Dominating the North and West.
- The SEC: Reigning supreme in the South.
While expansion may not be over, the flexibility built into this ideal system allows for adjustments as the sport continues to shift. This structure can adapt without compromising competitive integrity.
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Final Thoughts
College football is beautiful in its chaos, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be improved. This vision seeks to balance tradition with progress. Whether you agree or disagree with these ideas, one thing’s certain: the future of college football will be anything but boring.
