Category: Uncategorized

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 this game and the players, 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 Pitt) and ensures high-caliber matchups early and late 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 only 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
• All At-Large Bids: Open to the 16 best teams, regardless of conference.

Key Principles:

• No Amount of Guaranteed Bids: No guaranteed spots for conferences. 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.
• 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.

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 head 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.

The early signing period for high school students will cease to exist and we will just keep the regular signing period starting early February each year. This keeps head coaches, assistant coaches, and players focused on their current teams during the playoffs.

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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.

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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.