EDITORIAL: A college football coaches’ committee has put forth a recommendation on significant changes to the sport’s calendar. But college football’s proposed changes have set the pants of CFB pundits on fire. It is because within that recommendation is an acceptance of an expanded college football playoff.
Coaches’ Proposed Changes
The American Football Coaches’ Association sent out a release this week with the results of last week’s deliberations. The AFCA board of directors recommended that the season start a week or two earlier. It recommended that conferences do away with conference championship games. And that bye weeks for the season be reduced from two to one for each school. Oh, and it also said it was good with the expansion of the playoffs to 24 schools.
The point of the recommendation was clear in the official statement. “The American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) has identified the length of the college football season as a critical issue that needs to be addressed. As we modernize our game to better serve student-athletes, we have fallen short in structuring a season that concludes in a timely and sustainable way.”
The Calendar is the Priority
The calendar has been an issue for coaches for more than a year. At a press conference the day before the ACC Championship Game, Duke head coach Manny Diaz answered one of our questions about the system by saying it was long overdue that we stopped treating college football like it is a one-semester sport when we don’t even get to the championship until three weeks into the Spring semester.
How many waves did it create this last season when members of the hot take squads thought they uncovered a scoop on Miami quarterback Carson Beck? He acknowledged the week of the championship that he was not in school, and the uproar was voluminous. And why should he have been in school? He already finished his Master’s program the previous semester. The only reason he was still with his college team, instead of getting ready for pro workouts, was because of the absurd CFB calendar. The championship game was being played in the third week of January.
The AFCA had made minor improvements to the calendar the previous January, when they pushed a revision to the transfer portal calendar through the NCAA DI Council. It got rid of the December portion of the portal window and shortened the entire thing to just two weeks in January.
Coaches Have to Give Some to Get Some
But what is getting the headlines now is the AFCA agreeing in principle to the 24-team playoff.
It’s a bad idea. It is unnecessary. And very few coaches are likely in favor of it. The pundit storyline that coaches favor it because more teams making the playoffs will mean more coaches are protected from getting fired clearly didn’t see three basketball coaches fired in March, even after making the 68-team tournament. Making a saturated playoff is not an employment guarantee.
Coaches Tell Us Why
Last Word reached out to five college football coaches on Wednesday afternoon, asking about the agreement to the 24-school playoff. We heard back from two and promised to keep their names and schools out of the article.
“The calendar issues are the most important topic to us because they impact the entire sport all year round,” said a Southwest-based FBS coach. If it means we have to start earlier and cut some weeks in order to end on time, then taking the expanded playoff is worth it.”
A coach from an East Coast FBS school replied, “The playoff expansion is going to happen anyway. The coaches have no ability to stop that. So let’s make sure we are getting other things that do matter to us, like a change in the calendar. There would only be a few teams playing the first and second week in January, and the rest will have moved on to what’s next.”
Both coaches told us they did not like the playoff expansion or see a need to water down the current product.
Who Likes the Expanded Playoff?
In fact, about the only ones who do like expanding the playoff are conference commissioners (because more of their schools will get in), and the television networks, because they seem determined to squeeze the golden goose until it croaks. The only upside from the viewer’s standpoint is that with the expansion, ESPN is likely to have to subcontract some of the games to TBS, TNT, or Fox.
The statement from the AFCA says the postseason should end no later than the second Monday in January. “Future playoff models should maximize the number of participants while honoring the proposed completion date.”
Addressing College Football’s Proposed Changes
In order to get through an expanded playoff and finish earlier, many changes will be needed. What was Week 0 for a handful of schools will have to be Week 1 for everyone. Eliminating the conference championship games has been years overdue. The money once pulled in by the conferences has diminished over time, and the risk to the schools is no longer needed.
There will have to be adjustments to the bowl schedules. Some will have to be sacrificed. But how many years have many been complaining that there are too many? And the bowls that are tied into the quarterfinals and semifinals will have to be reconfigured. The Rose Bowl would have to become an annual semifinal in order to keep the New Year’s timeframe in place.
And the exclusive window for the Army-Navy game stays in place. Although it might not be the only game that day…just in that timeframe.
The ability to manage the game is a year-round proposition for football staffs. But the horse is out of the barn when it comes to playoff expansion. It’s not what’s best for the game. But that makes it all the more important to fix other elements that are amiss.
