Future Schedules are the Problem with College Football

College football fans stormed the internet yesterday morning cursing the playoff committee, ESPN, and ABC for approving the 24 team expanded playoff, and eliminating conference championships, starting in 2027. Many fans declaring that college football is forever ruined, claiming the heart and soul of the sport is dead, and it will never return from corporate greed! My first question, to any complaining, is what year were you born? It seems they weren’t alive when the national champion was decided SOLELY by the pollster and not on the field. What’s more posterious, a 24 team playoff, or a poll of journalists & coaches who couldn’t possibly watch every game as there were no streaming services, decide the national champion in college football? 

The poll determining the national champion, or in later years the two teams that played for the title, is how the conference championships gained importance. The conference championships were earned on the field. The national title, not as much. The other piece with conference championships, and bowl games, that made them enticing, was that the players could receive gifts. I’m not anti-NIL by any means but the conference championship games and bowl system became outdated as soon as NIL passed. Also, a non-conference game, Week 1 or Week 2, shouldn’t kill a team’s season. That’s how it’s currently set up.

Transfer portal, pre-season poll, and conference realignment problem aside, the real issue in college football is future scheduling. Why are we scheduling games 10 years out?? Do I want to go to Madison for a Hokie football game? YES. I WANT TO JUMP AROUND. However, for the sake of determining a college football national champion, it makes no sense that non-conferences games are scheduled a decade in advance. Quite frankly, it’s holding the sport back, not canceling the conference championship games or expanding to a 24 team playoff. 

(Virginia Tech Future Schedules via HokieSports.com)

The fix is having in season game scheduling. We already know it’s possible from the home game playoff format. Universities are willing, and able, to schedule a game with a couple weeks notice. Which leads to my proposal to fix the college football schedule as far as non-conference games go... Argue all you want, but what needs to happen is more INTENTIONAL data points between the conferences on the field. Not a season ending rank decided by a poll or committee. 

The proposal is for Week 12 to be a game versus an unknown opponent because there are some schools in which rivalry week, Week 13, is sacred. A case can be made for Week 8 to be rivalry week, then rivals would be able to screw each other over before the Week 12 game was decided. It would work as followed:

First, each team is given a home or away designation for Week 12 at the beginning of the season. This can be negotiated to a neutral site if the home team gives permission to forfeit a home game, whether it be by their own choice or by request of the away team. If there is a discrepancy between home and away designations, the tiebreaker will be decided by percentage of stadium capacity filled from the following season. A blanket assignment of half of teams having Odd Year home games and other half of teams having Even Year home games won’t work. Instead of athletic directors gambling on non-conference games a decade in advance, the CFB stratosphere gets real time matchups that can end the ranking arguments on the field.

Next, everyone plays through Week 8 as usual. 

Then, Sunday evening 5 pm PT following Week 8, all schools must submit a list of 10 teams they want to play, as well as 5 matchups that they would like to see, and submit it to the designated conference representative. With the following guidelines:

1. If you are ranked #1 or #2 in your conference after Week 8, you cannot play another team ranked #1 or #2. 

2. Non-P4 teams must opt-in to Week 12 selection during pre-season. (The exception here is going to be Hawaii. Hawaii, due to travel logistics, will be decided pre-season.)

3. An undefeated non-P4 team can be assigned to a #1 or #2 conference seed. 

4. An in-conference opponent, including early season re-match can be scheduled.

The CFB Playoff Committee and each of the conference representatives will assign games and announce the schedule by Tuesday 12 pm ET following Week 8. There can even be a live show similar to bowl selection! For years, fanbases from every conference had a wide range of opinions in strength of schedule, head to head losses, and “quality losses”. This is the solution for settling those debates. The bowl games don’t need to be forgotten here either. Sponsored games could be worked in pre-season with teams opting for neutral sites. The Duke’s Mayo Bowl has already made the change. If anything, the expanded playoffs provide more opportunity to sort out the long standing issues with national championship contention in college football. The current system for future non-conference scheduling is the enemy, not the expanded playoff.