22 College Football Thoughts for 2022, No. 12: College football needs someone to take charge. Here’s how to fix the College Football Playoff, NIL, and Transfer Portal.
22 College Football Thoughts For 2022
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– 2022 College Football Schedules: All 131 Teams
22 College Football Thoughts For 2022
22, College football is changing, and it’s okay
21, Texas & Oklahoma, you really want the SEC?
20. SEC is really, really good if you like it or not
19. James Madison, welcome to the show
18. Sun Belt is the cool conference
17. Transfer Portal will only get bigger
16. NFL, keep your hands off our announcers
15. Big 12: Get bigger and stronger, or else
14. Big Ten expansion. NOW what does it do?
13. Brent Venables, Dan Lanning. Welcome. WIN NOW
12. Fixing College Football
There are now 131 schools playing FBS college football, and that means there are 131 different opinions and thoughts on how to make this whole thing work.
The overall college football model isn’t totally broken, but everyone appears ready to try to fix it anyway.
Coaches want transfer windows (good idea), and old school types think paying players is the end of the world as we know it (it’s not), and the big-time football schools and conferences want to trade it all for a little bit more (that’s nothing new).
The SEC wants to dominate the world, but it can’t stand alone – it needs the rest of college football to be good, too.
It might just mean more to that conference, but it doesn’t mean squat to the rest of the nation unless Alabama and (insert randomly-great SEC team here) aren’t able to beat up on the stars from the other leagues when it matters.
Ohio State would love to be bigger and get a larger piece of the world. Michigan still makes more money than just about everyone else. USC is flexing its muscle as it figures out just how amazing it is in the NIL and transfer portal game. And on and on and on as all the big programs have bases who want their respective teams to get even more massive.
All this is happening while the NCAA is melting away. The colleges and conferences finally woke up and realized the NCAA really didn’t have the power it was able to wield.
Some schools and athletic directors are pushing for the idea of a sort of commissioner type who can help direct all the parts, and others want total autonomy to generate revenue in any way they wish.
Some schools and athletic directors want a much bigger College Football Playoff, and others want to somehow distribute the power across the board in some way, and …
It’s a mess because no one’s in charge.
The SEC is sort of in charge. The Big Ten is sort of in charge. ESPN is sort of in charge. The College Football Playoff types are sort of in charge.
There’s a delicate balance going on as everyone tries to figure out how to keep this way-too-loose way of doing things from completely going off the rails.
So let me help.
I have a plan. I’ll take charge. Give me the gig, and here’s how I fix …
College Football Playoff
Expand it already. 12 teams. Eight get a bye, eight go through a play-in, all Power Five champions are automatically in – and get a bye – top Group of Five champion is in and gets a bye, other six teams are seeded according to the final College Football Playoff rankings.
Play-in games come right after the conference championships and before the bowl season gets started. The eight-team playoff round goes a week later on Smorgasbord Saturday, with all four games in one day in mid-December. The four-team CFP goes like it does now.
Meanwhile, the bowls are a part of these games, and the other bowls go off like normal with their own normal charm and prestige.
Name, Image, and Likeness
It’s fine. Don’t mess with it or someone will wake up and realize the schools, conferences, and ESPN found a way to get someone else to pay for the labor.
It’s fine. It really is. More than that, it’s going to improve the sport with more players sticking around, and more players actually playing instead of tapping out to get ready for the NFL.
If you get weird over the idea of a college quarterback making money, then Division III football is right there with open arms for you to enjoy. However …
Transfer Portal
This has to be tweaked. You can’t have unfettered free agency – that’s not fair to anyone. You also can’t manipulate this to screw over the players because of timing, so you have two transfer periods. One is in March for a week just before spring practice kicks in, and one is for a week in mid-July just before fall practices start.
FCS games
Eliminate them. Every FBS team plays another FBS team with games against FCS teams not counting towards the bowls or the stats. However …
Week 0 should be an exhibition game between just FBS and FCS teams. FBS teams can do whatever they want with them, but they don’t count.
These are the paycheck games, we get them out of the way, and because there’s room for teams with a few losses to get into the expanded College Football Playoff, everyone can afford a big tune-up against another great team.
Oh, there’s more.
Media deals, expansion, player rights, there are a whole slew of other major topics to tackle. I’ll get into those later.
Fixing the other parts is good for now.
22 College Football Thoughts For 2022
22. College football is changing, and it’s okay
21, Texas & Oklahoma, you really want the SEC?
20. SEC is really, really good if you like it or not
19. James Madison, welcome to the show
18. Sun Belt is the cool conference
17. Transfer Portal will only get bigger
16. NFL, keep your hands off our announcers
15. Big 12: Get bigger and stronger, or else
14. Big Ten expansion. NOW what does it do?
13. Brent Venables, Dan Lanning. Welcome. WIN NOW
– 2022 College Football Schedules: All 131 Teams
