Happy holidays! And, of course, thank you for all of your thoughtful questions. Let’s dive into some of the most pressing off-field topics as we begin to wrap up the 2022 college football season and look toward the sport’s future.
With the new playoff format, do you think we could ever see a team rest their starters during the final week of the season? Take 2022 Georgia for example. At 11-0, their spot in the SEC Championship was already locked, an additional loss wouldn’t move them out of the Top 12.
Tim C.
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I do think we could see this, although for a lot of teams that would mean those players might miss out on a big rivalry game, which might be a non-starter. But whatever we already see in the NFL from teams that have locked up their seeding for the playoffs, we might see in college football. And players already opt out of bowl games that are deemed meaningless — and even bowl games that historically have meaning, such as the Rose Bowl. It stands to reason the same thing will happen for teams that have all but locked up CFP spots.
For teams still playing for a bye (seeds 1-4) or a home game in the first round (seeds 5-8), perhaps the calculation changes when it comes to resting starters. Food for thought: Could we see non-SEC Power 5 teams try to move their so-called cupcake games to late November? That would create a “safer” opportunity to rest starters ahead of additional games, or at the very least avoid playing them more than a quarter or two. That adjustment to the schedule may help players remain willing and able to play in other “bigger” games down the stretch.
With the transfer portal and NIL now in place, what is stopping G5 and small market P5 schools from becoming developmental spots for a year or two before the name brand schools come and scoop up their best talent?
Garrett S.
Nothing, unfortunately. I wrote about this dynamic as it first started to play out with grad transfers in men’s college basketball in 2017, and it has since only become easier in every sport to poach talent from the lower ranks. UTSA head coach Jeff Traylor made news by speaking plainly about the issue this week, and his point is a valid one … even if there is no easy solution. Upwardly mobile players aren’t going to have their opportunities limited in the current era of college football. Coaches move up levels all the time if bigger, better jobs come available to them. I don’t fault the players who jump the chance to play at a level at which they weren’t previously recruited.
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However, it sucks for the program and teammates they leave behind. That’s why I try to celebrate players like Tulane quarterback Michael Pratt who forgo other opportunities created by their on-field success to stay at the schools that wanted them first. It is not easy to say no to brand names and bigger stages, but those who believe NFL scouts will find you no matter where you are if you’re good enough have been proven correct year after year.
There isn’t an easy solution to the problems with the current system, either. Even an anonymous tip line wouldn’t provide the hard evidence to prove most of these allegations. And if coaches or ADs called rival coaches out by name in the media, I don’t think they’d receive a ton of sympathy. It most often comes across as making excuses for losing a star player or not landing a great recruit.
The tampering environment boils down to individual coaches’ integrity, gentlemen’s agreements and doing things The Right Way, and you’re never going to get every single college football coach behaving like that. The incentives to get an early start on roster management will only increase in an era with such little patience for coaches, while some can turn a program around quickly with one player or one big class. The risk-reward calculation still ends with people doing whatever they need to do to get talent.
What should the CFB calendar look like? The transfer portal + early signing day periods overlapping when a lot of programs are putting their staffs together feels like an easy fix that would make everyone happier. By moving up ESD setting up transfer recruiting to happen after, everyone can catch their breath. Maybe move up the season 1 week across the board?
Dan S.
I would get rid of the December signing period entirely, keeping the immediate post-season focus on staffing changes and the transfer portal — plus bowl and Playoff prep. It is a lot going on at once, with the potential to burn coaches out and force recruits’ major decisions into a condensed, high-pressure time frame. It makes zero sense to have two signing periods less than two months apart.
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The problem with moving the early signing period up only slightly is that it would overlap even more with the regular season, when coaches typically prefer to focus on coaching current players and preparing for games. Although I do agree clarity on a recruiting class ahead of a transfer portal shopping trip makes sense in theory, I don’t think it’s feasible the way the sport is structured right now.
The Division I Football Oversight Committee and the group of FBS commissioners have been examining the sport’s calendar and its myriad issues. Some of their work is focused on recruiting periods and whether the entire sport should begin play during what is now Week 0 in response to the expanded College Football Playoff. Starting earlier would alleviate some of the pressure on the back end of the calendar (and help work around the NFL’s presence on the third Saturday in December, when first-round CFP games might be played). There are a lot of pieces to the puzzle of fixing the college football schedule.
I’d suggest the main high school signing period be moved away from a period of time dominated by coaching changes, bowl prep and now the portal. We could go back to building the recruiting calendar around a main February signing period, plus a summer early signing period for players who are sure of their decisions and don’t want to keep fielding calls from other schools hoping to flip them. With those early decisions out of the way, coaches could focus on players who haven’t made up their minds yet, and those undecided players would have until February to weigh their options after the December frenzy.
Of course, this could lead to programs putting increased pressure on rising high school seniors to sign in the summer. What would happen to a Group of 5 summer signee if he had a breakout senior season that would have previously landed him intense late Power 5 attention? I believe the benefits of allowing two distinct signing windows, for players who know what they want and players who need more time to make the call, far outweigh the drawbacks.
I would like to hear your thoughts about the NLRB ruling to advance the case asking for students to be paid as employees.
Don C.
For those not yet in the weeds on this issue: The National Labor Relations Board last week directed its Los Angeles regional office to pursue charges of unfair labor practices (ULP) against USC, the Pac-12 and the NCAA. (The ULP charges originally included one against UCLA, which has since been dropped.) The NLRB will argue that athletes at USC are employees of those three groups and therefore entitled to employee protections.
The case is the first to consider the Pac-12 and the NCAA as joint employers, which would make a ruling in favor of the athletes far more significant than the 2015 unionization efforts at Northwestern would have been, had that movement been successful. A victory for the NLRB in the USC case would mean that football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball players at any private school in the NCAA would be granted the rights of employees. That would include the ability to unionize. The seeds for such a challenge were planted in September 2021, when NLRB general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo wrote in a memo that she believed college athletes are employees.
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Not to throw cold water on this effort, but it’s important to acknowledge the multiple steps that would still need to come before that type of massive change. The next step is a trial in the coming months before an administrative law judge, who would then address whether or not athletes should be considered employees, as well as the Pac-12 and NCAA’s potential liability under the joint employer theory. The losing party could eventually appeal the decision in federal court. This case could take a while to reach a resolution, but the idea of the NCAA going to court in 2023 to defend its business model in any context is fascinating.
This is one of multiple dominos that could fall and drastically change the business model of college athletics. I’ve written extensively about the Johnson v. NCAA case, which also focuses on the question of whether student athletes are employees, and I’m also tracking House vs. NCAA, which seeks damages for NIL money athletes were not able to earn before 2021. Those cases are slowly working their way through the judicial system in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Alston v. NCAA, including Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s scathing concurring opinion that opened the door for future challenges to the collegiate model. Congress may also force the NCAA model to change its relationship with its athletes.
To me, those are the four main pressure points: the NLRB case, Johnson, House and Congressional action. I’m not sure which will reach its conclusion first, or which is most likely to become the domino that changes college sports forever, but it seems likely that at least one of them will be a turning point.
The CFP is expanding in just over a year and one would assume ESPN gets all of that. However, when the CFP contract with ESPN expires, does ESPN still get first crack at it, an exclusive rights window/option or once the expiration hits, is it just going straight to an open bidding war?
Jesse K.
ESPN will get first right of refusal for the games in the 2024 and 2025 seasons because it is the exclusive rightsholder for the Playoff, as part of an initial contract both sides signed that runs through the 2025-26 season. I do expect the contract beginning in 2026 to go to the open market. Multiple commissioners have publicly expressed their desire for multiple media partners, like the NFL has for its postseason. To me, that’s a no-brainer, assuming there are multiple bidders and multiple packages that can be offered. If one media company comes in and bids whatever it would take for exclusive rights, I’m sure it will be considered. But in an ideal market with multiple interested parties offering the kind of money it would take to land CFP games as part of a package, I think you end up with multiple partners, including ESPN and Fox.
As we head into the expanded CFP and higher-seeded teams having the option to host games on their campus or another stadium nearby, are there ANY schools that would prefer to not host that game on their campus? Wondering if there are some stadiums that legitimately could not host a game in December, and how that decision is made.
Karl T.
All schools that earn home games in the first round will have the ability to move the game off campus if they want, and it could be for the reasons you outlined. Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren has used the phrase “winterized” as he talks about some of his cold-weather schools and their stadiums. There would be legitimate challenges for some of those Big Ten schools, but I do think a lot of them think those issues can be addressed between now and 2024, when those games would begin to be played. Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith at first expressed his support for moving games to Indianapolis or somewhere with a dome but has since changed his mind and wants to host games in Columbus. I imagine other cold-weather ADs and coaches feel the same, dreaming of an SEC foe having to play in snow in December.
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For those wondering exactly what will go into getting a cold-weather stadium ready to host a game in December, I recommend my colleague Audrey Snyder’s excellent piece on Penn State’s Beaver Stadium. I’d also recommend reading up on how the FCS playoffs work, because they’ve been playing at home sites in the cold all this time.
With a larger open format for the playoffs could we see a Gonzaga of CFB develop? Meaning a non-Power 5 type contender every year for a long time.
Daniel R.
Yes. I thought about this a lot during Willie Fritz’s will-he-or-won’t-he week of interest from Georgia Tech, which ultimately ended with him staying at Tulane. While the timing of Georgia Tech’s hiring process certainly played a role in that situation, the outcome offered a reminder that some coaches may decide to stay at programs that can win big outside of the Power 5 now that the rest of the FBS is guaranteed an access point to the CFP. Had Cincinnati and UCF not jumped to the Big 12, they would have been the poster children for this. You could argue their path to the CFP is now more difficult as Big 12 members than it would have been had they stayed in the AAC. I think the emergence of college football Gonzagas would be healthy for the sport.
What do you say to those that call for an abolishment of the NCAA? I don’t think most people realize that abolishing the NCAA just creates a void that will be filled by something like the NCAA. Every major sport has some sort of governing body, all of which have their problems. College sports is not exempt from that.
Alex H.
You are spot-on, and it can feel like banging your head against the wall sometimes when I make the same point. If the NCAA were to go away or if FBS schools were to break away from it just for football, you’d have to replicate its bureaucracy anyway in order to handle rule-making, eligibility, rule-breaking investigations and more. If the NCAA wasn’t around, non-football sports would need to find people and resources to run their championships from somewhere else.
Even if you created a position with real centralized power — let’s say a czar, since people like to use that word — you’d still run into issues. People like the idea of a czar until the czar makes a decision they disagree with. Then they’ll argue they miss the old system where so many constituencies had a say in decision-making, even if it was slower and more convoluted.
Plus, let’s be real: In order to centralize power like the pro leagues do, Power 5 commissioners would need to be willing to give up some of their individual power to allow someone else more, and it’s hard to imagine any of them doing that in the current climate. They won’t want to give up the ability to make decisions in the best interest of their individual membership. Can you imagine the 10 FBS commissioners granting one person the power to unilaterally decide what an expanded Playoff would look like and how it would work without their direct input? Me neither. That’s a secondary issue to your original question, but it’s part of it as well. Everyone wants to be in The Room Where It Happens.
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Plus, people like having someone else to blame for problems. That’s one of the services the NCAA provides for its members, too.
Best city in your opinion for a pre-New Year’s non-playoff bowl? (regardless of matchup)
Raymond H.
The only correct answer to this question is Nassau, Bahamas. Stateside, it’s either San Diego or New Orleans. Both have decent weather compared to most of the country this time of year, and they are two of my favorite cities to visit. San Diego is just awesome with so much to do outdoors (shoutout to Balboa Park and Mission Beach-Pacific Beach). New Orleans has amazing bars and dining experiences outside of Bourbon Street. Bacchanal is one of my all-time favorite spots.
(Photo: Todd Kirkland / Getty Images)
