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Oregon coach Dan Lanning is advocating for a reform of the current college football schedule.
Due to the current structure of the college football playoffs, the national championship game doesn’t take place until January 19th, which causes scheduling issues for college football athletes and coaches.
During a press conference before the College Football Playoff Quarterfinal at the Capital One Orange Bowl, Lanning spoke out about the issues with the current college football schedule.
“Our national championship game this year is Jan. 19, and that’s really hard to envision as a coach that’s going out and trying to join a new program and start a staff,” Lanning said. “It’s hard for players to understand what continuity looks like and where they’re going to be at and to manage that with visits, the portal, everything else that exists. The clear way to do that is to bump the season up and make sure these playoff games happen a lot faster.”
Lanning wants more college football playoff games played in December, rather than giving away those Saturday slots to the NFL.
“We’ve got a ton of respect for the NFL. We are a prep league for the NFL… We do a lot of favors for the NFL,” Lanning said. “But there’s no money paid from the NFL to take care of college football.
“There’s clearly a better way… Every playoff game should be played every single weekend until you finish the season… The season ends January 1st… We’ve given up some of our days to the NFL… Saturdays should be sacred for college football. Every Saturday through the month of December should belong to CFB in my opinion.”
Lanning isn’t the only coach to complain about the schedule.
Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire suggests the college football season should start a bit earlier.
“In my opinion, we all should have played on August 23rd,” McGuire said. “So instead of Week 0, we play. That’s Week 1. That would mean with the byes and everything, the conference championships would have been played over Thanksgiving.”
We’ll have to wait and see if the NCAA ever addresses complaints of the current college football playoff schedule, or if it’ll remain the same for the foreseeable future.