Wednesday Proved Why the College Football Schedule Needed to Change
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Imagine being 10 years old again. You and your neighborhood friends find yourselves in a five-on-five backyard football game. One end zone is marked by the tree on the edge of the Smiths' yard, while the opposite end zone is marked by the bush in the Jones' garden.
First team to 11 wins, win by two!
The point of football then was to play the game. That's why everyone fell in love with the game as a young kid, that's why they played it in high school, and why they chose to sacrifice and play it in college in hopes that they can play in the NFL.
Somewhere along the way, that was completely lost in college football, and Saturday was the prime example of it.
The Ohio State Buckeyes are preparing for the biggest game in college football this weekend. It will be the first conference championship game between the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the country, which is likely a precursor to a high-leverage playoff game in a couple of weeks.
On Wednesday (typically a HUGE game plan day), Ohio State's matchup against Indiana wasn't even the fifth most important thing happening in Columbus.
As the early National Signing Day period started and the Buckeyes' commitments started rolling in, the news broke that Ohio State's offensive coordinator Brian Hartline was set to become the new head coach for the USF Bulls.
Moments after that was announced, it became public that the Buckeyes lost two of their top wide receiver commits and most importantly, Chris Henry Jr. hesitated to sign his letter of intent.
It was now panic time in Columbus as the Buckeyes tried to scramble to save their recruiting class and the future of the team.
Now, the head coach who should be focused on a game plan to beat the No. 2 team in the country was focused on his new recruits, trying to re-flip his old prospect, calling his NIL donors, fielding the flood of applicants for his offensive coordinator position and or the wide receivers coach, and trying to save the second coming of Jeremiah Smith from going to Oregon.
What a disaster.
All of this could be changed if the College Football schedule was changed.
In my opinion, it is a very simple solution. New Year's Day is the National Championship day. The game is played at 5:00 PM EST in the Rose Bowl every single year, and Jan 2nd marks the start of the new league year.
National Signing Day moves to the first Monday after the final game, and then new enrollees can enroll on campus right away.
Then, work backward from there.
If you need a full month for the College Football Playoff, then it kicks off on the first weekend of December. Conference Championship Weekend is thrown in the trash, and the last regular season game is the third weekend of November.
Cut the regular season down from 14 weeks to 13, play one or two out-of-conference games, and the rest within conference.
With that schedule, the regular season starts the last week of August, just the same as it did this year. That puts the Army vs. Navy game on Thanksgiving Saturday, Round 1 is the first weekend of December, Quarterfinals in the second weekend, Semifinals in the third round, and then a 10 day break for the teams to play in he National Championship.
With this schedule, coaches can't get poached, kids can get a fair chance in the playoffs, coaches can finish out the season, and then move on.
Its a fascinating question that has such a simple answer.
A very easy tweak to the schedule, and football is back to football. We are all imagining the day when we can view the sport just as we did in the backyard when the most important thing was the game, nothing else.
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