Dan Lanning calls for college football season to end Jan. 1, avoid NFL conflicts
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Thursday afternoon, as is tradition on New Year’s Day, three high-profile bowl games are on the schedule. Of course, they’re all part of the College Football Playoff under the 12-team format, serving as quarterfinal games in the bracket.
Oregon played in the first of those games, taking on Texas Tech in the Orange Bowl. But during his press conference ahead of the matchup, Ducks coach Dan Lanning called for a change to the calendar to not only avoid long layoffs, but also NFL conflicts.
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Lanning argued the college football season should end Jan. 1 rather than Jan. 19, which is when this year’s national championship is scheduled. From there, it would allow the transfer portal window to open after the year and coaches to be in place at new jobs in time, if they leave.
“Ultimately, in my mind, the vision for this should be every playoff game should be played every single weekend until you finish the season,” Lanning said Wednesday. “Ideally, the season – even if it means we start Week 0 or you eliminate a bye – the season ends Jan. 1. This should be the last game. This should be the championship game. Then, the portal opens, and then coaches that have to move on to their next opportunities get the opportunity to move to their next opportunities.
“Certainly, there’s some conversation about when high school signing days should be. I think that could go either way because most of us now try to get guys in as mid-year players, and you want them to be able to join your program at semester, which is a challenge. But I think the first really clear indicator of a place that we can make this better is to wrap the season up.”
Oregon played in the first round of the College Football Playoff on Dec. 20. Texas Tech, however, played Thursday in its first game since the Big 12 Championship on Dec. 6 after securing a first-round bye. In fact, teams are now 0-6 after sitting out the first round during the first two 12-team CFPs.
Dan Lanning: ‘Saturdays should be sacred to college football’
There’s also a TV ratings implication of the current calendar. First-round College Football Playoff games compete directly with the NFL when the league starts playing Saturday games. According to the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, the NFL cannot play games on Friday nights or Saturdays through the second Saturday in December.
That conflict impacted viewership for this year’s first-round games. Ole Miss’ blowout win against Tulane averaged 6.2 million viewers in the late-afternoon window Oregon’s win over James Madison averaged 4.4 million viewers in primetime.
Those two games up against NFL games, which averaged 15.5 million and 21.3 million viewers, respectively. For comparison, Alabama’s victory at Oklahoma averaged 14.9 million viewers in the Friday slot, just ahead of Saturday’s opener between Miami and Texas A&M, at 14.8 million viewers without NFL competition.
Dan Lanning acknowledged the NFL and the relationship with college football, but made the case for Saturdays to be for the college game through December. Then, once his proposed season ends Jan. 1, the NFL would have the weekends.
“I’ve got a ton of respect for the NFL, but we’re a prep league for the NFL,” Lanning said. “We do a lot of favors for the NFL. We’re the minor league in a lot of ways. But there’s no money paid from the NFL to take care of college football. In that sense, we’ve given up some of our days to the NFL.
“We said, you guys get to have this day, you get to have this day, you get to have this day. Saturdays should be sacred for college football, and every Saturday through the month of December should belong to college football in my opinion.”
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