Dan Patrick pitches college football preseason to ‘level the playing field’

After an underwhelming Week 2 college football slate, Dan Patrick is ready for another big shakeup in the sport.

Patrick’s solution: a college football preseason.

The longtime NBC Sports host believes a preseason would keep college football’s financial system — which props up smaller programs with payments from bigger programs — intact while creating a more level playing field in the College Football Playoff era and giving fans a better product in September.

“Can we have preseason games in college football?” Patrick questioned Monday on The Dan Patrick Show.

“Where they can still get a paycheck, you’re going to come out and see Ohio State play, or you’re going to go to Ohio State and play and you get a check. You can benefit them and you get a preseason, but we don’t have these games during the regular season. Is that asking too much? That these two cupcakes that we play, can those be our preseason games? We can make some money for them and we can still have quality opponents.”

These so-called “guarantee games” are a fixture in the college football schedule. Big-time teams pay small schools to play them (and almost always lose) so that these major programs can notch an easy win while still bringing in a heap of gameday revenue.

In the College Football Playoff era, in which the committee must select more teams who all have similar resumes, these games can feel like even more of a waste. Especially as conference play gets tougher and the CFP committee proclaims that it is valuing strength of schedule more each year.

And as Patrick noted, the roster and coaching turnover in today’s professionalized college football environment makes these games, which are often scheduled many years out, even harder to schedule. Patrick’s cast suggested a “master scheduler” that would only book games between Power 4 programs and a handful of top FCS schools. Other ideas could include more conference games or CFP rules that require a certain number of games against top opponents to make the postseason.

“Until you level the playing field of strength of schedule or who you’re playing, quality opponents, you’re going to have McNeese State and Samford and Grambling,” Patrick lamented. “And I know it’s important for them to play in these games, but I think it’s more important with what we’re trying to do with college football.”

A preseason would ensure payments to mid-major programs continue while placing a premium on the regular season.