It’s two days from the start of the first ever quarterfinal round of the College Football Playoff, and as has become the norm in the sport, big and bold reform is being floated.
This time, the one pushing the reform is Penn State head coach James Franklin. Speaking at a press conference prior to his team’s Fiesta Bowl meeting with Boise State on Tuesday, Franklin proposed some wholesale changes to how college football operates, including the implementation of a commissioner. And the Nittany Lions’ head coach had one name in mind to fill that role: Nick Saban.
At Fiesta Bowl media day, I asked James Franklin about the State of Things in the sport. He had a long answer that included nominating Nick Saban to be commissioner of college football.
— Pat Forde (@ByPatForde) December 29, 2024
Three recommendations that James Franklin would like to see with a potential commissioner of college football (He also mentions after the video that Nick Saban would be his choice)
Eliminate Conference Championships
Start the season a week earlier
Have every conference play the… pic.twitter.com/gQWMDbEID3— Jacob Seliga (@jacob_seliga) December 29, 2024
Saban, the seven-time national championship winning coach, has carved out a prominent media career in his post-coaching days. The 73-year old is a permanent member of ESPN’s College GameDay and appears regularly on The Pat McAfee Show.
Presumably, Saban entered media as a less stressful alternative to coaching. It’s hard to imagine he’d want to pass up his cushy media gigs to pave the way for a job that has never existed before. Any future “commissioner” of college football would have their work cut out for them with the sport, in many ways, still in the Wild West of a new era of NIL, conference realignment, etc.
Franklin’s probably right that Saban would be a great choice for the hypothetical job — it just seems incredibly unlikely he’d be up for it.
The Penn State head coach did make a few other more reasonable propositions during his press conference. One, he’d like to eliminate conference championship games so the sport can have some more space in its calendar and teams can be evaluated on an even playing field. To that end, he also suggested all conferences should play the same number of conference games rather than some playing eight while others play nine. Franklin would also like to see the season start one week earlier to relieve some stress on players’ academic calendar.
No doubt, those suggestions seem more or less common sense. Eliminating conference championship games would certainly be met with some push back, but with conferences getting so big, and spots in the championship game often being decided by convoluted tiebreakers, it doesn’t seem crazy to do away with them entirely.
There are undoubtedly other coaches out there with similar feelings, but maybe there needs to be a unifying voice — like a commissioner — that can push for such changes. Realistically, that person should probably be young, bold, and ambitious rather than a figure like Saban who is in the twilight of his career.
[X/@ByPatForde, @jacob_seliga]
