{"id":508347,"date":"2026-02-27T21:39:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T21:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/508347\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T21:39:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T21:39:08","slug":"the-10-best-ways-to-fix-college-football-chaos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/508347\/","title":{"rendered":"The 10 best ways to fix college football chaos"},"content":{"rendered":"

One thing I try to do in our Until Saturday newsletter<\/a>: Give you clips from Stewart Mandel\u2019s weekly mailbags. Some of you appreciate it so much that you then email me as if I am Stewart Mandel. Sorry to potentially disappoint you, but I am not.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0this week\u2019s mailbag<\/a>, however, Stew wrote one section that I liked so much, it\u2019s going to be most of today\u2019s newsletter. Reader Dan G. asked him for \u201cTen Commandments to make the game better for everybody,\u201d so let\u2019s go through all 10 of them. I\u2019ll chime in after each of Stew\u2019s ideas, just to make it look like I did some work around here.<\/p>\n

1. \u201cThou shall have a 12-team Playoff for at least the next decade.\u00a0And the event shall be moved up by a week to allow the season to end on or around Jan. 8, as it did when there were four Playoff teams.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guys in suits have fiddled with the postseason format\u00a0every few years since 1992<\/a>. They need their hands slapped. A Jan. 8ish title game would be a huge improvement, though I\u2019m enough of a curmudgeon to prefer Jan. 1 natties at the Rose Bowl every year forever.<\/p>\n

2. \u201cQuarterfinals shall be played at campuses.\u00a0The semifinals shall be at two New Year\u2019s Day bowl games, one of which shall annually be the Rose Bowl. And Army-Navy shall be moved to the early Jan. 1 window leading into them.\u201d<\/p>\n

I asked Stew for more about this genius Army-Navy idea. What if they\u2019re in the Playoff?<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udcac \u201cObviously, those schools aren\u2019t going to sacrifice CFP access, though if we\u2019re being honest, they\u2019re never going to make the semifinals. And it\u2019s such an enormous exposure opportunity. Army-Navy already gets a big TV audience (7.8 million viewers last year), but I bet they could double it by playing on Jan. 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut hey, on the off, off chance one of them advances in the CFP, why couldn\u2019t we just reserve a backup date for their rivalry a few weeks later? None of their players are going into draft-prep mode. Play it right before the Super Bowl.\u201d<\/p>\n

Or, if Army or Navy wins a Playoff game, tag Air Force into the bracket so Army-Navy can remain the focus. Or Stew\u2019s even better idea: Give that spot to the Pop-Tarts Bowl winner.<\/p>\n

3. \u201cAll West Coast power-conference schools shall return to the Pac-12 immediately\u00a0(or form a new league with a different name), restoring the sport to five power conferences. And the other leagues shall be adjusted for geographic sensibility. Maryland to the ACC, SMU to the Big 12, etc.\u201d<\/p>\n

4. \u201cThou shall have centralized non-conference scheduling.\u00a0Following the national championship game, the czar will assign each P5 team one P5 opponent with a similar record, one high-level G5 opponent and one low-level G5 or FCS opponent. All shall be played at home stadiums, not neutral sites.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019d just want some longer-term scheduling for G5 and FCS teams, who can tell recruits they\u2019ll get to play in the Big House or what have you.
\nStew also said to me: \u201cWhat might be cool is to do some flex scheduling for the G5 vs. G5 games. Everybody leaves one non-conference game open in, say, early November, and we pair up the first-place team in the Sun Belt vs. the first-place team in the Mountain West, etc. A Playoff for the G5 Playoff spot.\u201d<\/p>\n

5. \u201cThere shall be no limits on how much players can earn from outside NIL opportunities, and no need to send anything through NIL Go (the platform for athletes to report third-party NIL deals). In return,\u00a0players shall only be allowed to transfer and play immediately once\u00a0in their careers.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019d always err on the side of player freedom and compensation, and this seems fair to me.<\/p>\n

6. \u201cPlayers shall have five years to play five full seasons.\u00a0No redshirts, no waivers. Maximum age: 23. Exceptions shall be made only for those who went on a religious mission or performed military service after high school.\u201d<\/p>\n

An age limit feels like what they\u2019ll have to do at some point, though the trick will be\u00a0getting schools to avoid sneaking around that rule<\/a>\u00a0eight seconds later, as they\u2019ve always done whenever they try to govern themselves. (Meanwhile, lawyers will explore visionary definitions of \u201creligious mission.\u201d)<\/p>\n

7. \u201cCoaches shall be required to remain with their teams through the duration of their season, however long it lasts. Contacting a coach about a job during the season shall be treated the same as tampering with an athlete.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stew, we\u2019ll still be able to fire coaches midseason, right? Please don\u2019t take that away.<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udcac \u201cSure, why not? Because sometimes firing the coach and going with an interim actually salvages a team\u2019s season. Brent Key is the coach of Georgia Tech today because four games into 2022, the Jackets promoted him and nearly made a bowl game.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe dream scenario would be the NFL model, where they not only wait until after the season but send out news releases announcing which candidates they\u2019re interviewing. Not as feasible, though, when SEC rivals are trying to hire away each other\u2019s coaches.\u201d<\/p>\n

8. \u201cAny P5 game airing exclusively on a streaming service (such as Peacock) shall be simulcast on an over-the-air network\u00a0in the two schools\u2019 home states. Also, a school\u2019s road game may not kick off later than 9 p.m. back home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zero objections from anyone but Pete Peacock, founder of Peacock.<\/p>\n

9. \u201cAll conferences shall publish an officiating report within two hours\u00a0of a game ending with explanations for the three most controversial calls. And all conferences shall air replay deliberations live during broadcasts, like the ACC did for certain games last season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Take or leave this one, though it\u2019s probably prudent. I like ref mess, as long as they do something theatrical along the way.<\/p>\n

10. \u201cFinally, the committee shall not conduct another Tuesday night ranking show.\u00a0For eternity.\u201d<\/p>\n

And all God\u2019s people said, \u201cAmen.\u201d<\/p>\n

I bet you now wanna share the item you\u2019d add to that list of ways to fix college football. Email me at untilsaturday@theathletic.com, and maybe I\u2019ll run a few of the best, but keep \u2019em cheerful. No grumpy grumps allowed. It\u2019s because we love this sport that we find it worth improving.<\/p>\n

Sign up here<\/a> to receive Until Saturday directly in your inbox. And check out The Athletic\u2019s other newsletters<\/a>, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One thing I try to do in our Until Saturday newsletter: Give you clips from Stewart Mandel\u2019s weekly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,594,596,85],"class_list":["post-508347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-college-football","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}