Fixing the College Football Calendar

Every year we watch the insanity that is December in College Football. Coaches are simultaneously:

• Completing seasons with Conference Championship Games

• Sprinting to the end and hosting recruiting last minute visits for the early signing day

• Finding new jobs and/or hiring assistants

• Getting fired and/or firing assistants.

• Meeting with players and managing the roster- encouraging players that are not fits to go into the transfer portal.

• Scouting the transfer portal and recruiting the players they want

• Preparing the team for bowl games/ playoff games

Players on even playoff teams that are backups and wanting a starting role are put into the position of entering the transfer portal while their team prepares for the playoff game. This is crazy.

Assistant coaches with playoff teams have to weigh their personal career opportunities with coaching their team or leaving them. This is crazy.

It is too much. No other American sport does free agency (Transfer Portal) while holding playoffs. No other American sport does a draft (NSD) while holding playoffs.

Today, we are going to propose a radical fix to the college football calendar.

Let me start with two questions.

What if there were no Spring Practices?

What if there were no January transfers?

A very serious conversation needs to take place with coaches about spring practice. A lot of what is wrong with the calendar right now has to do with spring practice. What if the spring practice time was moved to June minicamps or May and June camps like the NFL? Moving the early practice window after the spring semester changes everything for the college football calendar.

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The spring would be dedicated strength and conditioning and for transfer players looking for other opportunities and for high school players deciding their college futures. Let's go through a new calendar to illustrate.

• January

  • Playoff

  • Recruiting

    • Final HS Seniors late NSD

    • HS Juniors early NSD

    • Portal Transfers

  • No Transfers

  • No HS Early Enrollees

• February

  • Late HS Senior NSD- Sign NLI and Contracts

  • Strength and conditioning

  • Recruiting

    • HS Juniors early NSD

    • Portal Transfers

• March

  • Strength and conditioning

  • Recruiting

    • HS Juniors early NSD

    • Portal Transfers

  • Transfer Portal Opens

• April

  • Strength and conditioning

  • Recruiting

    • HS Juniors early NSD

    • Portal Transfers

  • Transfer Portal Remains Opens

• May

  • Strength and conditioning

  • Recruiting

    • HS Juniors early NSD

    • Portal Transfers

  • Transfer Portal Remains Opens

  • School Year Ends

• June

  • Recruiting

    • HS Recent Juniors/ Now Seniors early NSD

    • Portal Transfers

  • HS Graduates move in Early-June

  • HS Graduates Minicamp Mid-June

  • Transfer Portal CLOSES Mid-June- Transfers sign contracts

  • Transfers move in Late June

  • Team Practices Start Late June (Replaces Spring Practice Window)

• July

  • Team Practices Through Early July (Replaces Spring Practice Window)

  • Recruiting

    • HS Recent Juniors/ Now Seniors early NSD

  • Late July Early NSD

    • For HS Recent Juniors/ Now Seniors

    • Sign NLI and Contracts

• August

  • Team "Fall" Practices Start Early to Mid-August

  • Recruiting

    • Focus on HS Seniors that did not sign in Early NSD

    • Retention of HS Seniors

    • Begin recruiting of HS Juniors

• September- December

  • Games

  • Team "Fall" Practices transition to season weekly practices

  • Recruiting

    • Focus on HS Seniors that did not sign in Early NSD

    • Retention of HS Seniors

    • Begin recruiting of HS Juniors

  • Contact with potential transfers in season will be a severe violation.

This is how I would propose to fix the college football calendar. It is just part of a greater revolution of the future of college athletics. More on that here.

Future of College Athletics

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