College football is the greatest sport in the world. It’s also the dumbest.
Not because of what happens between the lines, but what happens outside of them.
Never has that been more apparent than in the Lane Kiffin to LSU fiasco. While nothing is official, it was reported by ESPN’s Mark Schlabach and Pete Thamel on Sunday morning that Kiffin is expected to end up at LSU.
Since then, there have been reports about how Kiffin wanted to stay on and coach his Ole Miss team in the College Football Playoff and that he made threats regarding what he’ll do if he is not permitted to finish the season.
The latest is that Kiffin told his assistants that if they want to join him at LSU, they have to be on a plane on Sunday (Chris Low of On3).
A weird situation that college football needs to avoid
It’s a wild situation, but Kiffin isn’t the only head coach leaving a team on the verge of the College Football Playoff. Florida is expected to hire Tulane coach Jon Sumrall.
Sumrall’s team is playing the American Conference championship game next week. If Tulane wins, it should be in the playoff, too.
So, potentially two College Football Playoff teams won’t have their head coach for their pursuit of a national championship. Maybe that will finally spur the powers that be to make changes to the College Football calendar.
The reason all these head coaching moves must be made right now is that Early National Signing Day is this week, followed by the transfer portal during the first week of January.
No one feels like they can wait that long to have a head coach in place, with all of the stuff that happens behind the scenes.
What would fix all of this is actually having the offseason after the season is over in January. There should be a high school signing day and transfer window during that timeframe.
It’s before spring ball. It doesn’t align with college semesters, but there has to be a way to figure it out. Or the college football season could end on Jan. 1, with everything else to follow.
Regardless, there has to be a better way than potentially 16.6 percent of the teams in the College Football Playoff not having the head coach who got them to the playoff.
That’s insanity, and it would never happen in another sport.
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