FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Oregon coach Dan Lanning reiterated his desire to see the college football season end Jan. 1 every year, not only to fix the sport’s calendar but also to decrease the long layoff between games for playoff teams with a bye.
During the final news conference Wednesday before the College Football Playoff Quarterfinal at the Capital One Orange Bowl, Lanning was asked about what changes could be made to alleviate issues that have affected multiple CFP teams, including coordinators taking head coaching jobs and the transfer portal opening Jan. 2.
“Every playoff game should be played every single weekend until you finish the season,” Lanning said. “Even if it means we start Week 0 or you eliminate a bye, the season ends Jan. 1, and then the portal opens, then coaches that have to move on to their next opportunities get to move to their next opportunities.”
Oregon offensive coordinator Will Stein (Kentucky) and defensive coordinator Tosh Lupoi (California) are juggling their responsibilities for the Ducks and their new schools. So is Ohio State offensive coordinator/wide receivers coach Brian Hartline, the new coach at USF.
“Our national championship game this year is Jan. 19, and that’s really hard to envision as a coach that’s going out and trying to join a new program and start a staff,” Lanning said. “It’s hard for players to understand what continuity looks like and where they’re going to be at and to manage that with visits, the portal, everything else that exists. The clear way to do that is to bump the season up and make sure these playoff games happen a lot faster.”
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Lanning has said multiple times that playing in the first round last week against James Madison helped his team stay in rhythm, though after the win he lamented that Oregon didn’t meet “a standard of performance” during the Ducks’ 51-34 victory.
Last season, Oregon was the No. 1 seed in the CFP and had a longer layoff, losing in the quarterfinals 41-21 to Ohio State. All four teams that had a first-round bye last season lost in the quarterfinals.
Texas Tech coach Joey McGuire said he talked to multiple coaches with first-round byes last year, including Arizona State’s Kenny Dillingham, to get advice on avoiding a similar fate. McGuire said that the extra time off benefited his team from a health perspective — particularly for quarterback Behren Morton — and that they did more work with their first-team offense and defense.
“We added periods or there’d be sudden changes in practice,” McGuire said. “So Howard Sampson was blocking David Bailey or trying to block him from the standpoint [of] just the speed of the game. So we tried to do stuff like that to try to stay in rhythm.”
Some of those questions will be alleviated if the CFP shifts to weekends in December, the way Lanning wants.
“I’ve got a ton of respect for the NFL, but we’re a prep league for the NFL,” Lanning said. “We do a lot of favors for the NFL. We’re the minor league in a lot of ways, but there’s no money paid from the NFL to take care of college football.
“We’ve given up some of our days to the NFL. We said, ‘Oh, you guys get to have this day, you get to have this day, you get to have this day.’ Saturday should be sacred for college football, and every Saturday through the month of December should belong to college football.”
