Schedule Changes Coming to CFB? Portal Window & Week 1 Set to Shift? | GSMC College Football Podcast

all righty welcome back everyone we just talked about the craziness going on over at Michigan and frankly I don't think it's going to be quite as crazy as people want I don't think that hammer excuse me I don't think that hammer is going to come down on Michigan the way that everyone wants it to so that'll definitely be something very interesting to watch but at the end of the day let's move forward to some of the schedule changes that could be coming to college football here pretty soon and it's going to be really interesting to watch a lot of these be put in effect and it's going to be awesome to see the effect of them because a lot of them I don't necessarily love I'll be totally honest with you but let's jump into this and one of the biggest things that has unfolded over the last little bit is as we know with the college football playoff unfolding during the month of December there's a little bit of overlap between the uh NCA and the NFL when it comes to the college football playoff and there's been some conversations behind closed doors to try to kind of fix that problem to try to maybe even move the season up a little bit to uh kind of combat the NFL just a little bit so this is a very interesting conversation when you talk about week zero it's always that week where you get a little bit but not the whole thing and then week one we really jump in and obviously that's what we're looking forward to this uh upcoming week but what if it move forward a week what if week zero ended up was or what if week one was week zero what if everything was just pushed back just a little bit and conference championships happened in not on uh Thanksgiving weekend was Conference Championship weekend not you know rivalry weekend and everything was just shifted back just a little bit it would make it easier to with the battle with the NFL on that Saturday I believe it's the first uh the first round matchup there's a couple on Saturday that will combat with some NFL games that day as well so it's an interesting conversation and it's one of those things that definitely is going to be a big topic as we go forward because there are a lot of people making decisions that maybe shouldn't be in that position but at the end of the day let's talk about why this is something that they just need to fight against plain and simple and this something that frankly can't happen to college football and it's as simple as we've been sitting back for so long and uh letting the NFL just kind of take up all the real estate they want and Saturdays in December you're more than welcome to have them and all of that stuff we've just been kind of handing that to them it's time at some point to fight back and I understand that a lot of people are going to watch that NFL game I understand that there going to be people that are turned away from the college football playoff to watch the Raiders play the Chiefs for what whatever reason but at the end of the day that is going to happen there's no doubt about that the NFL is one of the most powerful entities in the entire country especially in the World of Sports and they're going to dominate you in terms of uh viewership there's no doubt about that the thing is that doesn't necessarily matter that's not the end all Beall and what makes a su successful product and what makes a healthy sport so at the end of the day I could care less if there's a little bit less viewership on that certain Saturday because the NFL is playing it's it's a Saturday and it's meant to be on that Saturday and Saturdays are the lifeblood of the sport the idea that we would even think about moving off of it for the NFL is outright insane to me and all this obviously plays into TV networks and they will be a huge part of this conversation whether it's ESPN or it's fox or it's CBS with the NFL but at the end of the day this needs to be uh be more than need to be more need to be about more excuse me it needs to be about more than money it needs to be about the sport as a whole and the sport plain and simple needs to stay around this time of year it doesn't need to move forward it doesn't need to be moved around doesn't need to be shifted so the NFL can get their own little day their own Saturday in December they don't need Saturday they have Sunday they have it all year and they dominate them every single uh Saturday so at the end of the day when we talk about going forward in all of this and CBS and ESPN and the NFL and college football all of them are going to be having conversations around this and trying to figure out what the best way forward is and you obviously don't want the NFL and the college football playoff to overlap in a ton of different ways if it's one weekend and if you know that you lose a little bit of viewership on that certain Saturday I don't see what the problem is I I really don't and I understand you know week zero is something that a lot of people are into or not into and I'm kind of on the fence as well and I think having more games on that weekend would be more than fine it doesn't mean you have to change it for the NFL it doesn't mean you have to move around your entire scheduling so the NFL can get the viewers that frankly they're going to get anyway so overall I understand it's all about viewership I understand it's all about money I understand it's all about what the revenue dollars say but at the end of the day we have to at certain point put our foot down and say no the tradition of the sport is more important than your dollars the tradition of Saturday is more important than whatever the NFL has to bring so this is one of those things that is alltime frustrating for me there's always going to be a battle between the NFL and college football and frankly there likely shouldn't be because college football has been just handing the NFL a feeder league for these number of years so the NFL returning the favor a little bit doesn't sound like the craziest thing in the world to me but at the end of the day at a certain point you need to take them on at a certain point you need to say we're not going to bend a knee because you're more powerful because you'll get better viewership because you have more money we're going to do our thing we're going to stay on these Saturdays and maybe we'll lose a little viewership maybe we'll you know drop a little bit and where we want to be in the viewership rankings but at the end of the day we're going to have what makes this sport special which is that Saturday throughout the year that we can turn on the TV find college football and lock in and that's the most important thing for this sport so it is a David vers Goliath type story college football against NFL it's not even the same world that they live in when it comes to TV viewership but at the end of the day you don't have to kill Goliath you don't have to tear them to pieces you don't have to dominate them on that Saturday you just got to cut their foot off if you can find a way to pull enough people away from that NFL game into the college football playoff game where the NFL rethinks that Saturday You've Won it's not about you know tearing apart the NFL it's not about outright winning this battle it's about just winning enough to keep the NFL off that Saturday and frankly I don't think that would be the craziest uh ask for the college football playoff I don't think it would be the craziest thing to say that the NFL is going to look at these numbers at the end of the year and say that Saturday in December is not giving us what we want it to anymore because of the college football playoffs so let's just go ahead and just drop that Saturday we'll move everything to Sunday and we'll start a week later on those Saturday games that's not a crazy ask and it's something that you don't necessarily need to ask the NFL to do it you just got to show them by us not watching that game and frankly that's going to be a little bit tough for me to do CU I love just watching any football that's in front of me but at the end of the day maybe on that Saturday I'll make that sacrifice I'll say I got to lock into the college football playoff because we need all of the help that we can get to possibly knock the NFL off that day so it's one of those conversations that I understand a lot of this stuff is a lot more convoluted and over my head than I uh lead on for sure I fully understand that but at the end of the day Saturdays are college footballs period end of story and the idea that we would go off a Saturday in the fall uh for the NFL is just outright insane I don't care what the money or the viewership around it is so just you know take a bite out of the NFL's viewership don't necessarily bury them but take a little bite out of it and see where you stand at the end of the year and then if you need to move forward in a different direction maybe you do that but at the end of the day you should do everything exhaust every single possible uh path you possibly can before you cut that Saturday period end of story if you cut that Saturday and move it to a Thursday night game on college campuses around the country there are going to be fans that are going to be just so mad and those atmospheres are just going to be a little bit more dead than they should be so it's going to be an interesting thing to watch I hope the uh NCAA and college football in general just digs their heels in a little bit here more than they have in the past against the NFL but we'll see what happens and hopefully this is one that we do not see the other one that I want to talk about is a little bit of a change to the transfer portal uh the NCAA has been thinking about possibly changing the transfer portal just a little bit uh going forward and we talked about this I believe a little bit ago when we talked about possibly moving it it's 45 days right now where you have a 30-day window in the winter right after the uh season finishes and then you have 15 days in the spring and that's kind of the way that it's worked for the last couple of years they're thinking about cutting it down to a 30-day window one single window just to make it easier on all the coaches make it a little bit easier on the players but the first idea for when they would do this was during the uh winter month they were going to keep that winter uh month portal and then just do away with the spring one and first off I was fully in favor when I first heard it I thought that made total sense to me I thought it would make the job easier for coaches I thought it would make a lot of things easier and then I heard Joel clatt and uh Josh Pate talk about this on Joel clatt show yesterday and they were talking about the fact that the portal window should be in the spring without a doubt because at the end of the day the portal is for the players and the players will know exactly where they stand after the spring uh ends not before so I think that's kind of where a lot of this has shifted for me you know I used to think we could have it in December and itd be more than fine I think we might be able to move it to the end of spring and it be better for the players it might be even better for the coaches because you don't have to deal with it during all the bull games and during all the craziness around December and early January and also you have an ability as a player to make a clear and concise decision now it is going to make life a little bit easier for some of the coaches that are trying to put together a roster you know if you have a big time hole a defensive line you have to wait till the end of spring to fill it that is going to be an issue there's no doubt about that and it's going to make for some tough coaching jobs over the next little bit but at the end of the day I think when you put it in the middle of the bowl games when you put it in the middle of the Season essentially you're taking away from everything that's going on around it you know last year I remember very vividly we were talking about all the transfer portal news and everyone moving all over the place we weren't talking about the bull games that were going on during that time and it made me very very frustrated so if you can take a little bit out of the craziness of December if you can just take a piece of that out of December and totally do away with it I am more than on board for that so a month starting early no early April let's say and it goes for one month and you can join and you can transfer to a school and be able to play immediately I'm all for that I think it makes sense I think it's something that puts these schools in a better position going forward to focus on a Bull game or to focus on possibly even asking some guys to leave during that winter uh uh period during which some teams aren't playing some teams are but at the end of the day putting it in April not only makes December less crowded it makes everyone on the same exact playing field you know there's not teams that are playing games and then teams that have their season over and can go out and recruit these guys all day there aren't these you know huge differences in resources that they can put towards it because some people have bigger fish to fry in December so overall I think this one's relatively easy I think when you look at this one in a vacuum it's relatively easy to just say put a month in April uh start April 9th I believe is when the spring one starts now and end on May 9th and let these kids make their decision you know let them know where they stand on the depth chart before that day they can make their decision move forward go onto a new school and yes it will make for a little bit interesting roster construction as we go through the summer months into fall camp but but it will also make the craziness that is the transfer portal a little bit more digestible for the fans definitely a little bit easier for the coaches and just more clarity for the players overall so I think it makes a lot of sense and also we would avoid the Caden Proctor situations of the world where you transfer in Winter and transfer right back in spring so we would have an ability for a lot of these guys to see out some new coaches and to see out some new systems before they make that full decision so it'll be interesting to watch that one I think the transfer portal one is a little bit more of a layup than the NFL versus college football battle but at the end of the day both are relatively layups to me if I'm being honest if I'm the college football uh or college football playoff Commissioners and I'm I'm watching all this unfold I'm saying we're sitting still you know we'll take enough of a bite out of the NFL to where they'll rethink what they're doing and we'll be able to be sitting there at the end of the day feeling pretty good about our decision so it'll be really interesting to watch this unfold and I think we're going to see some more schedule changes here pretty soon over the in the college football world but let's take our third break here and when we come back we're going to do a little bit of a recruiting update as we get into week one there's going to be a lot of stuff to talk about so we'll do uh we'll put recruiting a little bit on the back burner but wanted to make sure we get you uh one last big time update before we do that so stick with us and we'll be right back with that