A college football commissioner should force Notre Dame into conference, then fire some folks

Posted by author February 20, 2025 Football

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A great annual offseason debate hinges on whether college football would benefit from an overarching commissioner – and whether Nick Saban would be the prime choice for the job, if ever created.

We agree that a college football commissioner could enact some meaningful, widely popular changes within the sport, but we’re not ready to cede this responsibility to Saban, who would foremost look out for coaches. In fact, we’re ready to accept the job ourselves.

On this edition of “SEC Football Unfiltered,” a podcast from the USA TODAY Network, hosts Blake Toppmeyer and John Adams share the role of college football commissioner, enacting sweeping change that includes forcing Notre Dame into a conference, expanding the College Football Playoff but stripping away automatic bids and restoring some old rivalries.

Let’s get to their ideas:

Expanded playoff, but no automatic bids

We’re ditching first-round byes, and we’re also ditching automatic bids. Certainly, we want none of this nonsense being circulated within the Big Ten and SEC about a conference starting the season with four playoff bids. Nope, you’ve gotta earn your way in with your performance. We’ve settled on a 16-team bracket, filled entirely with at-large bids. Build the résumé. Earn the bid. Survive the four-round bracket.

Notre Dame must join a conference

If the Irish want to be considered for our 16-team playoff, here’s the rule: Join a conference. Those in a conference get considered for our playoff. Those not in a conference don’t.

Five years to play five seasons

No more redshirt seasons. No more eighth-year seniors. Athletes, you get five years to play five seasons. Enjoy.

Goodbye, spring practice. Hello, OTAs

Spring practice is outdated. With the season extending longer because of the expanded playoff, we don’t believe the spring practice model allows athletes sufficient time to recover after the season. Winter and spring strength and conditioning can continue, but no traditional practices in the spring. Instead, we favor the NFL-style offseason training activities in the summer, before preseason camp. To make up for the nixing of spring games, we’re opening some snippets of preseason camp to the public. Deal with it, paranoid coaches. The NFL invites fans behind the curtain in the preseason. You can, too.

12 teams in a conference. Maximum.

We know this pains you to hear it, but we’re dumping the lunacy Washington and Rutgers being in the same conference, and putting Washington and Washington State back together. And, we’re just getting started. Out with the coast-to-coast conferences. We’re reinstalling smaller conferences, with 12 teams max, that will place a premium on rivalries.

Eliminate conference commissioners

Conference commissioners are the current college sports czars. Now that we’re the college football commissioner, though, don’t need conference commissioners. Sure, we might need some deputies to help oversee other sports and take some work off our plate, but the best path toward a unified college football includes reducing the power of conference commissioners. Better yet, we’re eliminating conference commissioners in favor of “conference clerks.” Greg Sankey and Tony Petitti are free to apply for these clerical positions.

Where to listen to SEC Football Unfiltered

Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s national college football columnist. John Adams is the senior sports columnist for the Knoxville News Sentinel. Subscribe to the SEC Football Unfiltered podcast, and check out the SEC Unfiltered newsletter, delivered straight to your inbox.