James Franklin pushes to eliminate conference title games, advocates for Nick Saban to be college football commissioner

James Franklin has some ideas on how to fix college football. Speaking on Sunday ahead of the Nittany Lions’ Fiesta Bowl appearance, the Penn State football coach offered several proposals for the betterment of the sport, from eliminating conference championship games to appointing former Alabama head coach Nick Saban as college football commissioner.

Addressing the recent departure of backup quarterback Beau Pribula to the transfer portal, Franklin said it’s past time to keep talking about the current problems with the college football calendar. It’s time to figure out a path forward.

“It’s a challenge that has been a challenge for a number of years,” Franklin said. “It’s obviously become even more challenging with some of the things with the calendar and with the transfer portal, the windows, and then on top of that, NIL.

“It is a challenge, and I think it’s one of those things that we can’t just keep talking about, that this is a challenge and a problem in college football. We have to come up with some solutions.

“We’ve been talking about this for a while. A lot of different people have brought it up. I’m one of the people that feel very, very strongly that we need a commissioner of college football. We need somebody that’s waking up every single morning and going to bed every single night thinking about what’s in the best interest of college football.

“Right now, I think that’s being done by the commissioners, but whenever you have people that are making decisions and running college football, they’re going to be biased towards what’s best to their conference. That’s not in the best interest of college football and the student-athletes.”

James Franklin offers solutions for college football

For James Franklin, several steps could be taken to help strengthen college football. The unifying thread through all Franklin’s recommendations is for the sport to speak with one voice, a role he thinks legendary Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban can fill.

“I’m a big proponent for that, but we just can’t keep talking about this being a problem. We’ve got to come up with some solutions,” he continued. “What are possibly some of those solutions? For me, and again, I know whenever a coach says this, people don’t want to hear it from coaches, but I think if every decision we make is based on money, then we’re headed in the wrong direction. We should be doing what’s best for college football and the student-athletes.

“To me, getting rid of the conference championship games would help with that. Because right now, not everybody is playing a conference championship game anyway. When you have a committee sitting in a room trying to compare apples to apples or oranges to oranges, it’s hard to do that when not everybody is playing under the same model. Get rid of the conference championship game. That will shorten the season and help with the window a little bit.

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“The other thing that I think is very, very important is that everybody is playing the same number of conference games, whether that’s eight, nine, whatever the number is. Everybody is playing the same. Again, the committee can compare apples to apples. Then I think let’s start a week earlier.

“If you can take some of the stress off of the academic calendar – again, God forbid we talk about academics, right? That used to be every conversation started with academics, and that’s becoming less and less. Maybe I’m old-school and maybe a traditionalist, but I still believe in the model.

“There’s some recommendations. Rather than just saying this is a problem, I thought I would throw out a few recommendations. But I think one of the most important things that we can do is let’s get a commissioner of college football that is waking up every single morning and going to bed every single night, making decisions that’s in the best interest of college football.

“I think Nick Saban would be the obvious choice. I think if we made that decision Nick – will probably call – me tonight and say: ‘Don’t do this.’ But I think he’s the obvious choice, right? I think there’s some other really good candidates out there.

“But that would be a very, very important step moving forward to come up with some solutions and do what’s best for our sport.”

While Franklin was extremely vocal about what he thinks should happen off the field, on the field, his Nittany Lions are just two wins away from a National Championship appearance. Penn State football will face Boise State in the College Football Playoff Quarterfinal at the Fiesta Bowl on New Year’s Eve.

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