A JERSEY GUY: A Plan to Save Fall Football

If college football is going to be played this fall, it might be a truncated season.

The powers that be in college football--10 conference commissioners, CFP head Bill Hancock and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick--had a conference call with Vice President Mike Pence earlier this week.

The topic was college athletics, beginning with the upcoming 2020 college football season.

It was more informational than formative, with a growing consensus that a September start is a very, very long shot.

There has even been chatter coming from the Mayors of Los Angeles and New York that any return to sports with spectators in 2020 is not likely.

If there was one consensus opinion--no college football as long as schools remained closed.

There was also an agreement that coaches need 6 weeks to prepare for a season. 

Let's be optimistic and say that  schools resume their day to day business place by Labor Day in September, which would mean that it would be early October before the college football season could realistically begin.

How can you fit a regular season in an October-January time frame?

Here's how, but it requires some radical thinking for at least one year.

1.  Nine games (8 conference, 1 non conference), starting on the weekend of Oct 3 and continuing through the conference championship games the weekend of Dec. 5.

The loss of revenue from shrinking the regular season from 12 to 9 games would be offset by a ONE TIME ONLY (for now) 16 team playoff beginning on the weekend of Dec.  12.

The playoffs would consist of champions from 10 college football conferences and 6-at large choices.

The first two rounds 1 vs. 16, 8 vs. 9 and the quarterfinals would be played on campus sites at the campus site of the highest seed.

The winner on Dec. 19 would then move to CFP semifinal games in January with the championship game played in Miami on January 11th as scheduled.

This season there would be NO other bowl games because of the concern of large or small crowds in 3 dozen stadiums around the country.

The revenue loss from no bowl games would again be offset by television money created in a 16 game playoff system  which would be college football's   version of December Madness.

This would, of course, require lots of planning, starting yesterday. It would acquire schedule adjustments by everyone. 

But it would allow ALL the football FBS conferences to participate in a playoff system, generate interest in a bowl season which has drawn regional interest at best and be a one time solution to fix what has been broken by the Covid-19 pandemic.

''Nice idea,'' texted Hancock, with laughter (which could be felt on the screen), '"Great to hear from you. But not gonna happen.""

But in a year which presumably will see a Boston Marathon crowned in September and a Masters Champion crowned in November, when the idea of spring regular college football season being seriously considered, anything remains possible, including a fall season without any kind of events which have spectators in the stands.