NCAA Football Oversight Committee expected to recommend potentially significant changes to college football calendar

For the second consecutive offseason, college football’s convoluted calendar could be in for another massive overhaul, according to Yahoo! Sports insider Ross Dellenger.

This season, everyone from coaches to fans have complained about the sport’s overly-congested calendar that includes the coaching carousel, the early signing period, the NCAA Transfer Portal’s two-week window and the College Football Playoff all happening within a span of about two months. In fact, it’s exactly nine weeks between Nov. 17, when Virginia Tech kicked off this year’s coaching carousel by hiring James Franklin, and Jan. 19, when the CFP National Championship Game will be played in Miami.

Ahead of last week’s College Football Playoff quarterfinals, former Alabama coach-turned-ESPN analyst Nick Sabanonce again called for widespread changes to the sports’ current calendar during last week’s ESPN College GameDay: “We need to change the calendar.” As it turns out, college football’s powers-that-be heard Saban’s call and plan to take action as soon as next week’s AFCA Convention.

Dellenger reported the NCAA Football Oversight Committee, led by Georgia athletic director Josh Brooks and Buffalo AD Mark Alnutt, is set to examine and address college football’s challenging calendar, with the expection significant changes could be recommended as soon as this upcoming offseason.

“We’re trying to take a step back and look at everything in totality so we’re not doing one-offs that have an impact on other parts of the calendar,” Brooks told Dellenger. “We’ve got to take a 30,000-foot view and see how everything could be better.”

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey proposes eliminating early signing period in December

Among those changes could be the elimination of the December early signing period, a suggestion SEC commissioner Greg Sankey pushed during last week’s Sugar Bowl between No. 3 Georgia and No. 6 Ole Miss in New Orleans. “Put it back in February, maybe even mid-February,” Sankey told Dellenger.

Other changes that could be up for debate include potentially moving the college football regular season up a week to what is now considered “Week 0,” altering the current CFP schedule of games, further pushing back the transfer portal window, and possibly adding Spring and Summer access periods, per Dellenger. The moves could further align college football with a NFL-like format that completely separates the postseason, the draft and free agency across several months. It’s something Saban has been calling for for awhile.

“Do the same thing in college football and you wouldn’t have these issues with coaches changing jobs, because everybody could finish the season with their team, which is what’s best for the players — that’s No. 1,” Saban added. “Because there’d be no hurry. Because now there’s a hurry because all the recruiting calendar is (all about) ‘hurry up and get a coach or you can’t take advantage of an early signing date and you can’t take advantage of (the) portal.'”