There have been numerous announcements of the transfer portal in college football since the regular season ended, and even with them happening prior to the early signing day period in December, I don’t think it’s good for the sport to have players bail on their teams before the season is over, and the same is true for the bowl games. The unfortunate byproduct of the playoff system is that a bowl game is a meaningless consolation prize if you win it. It almost feels that if you don’t compete for a national championship, nothing else is worth it. Well, I’d like to think otherwise. For half of the teams that play in those ‘meaningless bowl games’, they will hoist a trophy. I don’t believe for a second that they are unenthusiastic about that game when they’ve won it. For a competitor, you’d hate to lose.
As far as the transfer portal is concerned, I disagree that it should open as soon as the regular season is over. There are playoff teams whose players have entered and committed to new schools in the portal, which means that they are not eligible to play for the team they are leaving from. I guess that’s on you if you choose to do that.
I remember Scott Frost leaving UCF for Nebraska but he coached the bowl game and completed a perfect regular season, and I respect that a lot about him even if he failed at Nebraska. Donovan McCulley of Indiana will land at Michigan, for example, but I’d have a hard time believing he couldn’t make an impact on a playoff game, or be there for his playoff-bound team. And for those ‘meaningless bowl games’, players entering the portal before playing the game means they won’t play in the game. I hate to see it to be honest.
We as fans, watch the games, and I for sure would watch each game if I had time/accessibility to sit down for it, win or lose. That’s what being a fan is, and I suppose there are unappreciative fans that kill the vibe for the players. Kyle McCord is one that I think would still be at Ohio State if it wasn’t for fans trying to boot him out of Columbus. Luckily for him, he found a spot where he has been appreciated in Syracuse.
It’s important to answer, that if I have issues with the portal, how can it be fixed, or how can it be improved?
My answers are below:
- I don’t think the transfer portal should be open between the end of the regular season and the early signing day period. Actually, it shouldn’t be open until after the team’s bowl game is over. The one exception to this is if the team fails to qualify for the postseason. But this is tough due to the academic schedules at most colleges, so to meet this constraint, the transfer portal should only be opened after the early signing day has finished. Close the portal once school as started for the winter semester.
- Re-open the transfer portal after the spring has finished (usually the spring game for each program), and close it when summer practices begin until the next early signing day has finished. While this varies for reach school, players should have defined windows for when they can enter the portal.
- In total, the portal is open only twice a year, but the larger window is between the end of spring and the beginning of summer programs for the football team.
If there was any changes I’d make to the 12-team playoff format, I’d have the byes and home-field advantage altered as such that the top four teams in the final rankings shared by the playoff committee are the ones that get byes, and the non-bye conference champions get home games for their first playoff game. With that in mind, this year’s playoff would have been:
Byes – 1) Oregon, 2) Georgia, 3) Texas, 4) Penn State
Automatic home games – 9) Boise State (5), 12) Arizona State (6), 16) Clemson (7), 5) Notre Dame (8),
First-round visitors would be 6) Ohio State (9), 7) Tennessee (10), 8) Indiana (11), and 10) SMU (12).
This format would have different match-ups, and impact who is playing away from home or at home, as the current model has Ohio State as a hosting team, and obviously changes whom gets a bye. instead of Arizona State and Boise State getting byes, they get home games for their first game, and the four highest ranked (best) teams are properly awarded with byes.
This format would have the following first round games if the above was implemented instead of the current format:
10) SMU (12) at 9) Boise State (5)
8) Indiana (11) at 12) Arizona State (6)
7) Tennessee at 16) Clemson (7)
6) Ohio State (9) at 5) Notre Dame (8)
This would allow the at-large teams to definitively prove that they are one of the best as they navigate the bracket and play road games, and wouldn’t necessarily penalize the ranked teams in the top 4 having to play in the first round games, and as such, the four teams getting byes do not have to all be conference champions. This year, only two of them are. My opinion is that the top 5 conference champions that don’t get a bye should be rewarded with a home game. Based on the current setup, and the teams playing home games (Texas, Penn State, Notre Dame, Ohio State) – Texas and Penn State were the ones that did enough by virtue of playing in their conference title games and winning against their schedule that was deemed to be better than what SMU faced as SMU had an 11-1 regular season just like Texas and Penn State. And Clemson was the fifth conference champion and should be rewarded with a home game instead of traveling to Texas where the Longhorns have a mixed bag of rewards by playing at home as a 5-seed but not getting a bye despite being ranked 3rd in the country.
To conclude, the top four ranked teams get byes, and the five highest conference champions get either a bye or a home game in the first round match-ups.
College Football Prediction Central with Paul Shen 