Fixing the Offseason College Football Calendar
If you are a college football fan, you are at least loosely aware of the chaos that is currently occurring in the sport. Now, you have a glut of entries into the transfer portal, player poaching and tales of grandeur in NIL deals, the apex of high school recruiting coming to a head as Early Signing Day approaches, and players deciding on their NFL futures (and the opt-outs that go with it). At the same time, teams prepare for a bowl game. It is an impossible time to follow as a fan, and we know maybe 10% of the actual doings. You can only imagine how tough it is for the decision-makers in the buildings of these programs.
An explainer on the current calendar (2023-24 dates):
- August 1 - 31 - Dead Period (no HS recruit contact)
- Sept 1 - Nov 26 - Evaluation Period (staff can visit recruit’s HS, talk to coaches, go to practices and games, evaluate talent, etc., but cannot talk to players or their parents off-campus [LOLOL right.] Players can visit schools where coach-player recruitment is allowed)
- Nov 27 – 30 - Dead
- Dec 1 - Conference Championship Weekend
- Dec 1 - 16 - Contact Period (In-person, off-campus recruiting allowed)
- Dec 17 - Quiet Period (only on-campus recruiting allowed, think ‘visits’)
- Dec 18 - Jan 11 - Dead
- Dec 20 - 22 - Early Signing Day (HS recruits can sign letters of intent to join programs. These are binding documents)
- Jan 3 - 7 - Quiet Period for portal players (transfers can visit schools)
- Jan 8 - National Championship
- Jan 12 - Feb 3 - Contact
- Feb 4 - Quiet
- Feb 5 - March 3 - Dead
- Feb 7 - Traditional Signing Day
- March 4 - April 14 - Quiet (Next season’s recruitment starts)
- April 15 - May 25 - Contact
- May 26 - 29 - Dead
- May 30 - June 23 - Quiet
- June 24 - July 24 - Dead
- July 25 - 31 - Quiet
As you can see, this is an absurd mess and completely broken.
How did we get here?
The mess that the calendar has become stems from a four-fold problem; ironically, all four issues have player interest in mind.
It started with “Early Signing Day,” which was introduced in the 2017-18 cycle. The thought was simple enough. Stop the dirty pool being played behind the scenes, the tampering, the bagmen, etc., that happened last minute before National Signing Day by allowing these kids to put pens to paper and commit to the schools they plan on attending. Other undecided kids would have the original date to fall back on. No harm, no foul. But in practicality, ESD became the de facto signing day within a year. Kids were pressured to sign in December; coaches wanted to wrap up their classes as early as possible, get more kids enrolled early and into bowl practices and spring camp, and fill in the remaining gaps using the later signing day. Therefore, all ESD did was essentially move signing day INTO the CFB bowl season. Brilliant.
Next, the Transfer Portal was introduced in October of 2018. This allowed an easier way of tracking transfers for teams and allowed players to alert all 120+ teams (plus all the FCS and Div-II schools) that they were on the market. Transparency is great.
But things got messy quickly when the NCAA lifted the transfer loss-of-eligibility year in 2021. Another deserved right for players: no longer would transfers be penalized by losing a year of eligibility at the new school. But this rule, multiplied by the portal, led to a feeling of free agency. Overachievers at mid-majors could transfer up to the Power 5 contenders that overlooked them out of HS. The 5-star LB who wasn’t getting reps could go across the conference to play somewhere else. Even high-end Power 5 contributors could transfer to other high-end Power 5 schools. Up the ladder, down the ladder, across the ladder, it didn’t matter. Oh, and let’s open the portal the day after the conference champion games are played and leave it open for 45 days. That’s right, right in the middle of Bowl/Playoff Season.
This groundbreaking transfer rule was immediately coupled with the allowance of NIL (name, image, and likeness) payments. Finally, college athletes could make money off their name, take ad deals, etc. This is a no-brainer that should have been in place years ago. Shit, if it was, we wouldn’t have waited 10+ years between CFB video games. (Thank god that national nightmare is over in July.) But again, the purity behind the spirit of this rule lasted about 6 minutes. Immediately, NIL “Collectives” popped up - essentially, money hubs to donate into, which then would work with the program to dole out money for recruits, transfers, and roster retention. And the better-ran, deeper-pocketed collectives immediately started seeing recruiting wins. Who'da thunk it? Immediately, all the under-the-table stuff that programs accused each other of was above board. And I have no sympathy for the coaches or programs. Every player should get every penny they can. But the sport as a whole is worse off for it. Player-poaching and recruit buying have gone crazy. Without the loss of a year of eligibility to dissuade a player from bouncing, it is indeed the Wild West in roster management.
Mixed into all this, thanks to the Grad Transfer Rule, you can transfer a second time without penalty once you graduate… and all these guys now graduate in three years because they are on campus all summer. This means you basically have two free transfers per player (in most cases.)
Also, you have a free COVID-year of eligibility mixed in from the 2020 season. Anyone enrolled during 2020 gets an untaxed 5th year to the ball. Granted, these players are going to be weeded out entirely within two seasons, but it’s another layer of mess to shit casserole.
The Fallout
Each of these factors has led to the mess we’re in today. Your entire program feels in flux from the Sunday morning after the Conference Championship games are played until Early January. Who's staying? Who's going? Can we grab someone to replace them in the portal? Can we keep the 5* who's been committed since August now that Big Money School U has a hole at his position? All this happens from the moment the conference's season ends and runs through the National Championship!
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Think about the NFL for a minute. They have their regular season end, and Black Monday follows with all the coach firings. Then, things are mostly quiet through the Playoffs and Super Bowl. Then comes the combine at the end of February, Free Agency in March, and the Draft in April. Things have time to breathe. There is build-up and momentum for each event.
In college? All of those things are happening DURING THE FUCKING POST-SEASON! And it will only be weirder next year when twelve teams are in the playoffs instead of four. As is, Alabama is going into a playoff game without a backup LT because he is in the portal. That makes zero sense heading into the biggest game of your season.
How do we fix it?
Short answer: I don’t fucking know.
Long answer: I will propose a calendar that makes sense to me, the avid CFB fan without administrative knowledge of its inner workings. Are there issues with it? Oh, I’m sure. But is it better than the shit we have now? Yes.
- Step 1 - Get rid of Early Signing Day. When they instituted it, the rule made perfect sense, but it only made things worse.
- Step 2 - Don’t open the Portal until after the National Championship game. Will this stop players from talking to other teams? Heavens, no, let’s not be naive. But it won’t be as in your face, you won’t be losing depth before a bowl game, etc.
- Step 3 - Close the Portal before Signing Day
- Step 4 - Push Signing Day back into February like the old days, but even a couple of weeks later than before
Roughly what the calendar would look like (using the 23-24 calendar again):
- August - Dead
- September-November - Evaluation
- December - Contact/Quiet
- January 1 - February 9 - Quiet
- January 8 - National Championship
- January 9 - Open Portal
- February 10 -16 - Contact
- February 17 - Quiet
- February 18 - March 16 - Dead
- February 21 - National Signing Day
This would give each avenue of player acquisition room to breathe while not interfering with the sport’s post-season.
Is it perfect? Nope. The calendar is a few weeks longer for already overworked coaches. Early enrollees basically are gone - or severely hampered - back to the pre-ESD era. Teams making deeper playoff runs have an even more compressed timeline to get ducks in a row. But all those things are manageable.
Nothing will be perfect. But as someone who loves college football, things cannot stay as is. If you’re Florida State Alabama, you should be worrying about playing a playoff game vs. Michigan right now, not worrying about preventing your players from being poached, managing NIL payments to retain guys, closing on a recruiting class, and exploring upgrades in the portal.
NIL and pay-for-play aren’t going away. Transfer penalties aren’t going away. (If anything, they are going to get more lenient.) But all that is fine if you give each event its own space. Take a page from the NFL’s playbook and make each stage feel special. Let programs, fans, and analysts alike appreciate and understand each part of the offseason… NOT DURING THE SPORT’S POSTSEASON!
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Now, it’s time to get off my soapbox and go back to losing money on low-tier bowl games. Thanks for reading.
Sincerely,
A College Football Fan