Joey McGuire offers a solution to college football’s biggest problem

Throughout my life, I have considered myself a student of all games, from MMA to soccer to golf and everything in between. My passion for sports has taken me on a journey from athlete to coach to writer, and as I continue to progress in my journey, my end goal is simple: to improve myself and my colleagues every day while doing what we love.

Texas Tech head football coach Joey McGuire joined the Andy & Ari On3 podcast earlier this week to discuss several topics ranging from recruiting high-profile players such as Brendan Sorsby, to how Texas Tech builds its culture in the offseason, and to reflecting on how their all-time great season ended in the worst possible way.

Another topic McGuire addresses is one of the most discussed topics in the sport of college football: the schedule and its importance in the modern era.

As everyone knows, the college football schedule is getting even crazier and longer every year due to many other changes in the sport, but there should be no reason why it has gotten so out of control.

McGuire has proposed his own solution to the growing problem, and it seems like a very good plan for the NCAA to build on in an attempt to solve one of its most glaring problems.

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Joey McGuire offers his solution to college football’s interrupted schedule

When asked what he would do to improve the college football schedule, Joey McGuire everything was presented in a simple but effective way.

He says the easiest way to fix the schedule is to keep everything in one semester instead of starting the season in one semester and then continuing into another semester, because that’s where all the problems lie.

So how do you do this?

Move week 0 up one week

Last season, Week 0 took place on August 23 and Week 1 took place on August 30.

So in this proposed scenario, Week 0 would have taken place on August 16 and everyone would have played their Week 1 games on August 23.

McGuire then goes on to explain that by simply moving Week 0 forward one week, everything else also moves up one week, meaning that conference championship weekend would take place during Thanksgiving weekend instead of the first week of December.

And then the playoffs would begin during the first weekend in December, when the conference championship games are usually played. It also gives teams that get a first-round bye a true bye week, just like in the regular season, instead of waiting more than three weeks between games and causing them to fall out of rhythm.

From that point on, everyone plays a game every six or seven days, and at that rate, you could have played the CFP National Championship game on December 27 or January 1, and that means the transfer portal wouldn’t have been a problem at all because the season would have been over, and the portal would have opened on January 2, the day after the CFP National Championship, allowing players to enter freely without restrictions.

A necessary change that can no longer be postponed

If the sport continues on the trajectory it is on, it will become unrecognizable within a few years.

A schedule change must be made before anything else, because changing the schedule itself can solve many of the problems that are crippling the sport as we know it.

Although it is unlikely that the schedule will see a change for the upcoming season, as all the dates are already set in stone and it looks like things will get worse and more confusing, a change in the schedule starting from the 2027 season is not yet out of the question.

And if change can be made between now and then, then maybe we’ll start to see the sport move towards a better future, but if not, we’ll continue to see it eat itself out.

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