The College Football Playoff is expanding, perhaps as soon as 2024. Everyone wants the money and access the extra seven games will bring, yet no one wants the season to extend to Jan. 20 or beyond.
And so the great attempt to re-imagine the college football schedule is underway.
As Ross Dellenger details for Sports Illustrated, ACC commissioner Jim Phillips is leading a committee representing each FBS conference (plus Notre Dame) that, in collaboration with the NCAA Football Oversight Committee, is using an expanded CFP as a launch point to re-evaluate the entire 365-day college football calendar.
The most notable change would be to move the entire season up a week, thereby turning Week 0 into Week 1. Moving the season up a week would put Championship Saturday onto Thanksgiving weekend, which would then push the entire postseason up a week.
Changes to the in-season schedule would also trigger changes to the recruiting calendar, most notably allowing coaches to make off-campus contact with juniors.
The groups are looking at other changes, including but not limited to: banning coaches from visiting transfers at their current school or "at a residence where other members of the transfer’s current team reside;" adding a 48-hour dead period before the Transfer Portal window opens in December; adding a dead period over the Memorial Day weekend.