College football scheduling will never be fair. It'll never be black and white, and it'll never be easy. But it could be easier by using a version of the NFL scheduling system.
The NFL system is among the most streamlined in all of sports: Six divisional games (three home, three away), four games vs. a rotating AFC conference (two home, two away), four games vs. a rotating NFC conference (two home, two away) and two games vs. teams from the remaining divisions within a team's conference based on the previous year's standings (one home, one away).
Fourteen of a team's 16 games are known an infinite number of years in advance. The final two standings-based games are determined at the triple zeroes of the final Week 17 game (if not earlier). It's easy and unquestionably fair.
The NFL is a different animal (e.g. salary caps, small divisions within conferences, etc.), but I can't help but wonder: Would the NFL scheduling system work in college football? Would it create a more fair and easy system for scheduling, specifically among Power Five teams?
Spoiler: I don't know. And I will not know at the conclusion of this article, nor will you.
MORE: The Day Kansas Football Died
The proposal: Twelve regular-season games for each Power Five team. Eight conference games. Two games of your choosing vs. any FBS or FCS team. And two standings-based rotational games. (Also, eliminating divisions and having 14 teams in all Power Five conferences would make this proposal a hell of a lot easier, though that's entirely unrealistic.)
For example: In 2019, Clemson has eight conference games, four home and four away:
vs. Georgia Tech
at Syracuse
at North Carolina
vs. Florida State
at Louisville
vs. Boston College
at North Carolina State
vs. Wake Forest
The Tigers would schedule two opponents of their choosing:
vs. Wofford
at South Carolina.
The remaining two games are standings-based rotating games against fellow Power Five conference champions. Let's say the ACC is paired with the Big 12 (home) and Pac-12 (away) in 2019:
vs. Oklahoma
at Washington
Clemson's 2019 regular-season schedule:
vs. Georgia Tech
vs. Oklahoma
at Syracuse
at Washington
at North Carolina
vs. Florida State
at Louisville
vs. Boston College
vs. Wofford
at North Carolina State
vs. Wake Forest
at South Carolina
Brutal, fun, and, unfortunately, complicated.
What happens to the two ACC teams who finished 13th and 14th last season? The Pac-12 is out of teams after 12 games (and the Big 12 is out after 10 games). That's where the two-part parenthetical proposal comes in.
Without it, we'd need several conference-finish tiebreakers and a secondary pool of teams from Power Five or Group of Five conferences (even FCS if necessary) ready to fill holes. For example, in the ACC vs. Pac-12 scenario, North Carolina (13th in the ACC last season) and Louisville (14th) are thrown into a pool with other teams in similar situations. That pool might include Big Ten's bottom two teams if they're also matched up with the Pac-12.
Would you like it? Chew on it. Ping me on Twitter.
