Dan Lanning: Ending the Season by New Year’s Day Would ‘Solve So Many Problems’

Dan Lanning has a fix he’d make to college football that he believes would “solve so many of the problems” that currently exist.

End the season by New Year’s Day.

In the most recent episode of “The Joel Klatt Show,” the Oregon head coach expressed his displeasure with how the postseason schedule currently works, believing it punishes teams that make the College Football Playoff. 

“This year, again, the portal will open and the national championship game will be two-to-three weeks after the portal is open, so there’s going to be some teams that are still going to be in a season with players coming and going from your program,” Lanning said. “The school year starts. Most schools start their semesters in January. At that time, it’s hard to transition kids. Ultimately, we got down to one portal window, which is a win for the sport, I think. 

“But there’s going to be a lot of guys who aren’t going to be able to join their team yet because they’re not finished with where they’re at in the season or it’s too tight of a window in general.”

With the College Football Playoff expanding to 12 teams last season, several playoff teams lost depth pieces ahead of postseason play. While there weren’t any star players on playoff teams that entered the portal before the start of the playoffs, Penn State lost backup quarterback Beau Pribula before its semifinal run began because he felt he had to enter the transfer portal right away due to the limited window. 

As Lanning mentioned, though, the transfer portal windows were officially altered by the NCAA on Wednesday. Instead of having two windows in December and at the end of spring ball, there will now be a 10-day portal window for players to transfer in early January. 

But roster building isn’t the only reason why Lanning wants to see the CFP schedule altered. He also doesn’t want long layoffs between games and wishes that CFP games were consistently played on Saturdays instead of other days of the week. 

“Saturdays, to me, are sacred. They belong to college football,” Lanning said. “Every other great situation in sports that has playoffs has some consistencies in those playoffs. You don’t need 22, 25, 28-day windows of no playing. We should play the championship games in our conferences. Then, the next Saturday, there should be a playoff game.”

After the first round of last year’s College Football Playoff, none of the remaining seven games from the quarterfinals onward were played on a Saturday. That included Oregon’s Rose Bowl matchup against Ohio State, which came 25 days following its previous game. 

Of course, Oregon lost that game to Ohio State despite being the No. 1 overall seed in the CFP and the only undefeated team in college football entering the playoffs last year. As Oregon’s only playoff game in the 2024 season was played at a neutral site, Lanning would like to see higher-seeded teams get rewarded throughout the playoff. 

“Playoff games, in my mind, should be at home for higher-seeded teams, just like they are for the NFL and FCS football,” Lanning said. “And they should be played every weekend until the season is done without these long extended periods in between where we’re trying to satisfy bowl games and satisfy a playoff. Those are two worlds that can’t really exist in the same place.”

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