- - Josh Pate's 6-step plan to creating the perfect college football schedule

Yahoo Sports StaffJanuary 22, 2026 at 3:08 AM

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For all the issues with the current college football calendar — including the College Football Playoff overlapping with the transfer portal window — Josh Pate has come up with a simple six-step plan to fix it. He even uses an expanded 16-team playoff format.

Step 1: Move Week 1 to Week 0's current slot

"We need to move the season up one week. It's going to be a little hot. I understand that Saturday prior to Labor Day weekend, that's the weekend that we're going to start. Rivalry week, because of that would be the week before Thanksgiving instead of Thanksgiving week. So your Ohio States, Michigans, your Iron Bowls, we're getting all of those done. And your regular season is done the week before Thanksgiving, which leads to a revolutionary Thanksgiving weekend.

Step 2: Move Rivalry Week; keep conference title games

"We're just going to have them Thanksgiving weekend instead of the week after Thanksgiving. So last weekend in November instead of first weekend in December, we're having conference championship games. Your SEC, ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, all the Group of Fives."

Step 3: Play 6 bowls on same weekend as conference title games

"Don't particularly care which ones they are. Let's just call it the Citrus Bowl and the Pop Tart Bowl, Cheez-It Bowl, et cetera. I would like to have a 13th game, essentially for a bunch of teams. ...Take all the teams are going to play in conference championship games off the board. They're already preoccupied. This is what it would have looked like this year: My Pop Tart bowl is Oregon versus Houston, my Cheez-It bowl is Ole Miss versus Michigan. I've got [Texas] A&M-Arizona. I've got Oklahoma-USC. I've got Texas versus Utah. I've got Notre Dame versus Vanderbilt. These are bowl games. They are also College Football Playoff data points. Those games count because the final playoff rankings are after those games happen, so those are final data points. ... You could play yourself into or out of the playoff in many cases in the Pop Tart Bowl."

Step 4: Hold Selection Sunday on Thanksgiving weekend

"We're not scared of the NFL around here, but we're also not going to be stupid and run opposite to them. So we're going to reveal the College Football Playoff rankings and seedings and the bracket 9 a.m. [ET] that Sunday."

Step 5: Move up CFP schedule; hold first 2 rounds on campus

"Round 1 of the College Football Playoff on campus is held the first Saturday in December. Round two of the College Football Playoff held on campus is held the second Saturday in December. Round three finally going to kick it to a neutral site. That's the third Saturday in December and then we break for Christmas and our national championship game is held New Year's Day and we crown a national champion and the season's over."

Step 6: Move signing day and transfer portal

"I don't even care in which order you do this. You have signing day and you have your transfer portal window and wrap that thing up in a couple of weeks and then spring semester is here and everyone can go kick their feet up and take a little vacation. Maybe have a junior day."

Why it works

"We made everyone play the same amount of games to win it all. Notre Dame is not even immune from this. If Notre Dame wants to win a title, Notre Dame's going to have to play 17 games. Everyone's playing 17 to win it all. You got two rounds of on-campus playoff games. The bowl games are enhanced in many different ways and you totally resurrect the spirit of bowl season because you maximize the relevance of six of those bowls and you totally reconfigure the importance of them. I think that would be an amazing spectacle."

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Source: “AOL Sports”