Joel Klatt backs Nick Saban's plea for change in college football due to Lane Kiffin situation

During last Saturday’s ESPN‘s College GameDay, Nick Saban attempted to shift the narrative surrounding Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin‘s ongoing dilemma of being openly courted by Florida and LSU while also trying to guide his sixth-ranked Rebels to the College Football Playoff. Rampant speculation surrounding Kiffin’s pending decision — which is expected to come Saturday following Friday’s Egg Bowl — has created an untenable situation for all three SEC programs and their diehard fanbases.

But rather then delve into that drama, Saban turned his ire on college football’s inherently flawed calendar that unfairly forces both coaches and players to make life-changing decisions while many are still playing football. It happened last season when Penn State‘s Beau Pribula and SMU‘s Preston Stone were forced to enter the transfer portal while their respective teams were just entering the Playoff. Now it has involved a sitting head coach in the midst of a national championship push.

“Everybody should be thinking about the players,” Saban said during Saturday’s College GameDay. “Players should be able to play for their coach for the entire season. Players shouldn’t be penalized if a coach leaves, because the committee has the opportunity, if a player or coach doesn’t participate, they can sink you in the rankings. … This is not a Lane Kiffin conundrum. This is a college football conundrum, and we need some leadership to step up and change the rules.” 

This week, FOX Sports‘ Joel Klatt doubled-down on Saban’s point about college football’s oppressive calendar that overlaps in-season competition and offseason roster building, and even offered a potential solution.

Joel Klatt: ‘We should never be in a position where roster building and competition co-exist’

“What Nick Saban was saying on GameDay was absolutely correct. … (Because) here’s what’s broken: we are trying to build rosters through Early Signing Day and early December (when) the season’s still going on. In fact, it’s Championship Game week, which is so dumb. Then we’re going to have the transfer portal open up (in early January) when some teams are still trying to play in the Playoffs,” Klatt said on Monday’s episode of The Joel Klatt Show podcast. “The calendar is broken and so we have programs trying to hire their next head coach and they feel like they need their coach in order to build the roster, because the roster building is taking place the first week of December. But the season doesn’t end until potentially Jan. 20th. … We should never be in a position where roster building and competition co-exist.”

Saban did offer a potential resolution of college football’s calendar problem by suggesting it should better align with the academic calendar, as it did before the implementation of the early signing period and the transfer portal. Ultimately, Saban proposed college football adopt a more professionalized NFL scheduling model that restricts hiring windows, eliminates early signing day and pushes recruiting cycles into the Spring to allow teams to finish their seasons with continuity. Even spring practice, he suggested, could be replaced with OTA-style summer sessions like the NFL uses. And Klatt couldn’t agree more.

Joel Klatt supports Nick Saban’s NFL-like calendar, restrictions for college football

“Saban made an excellent point, in the NFL there are specific times when you can and can’t talk with a coach … even if you fired your (previous) coach, there are times that are specific when you can talk to players to try to recruit them towards your franchise, whether it’s in the draft process and/or in free agency,” Klatt continued, comparing high school recruiting to the NFL Draft process and the transfer portal to free agency. “There is no reason — none — absolutely no reason why (college football) should have the competition of the season co-exist with roster building. It’s asinine. It’s crazy, and we need to change that. … And I will tell you, I can fix it in 30 seconds. … Here’s how you do it: finish the football season, then sign your high school players, then open the transfer portal. Period. It is not that difficult.”

Klatt’s proposal involves moving the College Football Playoff national championship game back to New Year’s Day, or as close to Jan. 1st as possible. Then re-establish the original National Signing Day in early February as the first opportunity to add high school prospects before opening the NCAA transfer portal in April, ahead of Spring practice. And while a mid-Spring semester portal window could create other issues for student-athletes, Klatt believes the benefit of separating competition from off season roster construction would ultimately outweigh all other problems.

“But finishing the season before roster building is how you fix this,” Klatt concluded. “And these rules about when you can talk to coaches and when you can’t talk to coaches, that would obviously help as well.”