James Franklin suggests former Alabama coach Nick Saban should be college football commissioner
Penn State head coach James Franklin has opined for some time that college football has needed to make drastic changes. There have been issues with the timing of the transfer portal windows and the season, along with many other problems such as the lack of focus on academics and how name, image and likeness is utilized.
But on Sunday he offered up a solution with more detail than usual. He has said before that the sport needs a commissioner — someone to oversee how it operates and be an unbiased voice on the problems. Sunday he gave a name for the job.
“I think one of the most important things that we can do is let’s get a commissioner of college football that is waking up every single morning and going to bed every single night, making decisions that’s in the best interest of college football,” Franklin said at his team’s pre-Fiesta Bowl media day. “I think Nick Saban would be the obvious choice. I think if we made that decision — Nick will probably call me tonight and say, ‘Don’t do this’ — but I think he’s the obvious choice, right? I think there’s some other really good candidates out there. But that would be a very, very important step moving forward to come up with some solutions and do what’s best for our sport.”
Saban would make some sense — he’s an all-time great head coach who just retired and has experienced some of the issues Franklin frequently talks about. And the Penn State head coach even gave some possible solutions for Saban if he takes charge.
He mentioned getting rid of conference championship games — because not everyone plays them and it will shorten the season and help with the portal window — and making sure everyone plays in the same number of conference games to ensure all conferences are equal when being compared by the College Football Playoff selection committee. And he mentioned beginning the season a week earlier to help that window.
And, if Franklin has his way, Saban would be the one helping make those decisions.
Franklin and the Nittany Lions are poised to take on Boise State at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in the quarterfinals of the College Football Playoff. The game will be Penn State’s 15th so far this season, and the Nittany Lions have already had to deal with issues such as backup QB Beau Pribula transferring to Missouri right before the CFP.
