As Oregon football won the Big 10 championship and secured an undefeated season, they’ll have to wait until the Rose Bowl to play their next opponent. Head coach Dan Lanning isn’t a big fan of the bye week for the top-four seeds. He explained on the Always College Football show another idea that would be better for all parties.
“Ideally, in my mind, what would look great for the playoff is if we didn’t have such a long break in between games,” Lanning said. “I think it’s great for recovery, I think that’s awesome. Suppose everybody faces the same challenge. I think it’s really weird that the championship game is in the middle of January, and school has already started; newcomers have moved in. I just don’t think that any of it lines up with our map.”
Lanning isn’t the first coach who isn’t a fan of the new format. Former Alabama head coach Nick Saban said would take home-field advantage over the bye week. As a result, Oregon football will not receive any home-field advantage at all. Their first game is the Rose Bowl, which is played at a neutral site. Although they’ll be familiar with the West Coast, it’s not the advantage that teams like Notre Dame and Ohio State have.
Dan Lanning believes Oregon football had the short end of the stick
Lanning isn’t exaggerating his point. As the No. 1 team in the country, he believes there should be an advantage for them. Lower-seeded teams have that advantage in the first round. While Oregon won’t have to play until the semifinals, not having a home-field advantage does a lot, psychologically.
There are also Bowl contracts that the NCAA and these respective games have. It’s not as easy as one might think to readjust certain games. For instance, it’s impossible to have the National Championship game on New Year’s Day. A plethora of Bowl games occur on that day. However, Lanning relishes any opportunity to play on the first day of the new year.
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“In my mind, the championship game would be unbelievable if it was on January 1st,” Lanning said. “That’s when the championship game was played, and really, the teams that position themselves have home games up until that game. That would make a lot of sense to me, but I think there would be a lot of Bowls that would be frustrated with that.”
Despite the latter of Lanning’s changes likely not being met, adjusting the CFP format could come soon. After all, this is the first year of the expanded playoff, so changes are likely to occur.
