Fox Sports’ Joel Klatt has been at the forefront of college football scheduling change for years, he may finally get his way.
With talks that Clemson has scheduled Notre Dame for 12 years and the SEC is considering a move to nine conference games, even scheduling is back on the menu.
Joel Klatt Excited About SEC’s 9-Game Conference Schedule
Klatt hinted that more money could be headed the SEC’s way if they added an extra conference game to the schedule, Klatt said on “The Joel Klatt Show.”
“The SEC is thinking about taking this, I don’t want to call it an offer, but ESPN has told them, ‘Yeah, you would make more money if you moved to a nine conference game schedule,’” Klatt said.
“And the reason that gets me more excited than the announcement about Clemson and Notre Dame is because if we get nine games in the SEC we’re going to get one step closer to what I think could be an incredible scheduling model in college football. And it’s going to be better for all of us.”
Klatt hopes that once the ninth game is established, the SEC and Big Ten can align on some sort of agreement to consistently play each other every year, he said.
“Just take the Clemson and Notre Dame news and be encouraged about it, be excited about it. But put it off to the side for the moment, because the more important news is the news that the SEC may take the more money from ESPN annually to play the ninth conference game,” Klatt said.
“And once they do that, then they align with the Big Ten. And now we’ve got something going because the entire conferences can do scheduling agreements. Now we get into this model that I’ve been talking about for a long time, all right?”
Klatt called for the two conferences to hold an annual draw to select who plays who — with the potential for massive matchups like Georgia in Ann Arbor and Ohio State in Tuscaloosa.
“If each of these conferences play nine conference games, then what we can do is do scheduling agreements or we can schedule for them in the in non-conference where you will be put into a tranche of teams based on where you finished the previous year and we’re going to have a draft and draft your non-league schedule for you,” Klatt said.
“And there’s going to be a competitive balance because it’s going to be about where you finished the previous year. Yes, yes, yes and yes.”
“Not only do we get like a World Cup style draw this time of year in like March, April, May, and we can all watch and see like who’s playing who next year in the non-league, but also we’re going to have huge matchups. Huge matchups.”
“Think like Georgia’s going to Michigan and Ohio State is going to go to Alabama. Who says no to that? Nobody. Nobody says no to that. And that’s just those two matchups. We would have several more across all the conferences based on where teams finished.”
Already on a roll, Klatt lambasted fans who disagree with him.
“If you’re a fan at home and you’re disagreeing with this, I don’t know what to do with you,” Klatt said. “I don’t know what to do with you.”
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“Now, are there problems with it? Yeah, sure. There’s little wrinkles here and there. What do you do with Group of Five games? Well, maybe one Group of Five game for every Power Four opponent.”
‘You play nine conference games, you have the game that we schedule for you out of the draw, and then let’s make one of these schedule agreement games so we can get these regional rivalries back for the 11th Power Four game. Boom. Who says no to that?”
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