“It Should be Consistent” James Franklin Calls on Major Change for College Football, Notre Dame
In just one day, Penn State Football will be playing in its first-ever college football playoff semifinals against Notre Dame, and when everything seemed to be smooth sailing for the Nittany Lions, head coach James Franklin took a shot at the Fighting Irish.
These are the four conferences that most college football fans pay attention to and are known as the hardest in the sport, but Notre Dame doesn’t belong to one, unlike Penn State who are forced to survive the Big Ten gauntlet.
The Fighting Irish are independent, meaning they have no affiliation to any conference and can play whoever they like on their 12-game regular season schedule.
Since Notre Dame is in the ACC in a handful of other sports, it must play at least five football games against schools from the conference, but it can do whatever it likes in the other seven games.
James Franklin Calls on Notre Dame to Join a Conference
Notre Dame usually plays USC, a few military schools like the Air Force, Army, or Navy, and another big-time team, followed by a few small schools, so its schedule isn’t easy.
The Fighting Irish also don’t have a conference title game, which hurts them because they can’t be a Top Four seed and get a bye in the playoffs. However, it also helps them because they don’t have to play the last weekend of the college football season.
Penn State had to play one extra game than Notre Dame because they made the Big Ten title game, and Franklin wants every team in college football to play the same number of conference games.
On Wednesday, Franklin and Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman had a joint coaches press conference, and with Freeman sitting right next to the Penn State head coach, he took a shot at Notre Dame without trying to.
“It should be consistent across college football,” Franklin said via ESPN. “This is no knock at Freeman or Notre Dame, but I think everybody should be in a conference. I think everybody should play a conference championship game, or nobody should play a conference champion championship game. I think everybody should play the same number of conference games.”
Franklin has a point that everyone in today’s college football team should be playing in a conference.
It’s unfair that a school like Penn State must play nine conference games and possibly a conference title game while Notre Dame is only required to play five power-four teams.
They all come from the ACC, which proved to be the weakest power-four conference this season.
MORE Penn State Football News from NittanyCentral:
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- It’s Time to Change Narrative Around James Franklin, Penn State in Big Games
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