James Franklin on 12-game season with expanded playoff: 'I don't think that's changing'

James Franklin doesn’t think the 12-game regular season in college football is going anywhere anytime soon.

Heck, it’ll probably never happen. The Penn State coach was asked his thoughts about that considering the length of the College Football Playoff.

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While Franklin conceded decisions in the sports are, attempted anyway, made in the name of student-athlete health and safety, the season won’t be shortened.

“I don’t think that’s going away. I don’t think that’s changing,” Franklin said. “You know, it’s interesting, because whenever everybody wants to get anything done in college football, we say we’re doing it for health and wellness, to get things passed, rule changes and things like that.

“It’s hard to say that when we’re talking about a regular season, as you described it, plus five more games, possibly a 17 game season, depending on how it plays out, you know, for the teams that make the national championship.” 

Franklin isn’t wrong. If you play 12 games and win your conference, that’s 13 games right there. Now generally, the Power 4 teams that are conference champions will have a first round bye.

Still, you’ll have to play three more games to win a national title, making it a 16-game season.

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“So, yeah, I don’t think that’s probably the right thing to do,” Franklin said. “But that’s not changing for all the reasons that you could imagine. And, you know, it’s just like conferences that play nine games or eight games. I don’t think that was advantageous either, you know, for the Big Ten. But I also would make the argument, once you go nine, you’re not going to go back to eight. 

“You’re hoping other conferences will go to nine, and I could actually see it even possibly going to 10 conference games. So I don’t see that changing, but I understand why you’re asking it. And I think it’s a fair question. Especially if you’re basing everything off of student athlete health and welfare for a ton of different reasons.”