Joel Klatt 'firmly' calls for athletic directors to lose ability to schedule their school's games

Joel Klatt fully embraced his self-appointed role as the hypothetical “commissioner” of college football during a Thursday appearance on the Andy & Ari On3 podcast with Andy Staples and Ari Wasserman.

The opinionated FOX Sports analyst spelled out multiple potential fixes he’d like to see implemented to address problems within the sport of college football, especially as it pertains to the Power Four conferences and the expanded College Football Playoff moving forward.

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Key among those fixes involved the ongoing controversy surrounding scheduling, and the rise of unbalanced schedules within the 16- (Big 12, SEC), 17- (ACC), and 18-team (Big Ten) leagues. And for Klatt, that starts with removing the authority of Power 4 athletic directors to create their own schedules.

“I think that we need to increase the number of Power 4 games that everybody plays, and count them towards the status of your standing within your conference. I think everybody should play the same number of games,” Klatt said Thursday. “I also firmly believe that we need to take scheduling out of the hands of athletic directors. I’m so tired of athletic directors scheduling their own games.”

Joel Klatt: College football scheduling changes ‘can and should take place right now’

Staples then reminded the audience that most SEC coaches appeared to be on board with expanding to nine conference games as recently as four years ago in an effort to add additional revenue. But that sentiment has faded in recent years, with SEC coaches openly reconsidering the idea after the league suffered through a disappointing 2024 season in which the SEC complained their current 8-game conference schedule was already a hindrance to making the 12-team College Football Playoff field.

Klatt, for his part, is undeterred, and expects the SEC to join the 18-team Big Ten in utilizing the nine-game conference format.

“I do think they’re going to go to nine (conference games). I think they need to just to balance out their schedule,” Klatt continued. “You look at the lopsided nature of some of the schedules like the schedule Missouri played vs. what Florida played was wildly different. Oklahoma the same thing. Those are things that will come to pass eventually.”

At this point, Klatt suggested wholesale changes to how Power 4 college football teams actually schedule games, recommending a singular model that closely resembles how the NFL annually creates balanced schedules that reflect how its 32 teams finished the season prior.

“I also believe we should schedule on an annual basis based on where teams finish within conferences. We have huge conferences – 16, 18 teams – we should pod teams within the conferences and not just to maintain rivalries and everything,” Klatt concluded. “Yeah, you can maintain rivalries, but you should put aside a couple of games where if you’re finishing at the top end of the conference, you’re playing top-end conference teams. And if you’re finishing in the bottom-end of the conference, you play bottom-end conference teams. That can and should take place right now.”