James Franklin had a message for Notre Dame and the college football world ahead of Thursday night's semifinal game against Penn State in the Orange Bowl.
The 52-year-old, who is in his 11th season at Penn State and on the verge of making it to its first national championship since 1986, said he hopes to see more standardization as the College Football Playoff expands.
And for him, that means an independent behemoth like Notre Dame will finally be in the conference.
“That should be consistent throughout college football,'' Franklin said. told reporters Wednesday. “This is not an accusation [head coach Marcus Freeman] I think everyone should be in the meeting, including Notre Dame. I think everyone should play the conference championship game. Or maybe no one should play the conference championship game. I think everyone should play the same number of conference games. ”
The ever-growing Big 10 ended its manifest destiny by adding Oregon State, University of Southern California, UCLA and Washington State to become the Big 18 and, like the Big 12, will form a nine-game conference for the 2024 season. I had planned it. The SEC and ACC had eight-game conference schedules, while the Mountain West had seven.
“I wasn’t a math major at East Stroudsburg University, but when it comes to playing one more conference game, just the numbers are going to make things even more difficult,” Franklin said.
Notre Dame, which had an 11-1 record during the regular season, is a member of the ACC in other sports, but remains independent in football and plays several ACC teams each year. .
Because the Fighting Irish are not in a conference, they will not be eligible for a first-round bye in the new 12-team CFP format, which will be awarded to the conference's top four champion teams.
“I'm just a guy [thinks]”Tell us what we're doing, and let's go, and you move forward,” Freeman said. “I really like where we are right now. [Athletic director] Pete Bevacqua and the Notre Dame administration will continue to make decisions that are best for our program. ”
The winner of Thursday's game will face the winner of Friday's Texas-Ohio State game for the national championship on Jan. 20.
