James Franklin takes shot at SEC scheduling, calls for uniformity in college football

Heading into his 12th season at Penn State, James Franklin has become one of the more opinionated head coaches when it comes to the state of college football. And while he mostly ran out the 15-minute clock at his main press conference during Big Ten Media Days, Franklin was happy to share his thoughts as the second-longest tenured head coach in the conference during the breakout session. 

As he often does, Franklin called for Notre Dame to join a conference, but maybe more notably, he once again took aim at the scheduling discrepancies between the Big Ten and the SEC. 

James Franklin calls 9-game conference schedule the biggest mistake the Big Ten ever made

The SEC has continued to play eight conference games while the Big Ten plays nine, a difference that has been a sticking point between the sport’s two most powerful conferences in College Football Playoff expansion talks. Simply put, the Big Ten and conference commissioner Tony Petitti do not want the SEC to have the same number of automatic bids into the CFP if they’re playing one fewer conference game. 

“This ain’t that hard,” Franklin said about the lack of scheduling uniformity. “Everybody should be playing eight, or everybody should be playing nine.” 

The other issue that Franklin called for uniformity on is conference championship games. Different conferences have had different theories about how to handle their championship game, with fears that it could cost their conference an at-large bid into the CFP depending on the outcome. 

Those concerns were somewhat assuaged last season when Penn State, Texas, and SMU all remained in the top 12 despite losing their respective conference title games, but talks about the future of those games have persisted, especially considering the unprecedented length of a college football season in this modern era. 

Franklin proceeded to call out “other conferences” (cough, cough SEC, cough) that traditionally play FCS opponents, but he may have taken an even bigger shot at his own league for the decision to expand its conference schedule. 

While Frankin’s right that the CFP committee has not been comparing apples to apples, he’s also figured out that the win-total is almost valued above strength of schedule. So, for the 2025 season, Penn State has introduced an FCS opponent, Villanova, to its non-conference slate and is not playing a power conference opponent in the non-con. 

It’s not likely that Franklin’s comments will bring uniformity, but his actions, like softening Penn State’s out-of-conference schedule, should bring his program closer to a national championship.