Matt Rhule says the quiet part out loud: College football scheduling is headed for crisis

Sometimes, we are the TV executives and they are us. We like to get after them and blame them for things, which they mostly deserve.

But all of us — execs, fans, rights holders, stakeholders, headset holders, anyone who cares about college football and isn’t a college football coach — should gasp together at what came out of the mouth of Nebraska coach Matt Rhule this week. Not because he’s wrong. Because he was honest and he’s too right for comfort, which means we’ve found something about the College Football Playoff that actually merits change.

More teams? The first 12-team Playoff sure seemed good to me. Auto bids, four apiece for the SEC and Big Ten and a pittance of two apiece for the ACC and Big 12? Super, if you want to declare that college football is a rigged status pageant more than it is actual competition, and if you’re fine endangering its long-term health at the expense of your selfish, gluttonous, short-sighted inclinations.

A selection system that more explicitly rewards quality nonleague scheduling? That’s actually worth discussing. Rhule laid out why very clearly on “The Triple Option” podcast, in an answer to a “one last thing” question from Urban Meyer.

Meyer told Rhule he’s “really worried” about nonconference scheduling moving forward — and he should be, now that he’s a TV guy — because “it’s the right thing for Ohio State to play Texas (to start the 2025 season), but why?”

“At the end of the day, Ryan Day has got to make the Playoff. Matt Rhule has got to make the Playoff,” Meyer said, mentioning series fans would love such as the Nebraska-Oklahoma rivalry that was killed by realignment (read: TV people) and reprised in 2021-22. “It’s great for fans, but is it great for Matt Rhule and the Huskers?”

Rhule, an unpopular man in Knoxville, Tenn., these days for killing a Nebraska-Tennessee home and home that was supposed to happen in 2026-27, was already shaking his head as Meyer got to the question.

“Why would you ever … why would you ever play those games?” Rhule said. “If we’re being completely honest. Coach Meyer, I’m at the point in my career where, in my fourth job and getting fired in the NFL, I kind of say what I feel nowadays. I could care less.”

(Note: He means he “couldn’t” care less.)

Rhule continued: “Why in the world would a Big Ten team who is already playing nine conference games, why would you ever play one of those games?”

“HOW ABOUT FOR THE FANS,” we scream in unison (adding in a whisper, “and TV people”).

The first part sure isn’t enough, not for a coach who is judged on results and, in today’s world, will have a limited amount of time to at least get his team into the College Football Playoff or expect a pink slip. I wouldn’t blame any Nebraska fans for being annoyed with Rhule, by the way. He just killed the spring game. I’m sure Nebraska isn’t charging fans less for their tickets in 2026, but Tennessee has been replaced with Bowling Green.

And now Rhule is publicly exasperated at the idea of caring about the overall quality of the product his customers pay so much to receive.

Nebraska fans are as loyal, rabid and starved as they come, of course. If Rhule wins, none of this matters — keeping players out of the sight of would-be poachers in the spring will be a brilliant move — and the tailgates for Bowling Green and Houston Christian will still be popping. If he loses, he’s gone, and I guess you can tack this onto the list of grievances.

Now that successful college football seasons are going to consist of as many as 17 games, I’m guessing every Power 4 coach would prefer to keep things as light as possible before conference play. Rhule is just the one who said it out loud.

The challenge for college football is to be able to answer Rhule’s question as such: “You play a quality nonleague game against another Power 4 team because a win helps your case to get into the Playoff and a loss doesn’t bury you.”

That comes down to the selection committee. Yes, there’s a strength of schedule metric, but we’re coming off a season in which Indiana made the field of 12 after playing a nonleague trio of Florida International, Western Illinois and Charlotte. It’s not hard to see how a coach in the same league would be looking to throttle down.

Indiana deserved to be in, by the way, for the 10,000th time. That’s easy to argue. It’s impossible to argue that Indiana deserved to be in and that nonconference scheduling matters enough to the committee.

Here’s where the people who would serve their own interests at the expense of the sport’s long-term health might chime in with an endorsement of the plan for auto bids galore.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti won’t actually stand up in public and answer for this ridiculous idea. But they might not mind if folks take a moment to ponder and discuss the idea of Big Ten and SEC teams, knowing that the top four in each league get in for sure, being a bit more willing to take on bigger September games.

Possibly even an SEC/Big Ten challenge of sorts? Does that sweeten the pot enough? Hmmmm?

No. Hell no. On top of the actual devaluing of so much of the late stages of the regular season that the auto bids would bring, on top of the reduction in arguing around the committee’s rankings — arguing is a college football pillar, in case you didn’t notice — I don’t think this would work anyway.

More likely, September nonconference games would be like NFL preseason games. Who’s trying to get anyone important hurt if the conference race is the only thing?

The committee needs to matter and it needs to do better. Rhule went heavy on the hyperbole in defending his case, saying “early-season wins didn’t mean a thing” in 2024 and “if you’re scoring points and blowing people out late in the year, you’re going to make the Playoff.”

I’d argue Georgia’s neutral-site annihilation of Clemson helped Georgia overcome its later failures, Texas’ win at Michigan gave it a perception head start that mattered even after Michigan faded, Tennessee’s rout of NC State did the same despite a similar fade and that SMU not paying too dearly for a close loss to BYU is a data point in favor of good scheduling. Also, that games like this can help teams, too.

We need auto bids only for champions, and a committee that rewards wins in significant nonleague games more than it penalizes for losses in those games. That needs to be prioritized, it needs to be made clear to coaches, and maybe it needs to be official and mathematical in some way.

And if you think that’s a dumb idea, they’re talking about a bunch of play-in games to spruce up conference championship weekend, which sounds like Pop-A-Shot as an NBA All-Star Game alternative. Keep those TV people at arm’s length.

(Photo: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)

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