Nick Saban pushes for action from conference commissioners before CFP games

As college football drifts increasingly toward chaos, many have suggested former coach and current broadcaster Nick Saban as a possible commissioner of the sport. Saban's ability to synthesize complicated issues and chop through superfluous detail makes him a clear standout as the man who could fix college football.

In a recent appearance on College GameDay, Saban spoke up about his beef with college football's calendar-- and what he'd like to see happen. Timing, according to Saban, is at the heart of the chaos in college football. The transfer portal will open on Friday, January 2nd, and will close two weeks later for all but a few still active teams. The spring portal period, which usually ran in April, is now a thing of the past. And Saban isn't happy.

"We need to change the calendar, " said Saban. "Chaos in college football starts tomorrow. The portal opens.... [W]hat happens if Ole Miss wins and Oregon wins? Oregon's got two coordinators trying to take guys from their team to their team and guys from other teams to their team. And Ole Miss has got six coaches going to LSU, trying to take guys to LSU from their team, but they've got to play a game somehow. Is that chaos or is that chaos?"

"We need to change the College Football calendar..

The conference commissioners need to get together and figure this out" ~ Coach Saban#CollegeGameDay pic.twitter.com/bS7LHZT7bn
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) January 1, 2026

Saban's example is very much a legitimate one. The circus surrounding Lane Kiffin and his former assistants coaching Ole Miss has played out over the past month. Oregon is losing offensive coordinator Will Stein to Kentucky and defensive coordinator Tosh Lupoi to California. A fair amount of the brainpower behind the College Football Playoff is being stretched in multiple directions and seemingly no one is very happy.

But who, ESPN broadcaster Kirk Herbstreit asked Saban, can fix the problem? Other than some sort of czar (which again, is a role many would thrust onto Saban himself), there's only one path for Saban-- for conference commissioners to shift the calendar themselves.

"I don't think there's anybody in authority in college football except the conference commissioners," said Saban. "So if they can't get together on it, you're going to have a problem."

And what ultimately does Saban see as the solution to that problem?

"[M]ake the portal in May," said Saban, "to kind of match up with the academic calendar. Change spring practice until after that so that you can get your team together and work over the summer, just like an NFL team does.... Do the same thing in college football and you wouldn't have these issues with coaches changing jobs, because everybody could finish the season with their team, which is what's best for the players."

The tension between the academic calendar and the portal calendar for what is at least somewhat an academically-centered transaction is likely to continue creating turmoil. Will Saban's late-spring/early-summer portal idea gather steam? Will it require the installation of the legendary coach as the de facto boss of college football? The distance between Saban's New Year's wish and college football reality could be thinner than many might expect.