There’s a way to increase the college football schedule but also play the national championship game on Jan. 1.
Conference championships must go. Replace them with a 13th game for everyone.
Start season in August. End it on New Year’s Day.

Fernando Mendoza is a champion. He’s also an idea man.

Asked during a 2024 podcast appearance what his idea would be for a bowl game, Mendoza suggested a game in Alaska.

“It’d be crazy — just the salmon and bears all around,” said Mendoza, before going on to win the Heisman Trophy and a national championship as Indiana’s quarterback.

Hey, nobody said it was a good idea.

Inspired by Mendoza’s blue-sky thinking, I’ve come up with a few postseason ideas of my own and revamped the playoff schedule.

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1. Eliminate conference championship games, move to 13-game schedule

The playoff selection committee confirmed conference championship games had lost their meaning after Georgia boot-stomped Alabama in the SEC championship, and then neither team budged an inch in the ensuing CFP rankings. The committee treated Alabama-Georgia as a December exhibition.

The argument for conference championships further withered when Duke won the ACC title game, but Miami received the conference’s de facto automatic bid.

Conference championships were once revolutionary. They’re now antiquated. Time to evolve.

Dump them in favor of an additional data point for every team. I’m not suggesting play-in games. Sorry, Tony Petitti, that idea still stinks.

Instead, I’m suggesting every team play a 13-game regular-season schedule, with no conference championship games. So, you’d just add one game to everybody’s schedule.

On the subject of regular-season scheduling, to be eligible for playoff consideration, each Power Four team should be required to play at least 11 of its 13 games against either Power Four opponents or Notre Dame.

So, a schedule could look like this:

Two cupcake games + two marquee nonconference games + nine conference games = 13 games.

2. Start the season earlier, but keep rivalry week during Thanksgiving

No matter when the season starts and ends, rivalry week must remain during Thanksgiving week.

Ohio State-Michigan. The Iron Bowl. The Egg Bowl. Texas-Texas A&M.

These games should occur alongside a helping of turkey and pumpkin pie. Rivalry week remains the sport’s pinnacle. Leave it undisturbed, even if the playoff changes in size and shape.

But, we must find a spot for the 13th game I’ve added to the schedule. I could slot that 13th game in December, in place of conference championship weekend. But, no. Instead, start the regular season a week sooner. In other words, the week that’s now dubbed Week 0 becomes Week 1. The regular season would end with rivalry games during Thanksgiving weekend. Then, advance straight into playoff selection.

3. Start and end the College Football Playoff sooner

OK, so I’ve freed up the first weekend in December by nixing conference championship weekend and slotting the additional game into Week 0. Using the 2026 calendar as a guide, that means the regular season would start Aug. 29 and end Nov. 28, with Selection Sunday the following day.

Let’s model what this could look like, using the current 12-team playoff format.

First-round playoff games: Dec. 4-5. One game on Friday, followed by three on Saturday.
Quarterfinal playoff games: Dec. 11-12. One game on Friday, followed by three on Saturday.
Semifinal playoff games: Dec. 19.
National championship game: Jan. 1.

This would wrap up the postseason before the NFL playoffs begin.

By starting the postseason sooner and shortening delays between CFP games, you’d build off the momentum of rivalry week and Selection Sunday and roll straight into a playoff crescendo.

4. Make New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day a college football bonanza

Bowl games don’t mean what they used to, but they can be incorporated throughout the holiday season as appetizers to the national championship game to preserve New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day as marquee dates on the college football calendar.

Earmark multiple bowl games to be played daily, starting on Dec. 26. Include several bowl games on Dec. 31 and additional bowl games in the noon and afternoon windows on Jan. 1, as the lead-up to the national championship game that kicks off in prime time on New Year’s Day.

5. Portal opens after the national championship

Open the transfer portal on Jan. 2, one day after the national championship game.

Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s senior national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.

This is the first time since 2010 that no former NFL MVP quarterbacks are playing in the conference championships.
Both conference championship games feature a coaching matchup between two people with the same first name.
Broncos quarterback Jarrett Stidham will be the seventh QB since 1950 to start a playoff game without a regular-season start.
The home team has won all five previous playoff matchups between the Patriots and Broncos.
The team that has eliminated the 49ers from the playoffs has won the Super Bowl in seven of the last eight instances.

Party guests, watch out.

It’s that time of year when everyone gathers to watch the biggest NFL games of the season, meaning you might have a little more company than usual. In other words, it’s time to impress the guests and show your grasp of NFL facts, oddities and useless trivia that have no impact on the games this weekend but are fun nonetheless.

Internet trends have indicated that everyone should party like it’s 2016. Ironically enough, the NFL obliged and gave fans a rematch of the 2016 AFC championship game between the Denver Broncos and New England Patriots. Peyton Manning and Tom Brady won’t be on the field this time around, but these have been the AFC’s best teams all season anyway.

Now it’s up to Jarrett Stidham to carry Denver to Super Bowl 60 after Bo Nix’s season-ending ankle injury.

Over in the NFC, the Seattle Seahawks are set to host the division rival Los Angeles Rams in this winner-take-all third meeting of the season.

With so much history, it’s only fitting that we look back on some of the weird and wacky ahead of the conference championships. These won’t fit on the inside of a Snapple cap, but feel free to use them to impress your friends, family and random strangers anyway.

Here’s a look at some of the factoids, oddities and more ahead of conference championship weekend in the NFL.

NFL championship weekend factoids and oddities

No former NFL MVPs at QB for the first time since 2010

The best players typically play in the biggest games, which shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Despite that, the AFC and NFC championship games feature a quartet of quarterbacks who haven’t won the NFL MVP award. It is the first time since 2010 that the weekend won’t have an MVP quarterback on the field.

That season, the conference championship quarterback menu was Ben Roethlisberger, Mark Sanchez, Aaron Rodgers and Jay Cutler. Of course, Rodgers went on to become a four-time NFL MVP, but he wasn’t one at the time of the game.

Now 15 years later, it’ll be Stidham, Drake Maye, Sam Darnold and Matthew Stafford who will battle with the trip to Super Bowl 60 on the line.

The Name Game

Both the AFC and NFC championship games feature a coaching matchup between two people with the same first name.

Sean McVay vs. Mike Macdonald. Sean Payton vs. Mike Vrabel.

It sets up the possibility for a Super Bowl matchup between a pair of coaches with the same first name. In Super Bowl history, that has only happened twice:

Super Bowl 32: Mike Shanahan (Broncos) vs. Mike Holmgren (Packers)
Super Bowl 45: Mike McCarthy (Packers) vs. Mike Tomlin (Steelers)

Just getting started

Stidham is set to make his first start of the season with Nix out.

Per Sportradar, Stidham will become the seventh quarterback since 1950, when the stat started being tracked, to start a playoff game without at least one start in the regular season. Here’s a look at the list:

Taylor Heinicke, 2020 Washington
Connor Cook, 2016 Raiders
Joe Webb, 2012 Vikings
Frank Reich, 1992 Bills
Gary Danielson, 1983 Lions
Roger Staubach, 1972 Cowboys

Reich was the only one of the group to get a win in the playoff contest.

While Stidham hopes to join Reich in the winner’s circle, he’ll also join Webb as the only quarterback to start a playoff game without throwing a pass in the regular season. The Broncos’ backup last recorded a pass attempt on Jan. 7, 2024, which was his last start that came in Week 18 of the 2023 season.

Stidham will also join Staubach as the second quarterback to make his first start of the season in the conference championship game or Super Bowl.

History not on Patriots side in AFC championship game

The Patriots have battled the Broncos five times in the NFL playoffs.

Home teams have dominated the series, going 5-0 in the previous matchups. Four of those games were in Denver, indicating that home-field advantage could be key to winning the AFC championship.

California dreamin’ or nightmare?

New England has the most Super Bowl appearances of any NFL team with 11. Despite that, the Patriots have never made the Super Bowl when it was played in California, which has been the case 13 times – the second-most of any state.

Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California is set to host the game for the second time in its history – the same building that was the site for the Broncos’ most recent triumph in Super Bowl 50.

On the flip side, Denver has made the Super Bowl eight times and four of those games were played in The Golden State.

49ers to spark Seahawks Super Bowl run?

History is on the Seahawks’ side heading into the NFC championship game. Seattle’s elimination of the San Francisco 49ers in the divisional round activated a trend that not only bodes well for this week, but Super Bowl 60 as well.

Dating back to 2002, the 49ers have made the playoffs eight times. The team that eliminated them has gone on to win the Super Bowl seven of those eight times.

Only the 2022 Philadelphia Eagles failed to win the big game, losing to the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl 57.

Familiar foes

The NFC championship game might as well be rebranded as the NFC West championship game this season. Easily the best division in the league, the Seahawks and Rams will, fittingly, battle for a third and final time to determine which team heads to Super Bowl 60.

It will be just the sixth time that a conference championship game will feature a divisional matchup. The winner of the game went on to win the Super Bowl all five times, with the division winner being victorious in four of those matchups.

Here’s a look at the recent division-themed conference championship games:

2024 NFC Championship: Philadelphia Eagles 55, Washington Commanders 23
2021 NFC Championship: Los Angeles Rams 20, San Francisco 49ers 17
2013 NFC Championship: Seattle Seahawks 23, San Francisco 49ers 17
2010 NFC Championship: Green Bay Packers 21, Chicago Bears 14
2008 AFC Championship: Pittsburgh Steelers 23, Baltimore Ravens 14

Fernano Mendoza has officially updated his LinkedIn status to ‘open to work’ on Friday, Jan. 23.

The Indiana football quarterback announced his intention to enter the 2026 NFL Draft on Friday morning on his Instagram account, but in true Mendoza fashion, he also updated his LinkedIn status to ‘open to work.’

‘Coming to Indiana was a leap of faith, a leap that led me to go 16-0 with my boys and a national championship,’ Mendoza said. ‘And has now led me here, the moment where I get to dream bigger. Thank you to my family, the teammates that pushed me, the coaches that took a chance on me, it’s only with your support and the glory of God that I’m here today. With trust in my foundation and gratitude for every person that has helped me reach this moment. I’m ready to take the next step.’

‘My LinkedIn status is now, open to work, and I’m officially declaring for the 2026 NFL Draft.’

In his lone season with Indiana, Mendoza completed 273-of-379 passes (72%) for 3,535 yards, 41 touchdowns and six interceptions, leading the Hoosiers to a perfect 16-0 record and the first national championship in program history.

Mendoza won the 2026 Heisman Trophy honors, becoming the first Indiana player to ever do so. He also won the Walter Camp Award, Maxwell Award and Davey O’Brien Award, while earning Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year and Quarterback of the Year honors.

With his declaration, Mendoza is widely speculated to become the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, with Tom Brady and the Las Vegas Raiders holding the first pick.

Fernando Mendoza stats

Here’s a look at Mendoza’s stats in his three collegiate seasons:

2023 (California): 153-of-243 passing (63%) for 1,708 yards, 14 touchdowns and 10 interceptions; 49 rushes for 86 yards and two touchdowns
2024 (California): 265-of-386 passing (68.7%) for 3,004 yards, 16 touchdowns and six interceptions; 87 rushes for 105 yards and two touchdowns
2025 (Indiana): 273-of-379 passing (72%) for 3,535 yards, 41 touchdowns and six interceptions; 90 rushes for 276 yards and seven touchdowns

Toronto Maple Leafs coach Craig Berube was one of the NHL’s toughest characters during his playing days.

He looks like he has gone a couple rounds.

Berube, 60, was sporting a major black eye when he addressed the media on Friday, Jan. 23, before his team took on the Vegas Golden Knights that evening.

He said it was from an accident in the gym on Thursday.

‘The other guy looked way worse,’ he joked. ‘There were three of them.’

He then lifted his cap to show a major gash on his forehead that had been stitched up.

‘It was stupid,’ he said. ‘It was this bad accident. It’s all on me. It’s my fault, and I’m fine.’

He said he’s going to be behind the bench for the game.

Friday marks the return of Mitch Marner, the longtime Maple Leafs star who signed with the Golden Knights in the offseason.

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If you didn’t know better, you’d take USC football quite seriously. You do know better, because you’ve seen Lincoln Riley’s USC defenses.
Southern Cal is reportedly targeting Gary Patterson as its defensive coordinator.
Lincoln Riley says he feels ‘fantastic’ about USC’s defense, ahead of pivotal 2026 season.

If you didn’t know better, you’d be taking Southern Cal football quite seriously. The Trojans signed a robust recruiting class. They’re returning their starting quarterback, Jayden Maiava, on the heels of a nine-win season.

By now, we do know better than to take a Lincoln Riley team seriously — at least, not as a national championship contender or even a Big Ten frontrunner. In nine seasons coaching blue bloods, Riley never assembled an elite defense. He’s rarely even produced a good defense.

On cue, USC’s season ended in an Alamo Bowl loss in overtime last month after the Trojans missed four tackles while TCU running back Jeremy Payne turned a check-down pass into a winning touchdown on 3rd-and-20.

A touchdown. On a check-down pass. On 3rd-and-stinkin’-20.

That’s Riley football.

That’s USC football.

That’s not serious football.

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In what could be a make-or-break season for Riley, he didn’t do nearly enough in the transfer sweepstakes to substantially upgrade USC’s defense. That’s after the Trojans ranked 13th in the Big Ten in total defense, despite not facing either Indiana or Ohio State.

USC will play the Hoosiers and the Buckeyes in 2026 amid a Big Ten schedule that also includes Oregon, Penn State and Washington.

So, how’s Riley feeling about that defense ahead of this pivotal season?

“I feel fantastic” about the defense, Riley said after the bowl loss. “You know, we’ve made obviously documented strides the last couple of years statistically, but those that really study the game and watch the way that we’ve played and the way that we’ve been able to improve, the arrow is just pointing straight up.”

Um, sure.

It’s true the Trojans improved defensively — partly because USC played some of the worst defense in the country his first two seasons. His defenses went from bad to something better than bad.

In losses to TCU, Illinois, Notre Dame and Oregon, the Trojans allowed a total of 140 points.

Which direction is that arrow pointing?

But, hey, he’s got a new hand to fix it. USC just hired former TCU coach Gary Patterson as its defensive coordinator.

If Gary Patterson can’t fix USC defense, can anyone?

Patterson’s Horned Frogs had some toughness to them, but he’s not had an on-field coaching job since TCU parted with him in 2021.

Patterson is used to being in charge. Not since 2000 has he worked under a coach as a defensive coordinator. There’s no telling how this might go.

He’ll be the fourth defensive coordinator to work under Riley, including his third at USC. The last coordinator to have much success running a defense for Riley was Alex Grinch at Oklahoma in 2020.

Riley’s teams are, in a word, sawwwffft. Softer than milk chocolate on a summer day at Hermosa Beach.

That doesn’t win championships in this era. That didn’t win championships in previous eras, either.

Consider the past five national champions: Georgia (twice), Michigan, Ohio State and Indiana. Each had a top-10 defense. If you accused a defensive lineman on one of those teams of being soft, you might find yourself consuming meals through a straw.

When Riley coached Oklahoma in the Big 12, he built playoff squads thanks to his ability to develop star quarterbacks. His defenses routinely got exploited in playoff losses. He scooted out of Oklahoma before it joined the more rugged SEC, only to find himself stuck inside the nation’s best conference, the Big Ten.

Riley’s offenses are always good enough that he never delivers a truly bad season. That’s his secret sauce. He’s 9-for-9 delivering winning records throughout his career. He’s never won a playoff game.

At USC, he’s 35-18. His best year was his first. That would get Riley fired from LSU. Ask Brian Kelly about that.

To Riley’s credit, he signed a No. 1-ranked recruiting class loaded with four-star talent. One wonders where those players will be a year or two from now, if Riley doesn’t accelerate his performance. Take it from Indiana: National championships are won with grown men, many of them transfers.

Lincoln Riley faces pivotal season in USC tenure

Curt Cignetti offered proof that patience is a loser’s battle cry, but a bit of patience can still be rewarded. Mario Cristobal didn’t get Miami into the playoff until his Year 4 breakthrough.

Riley enters his fifth season after being hired to a 10-year contract. If you consider the idea of a top recruiting class joining a nine-win team that returns its quarterback, you might think the Trojans are poised to join Miami as a name brand ready to reclaim their place of power.

Peel back the surface, though, and comparing USC to the 2025 Hurricanes becomes difficult. Miami had a sturdy defense, complete with the nation’s fiercest pass rush. The Hurricanes excelled at getting off the field on third down.

That just doesn’t sound like a Riley team, does it?

Third-and-20. Check-down. Touchdown.

“We have the personnel to” play great defense, Riley told reporters on Dec. 30. “We’re on an upward trend.”

If you didn’t know better, you might believe that.

Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s senior national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.

Now I’m getting annoyed with these backhanded compliments, this transitive property explanation of the greatest sports story of our time. 

Stop saying if Indiana can win the national title, anyone can. Because they can’t.   

“It wasn’t some magic trick you can teach,” said Indiana center Pat Coogan. “You can’t replicate it.”

You can, however, minimize it — which is exactly what’s happening mere days after the fact.

Indiana was the worst program in college football history. Didn’t have elite high school recruits, or elite transfer portal additions.

Didn’t have the structure or framework, or history and tradition, blue bloods of the sport have used in the modern era to dominate year after year. So there has to be a reason, has to be something to explain this meteoric metamorphosis. 

It is here where the boogeyman NIL enters the room, The Tempter with the bling and zing and the easy road to everything you’ve dreamed. 

Only there is no easy road. Never has been, never will be.

Just because Indiana won the national title, it doesn’t mean Kentucky or Kansas or Wake Forest can or will. It doesn’t mean other lovable losers of the past can rise from the dregs of the sport and turn it sideways with a two-year run that defies logic ― by throwing NIL money at the problem.

Once we bend and make that absurd jump from rare to attempted reason, we’re completely ignoring the impact of, in no uncertain order: 

Hoosiers coach Curt Cignetti.
Evaluation and development from Cignetti and his staff, including offensive and defensive coordinators who have been with him for years.
A core group of overlooked players — the unloved and unwanted of both the transfer portal and high school recruiting — playing at their ceiling and motivated to prove a point.
Did I say Cignetti?

Beyond the unthinkable worst to first, rags to riches, cellar to thrown analogies, nothing underscores Indiana’s rise among a sport built by and for the elites more that this astounding reality: The last first-time national title winner was Florida in 1996. 

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That’s 30 years.

Since 1996 and prior to Indiana’s record run of 16 wins, a total of 14 teams won national titles over three decades. There’s nothing random about a clique of schools who continue to win (and play for) national championships.

Winning championships of any kind is difficult, winning the whole thing is damn near impossible unless you’re part of the clique. Even then, it takes good fortune and maybe even a few breaks, to get it done.

Cignettis don’t grow on trees, nor does the unique convergence of motivation and assimilation of transfer portal additions playing the best of their careers while being accepted and embraced by the rest of the locker room.

Before you start throwing around meaningless ideals of the change agent transfer portal, you might want to examine the thing. 

Two years ago, Florida State followed an unbeaten regular season by landing a Top-3 transfer portal class, according to the 247Sports composite ranking. The Noles then went out and won two games — one against Cal and some quarterback named Mendoza.

LSU signed the No. 1 transfer portal class in 2025, and coach Brian Kelly didn’t even make it to the end of the show. He was fired in late October, and the Tigers finished with all of seven wins. 

And those are two blue bloods, two with every advantage to winning big — falling flat on their faces. 

So now we’re supposed to believe any historical nobody of Division I football can not only find the right players, but get them to play with chemistry, and cohesively at the top of their games. With any ol’ coach. 

You’ve got to be kidding me. 

Indiana did this without a single blue-chip recruit on the roster, without a single player who — at some point in his development — was considered among the best in the game. The Hoosiers did it with a coach who bet on himself in his 50s, left the Nick Saban coaching nest at Alabama and started over in the NCAA lower divisions. 

Only to work his way back up to the FBS Power conference level at the losingest program in the history of the sport. Then completely turn around a ship dead in the water, and go full-steam with guns loaded at the blue bloods of the sport. 

And win 27 of 29 games. 

My god, the depths at which blue blood caretakers of the sport will go to minimize what just happened in Bloomington, Ind. 

First Indiana was playing a cake schedule, and when that didn’t work, the Hoosiers must have been cheating. Straight Connor Stalions stuff. 

When that didn’t work — days before the national championship game, no less — and after Indiana finally pulled the refurbished muscle car into the national champions garage without scratch, well, there was only one thing left to say. 

If Indiana can do it, anyone can.

Only they can’t.