The college football calendar is broken; this much is a given. Top seeds have nearly a month off before the playoffs, and coaches of those teams must woo transfers while actively preparing for playoff games. Oregon head coach Dan Lanning has been campaigning to change the calendar for a while. On Saturday, he gained an unlikely ally in this pursuit: his opposing coach in the Peach Bowl, Indiana’s Curt Cignetti.
When asked about how he has been preparing to face Oregon’s defense, Cignetti said, “I’m seeing some different things, some different techniques, but also, with the college football calendar the way it is, we have 13 portal guys on campus right now. So from 10:00 till 2:00, my Oregon prep got cut a little bit short. So, you know, I’m going to pick up on that later this evening.”
At this, Lanning cracked a smile and shared his own struggles with prepping for the Peach Bowl. “Yeah. And just to build off that sentiment first, I’ll tell you, Coach Cignetti, keep focusing on those portal guys. We’re going through the same thing here, sorry. I did a breakfast with some recruits this morning. It is what it is. Right?”
Neither Cignetti nor Lanning is the type of coach to make excuses, rather they view it as a challenge. “What I’ll say is our players — you know, I don’t know if it makes you better dealing with what we’re dealing with, but what it has made football teams and what it’s made coaches and players is we can handle chaos, and we’re really malleable. We understand that college football right now is about change. There’s going to be a lot of change. The teams that can do the best at adapting and handling what’s thrown at you. We don’t make the rules; we just have to adapt to them, and our guys handle that. They’re tough kids.” Lanning said.
Lanning continued, saying, “They can handle the chaos of a schedule. As much as we can keep it similar and consistent for them, as much as we can be open and honest with them, I think they can handle almost anything you pitch at them, and really, coaching staffs are built that way now, too. There’s a lot of things going on. We’re dealing with two coaches on our staff that are going on to be head coaches, and the timing isn’t necessarily perfect, but it’s been done before, and it’s a great challenge. So I think if you look at the chaos in football and look at it as a challenge for your players and for your coaching staff, you build people that are resilient; you build people that are adaptable, and you build an organize that withstand a lot of the changes that exist.”
Cignetti echoed this, saying, “Yeah. I’d agree with that totally. You gotta adjust, adapt and improvise and be light on your feet. I’m not sure it necessarily affects the current team at all because the schedule will be the schedule. It obviously influences the ’26 roster quite a bit. I think that’s what you’re seeing is a lot of new faces on every team across the country. Players have a lot more options and the ability to improve their brand.”
Ultimately, Cignetti acknowledges that it is the responsibility of the coaching staff to juggle both recruiting transfers and prepping for playoff games. “It puts a little more stress on the coaching staff. Right now this time of year, if you’re still playing — and there’s only four of us really playing in the playoffs. There might be a couple other bowl games remaining. So I guess the teams that aren’t playing maybe have a little bit more of an advantage right now from a recruiting standpoint. But you gotta make time for it. You gotta get it done, do the best you can. But the focus primarily has to be on preparation for this game.” He said.
While Coach Cignetti and Coach Lanning may not agree on much this week, they can agree on one thing: the current CFB calendar needs to change.