College football has changed a lot. Portal windows are stretching wider and getting lesser. NIL deals have become leverage points. The calendar stretched into places it probably shouldn’t. Then there’s eligibility and tampering chaos. Still, none of this feels shocking. Although better management would have worked in everybody’s favor. That’s the backdrop for what Kirk Herbstreit said on February 5.

Does anyone else feel like we’re still legislating college football as if it were still the 1980s or it’s a regional sport? At least that’s what Kirk Herbstreit thinks as he floated the idea of Nick Saban becoming a national commissioner for college football during an appearance on The Dan Patrick Show. The former Ohio State QB pointed out that conference commissioners are incentivized to protect their own territory, not the sport as a whole. That’s where the former Alabama GOAT coach comes in. 

“My only hope is Nick Saban and people can say he’s got an Alabama twist,” he said. “If you really know Saban, he has a college football twist. He cares about the players, he cares about the sport. Him being involved with Congress and the President. He’s got a lot of people’s ears and I think he has good intentions. I’m hopeful that he’ll be able to help out.”

And yes, this was Nick Saban’s idea first. Since stepping into a more public-facing role with ESPN College GameDay, he has repeatedly pushed the idea that college football needs centralized leadership. 

“I think that we need to have a commissioner who’s kind of over all the conferences,” he said last December. “As well as a competition committee who sort of defines the rules of how we’re going to play the game. Because that’s what we don’t have right now.”

Nick Saban also said the sport doesn’t have contracts anymore when discussing player and coach obligations. He called the current system “a little bit of anarchy,” which might actually be generous. His broader point was that the CFP has distracted fans from deeper structural failures because the product is still compelling at the top.

Kirk Herbstreit isn’t new to this conversation, either. He’s been calling games since 1996. He’s watched scholarship limits, conference realignment, the four-team playoff, and now the 12-team era. He’s seen how quickly rule changes ripple and how slowly leadership responds. A national commissioner, paired with a true governing body, could theoretically clean up a few obvious messes like portal timing and NIL guardrails.

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Nick Saban, for his part, has been clear that he didn’t exactly campaign for the job. Last August, he told the Associated Press he doesn’t want to be “in that briar patch” of being commissioner. But he also said he wants to help make it right. And Kirk Herbstreit is not alone in his choice.

Nebraska coach Matt Rhule openly endorsed Nick Saban for the role on his House Rhules podcast, arguing that the job requires someone willing to make unpopular decisions. He even invoked NFL commissioner Roger Goodell as the model. Virginia Tech head coach James Franklin echoed the sentiment back in December 2024. He called Nick Saban the “obvious choice” for the sport with uncontrolled chaos. 

Why college football needs a commissioner

This isn’t just about leadership aesthetics. More than 10,500 players across all divisions entered the portal ahead of 2026 season. 6,500 of them are from D1. Seasons now run from late August into late January stretching five months. Then there’s eligibility confusion that’s opened lawsuits including Ole Miss’ QB Trinidad Chambliss. There’s also tampering. Backchannel recruiting while games are still being played. The biggest one as of late is Dabo Swinney’s allegations against the Rebels. 

And that leads into the broader frustration voices like former NFL star Michael Irvin have been airing publicly. At Super Bowl Radio Row, he criticized NIL’s impact on recruiting, questioned the CFP committee’s credibility, and argued that players are being shortchanged by a broken evaluation process. This sport is operating without a central authority, and everyone knows it. 

A commissioner wouldn’t fix everything. Still, when people as different as Kirk Herbstreit, Nick Saban, Matt Rhule, James Franklin, and Michael Irvin are all circling the same issue, something needs to be done. Not because college football is dying. But because it’s drifting and it needs direction.