Vanderbilt football Clark Lea is the president of the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA), and the organization has recently supported significant changes to the college football calendar.
The AFCA endorsed a handful of changes, including College Football Playoff expansion and an earlier end to the season. As part of those changes, conference championship games could be eliminated.
In a statement to The Tennessean, Lea said that fixing the schedule was the primary focus. Currently, there is one single transfer portal window in January, but that window is before the national championship game. It also disadvantages schools that have earlier starts to their spring semester as the window extends into the start of class at some schools.
“The AFCA is concerned about the length of the season and the detrimental impact of playing well beyond the portal window, and into the second semester,” Lea said in the statement. “In response, the AFCA is asking that the season be concluded by the second Monday in January, which should give enough time for an expanded playoff to end, while also aligning more closely with the single portal window and the academic calendar.
“It is true that the AFCA would like to see playoff expansion, but there is no specific format supported by the statement. Instead, we are pushing for the end of the season to be addressed as a primary focus, and feel as though to accomplish this may require that we rethink some of the traditional weekends that have defined the college football season’s end, such as the Army/Navy weekend, as well as conference championship weekend.”
Lea has previously supported College Football Playoff expansion, though the model he supported was a 16-team playoff with no automatic bids rather than the 24-team playoff that the AFCA has backed.
Vanderbilt was ranked No. 14 in the final College Football Playoff rankings in 2025, getting left out of the CFP despite a 10-2 regular season record.
Aria Gerson covers Vanderbilt athletics for The Tennessean. Contact her at agerson@gannett.com or on X @aria_gerson.
