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Dabo Swinney in favor of major scheduling change for college football

This would be crazy!

The NFL has preseason games every  year to get teams warmed up for their regular season and there's at least one college coach who wants the same thing for his team now. In an interview with The Rich Eisen Show, Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said he wouldn't mind if the NCAA did something similar.

"Absolutely. Man, I would love to have the opportunity, even if it wasn't in public, I'd love to have the opportunity to go scrimmage another opponent. Someone you don't know much about. (Teammates) know all each other's nuances and when you're on a practice field day in and day out. ... It'd be nice to be one team on a sideline and play against another opponent. I think it'd be awesome. That's why the NFL does it. They go practice, they have preseason games, because you can only get so much done in practice."

It's actually not against the rules to do that, but it counts against the total amount of games a team can play in a season. Per NCAA Bylaw 17.9.5.1, a school "shall limit its total regular-season playing schedule with outside competition during the permissible football playing season in any one year to 12 contests (games or scrimmages)."

So if you schedule a preseason you only get to play 11 regular season contests and when it comes to the athletic budget, schools aren't giving up the money of a potential home game or 50/50 split of a neutral site game. Until the NCAA specifically makes room for preseason contests that don't hamper the regular season numbers don't expect a big movement behind the sentiment.

[h/t NFL.com]