James Franklin's comments on Notre Dame, uniformity are little more than a pipe dream

James Franklin decided to stir the pot a little bit on Wednesday, taking a shot at Notre Dame's independent status ahead of Friday's semifinal clash.

Speaking during the pre-game press conference, Franklin said the Orange Bowl matchup is about "representing our schools and our conferences," according to ESPN's Adam Rittenberg. He then corrected himself, saying "Or our conference, excuse me."

But Franklin wasn't done yet.

"It should be consistent across college football," Franklin said. "This is no knock at [Freeman] or Notre Dame, but I think everybody should be in a conference. I think everybody should play a conference championship game, or nobody should play a conference champion championship game. I think everybody should play the same number of conference games."

The Nittany Lions' head coach continued to bemoan the lack of continuity across the college football landscape, saying that he thinks there needs to be a central, governing authority, and expressed a desire to appoint someone like Nick Saban as the sport's commissioner.

Franklin is just the latest in a growing chorus of voices calling for more uniformity and control at the college football's highest level. But while the desire for consistency is understandable, it fails to grasp something important: Notre Dame has no need for a conference, and the last century plus of history has shown FBS football to be practically ungovernable.

The Irish have their own incredibly lucrative TV deal. They can play whoever they want, whenever they want, wherever they want, and make money hand over fist. They can recruit anywhere, and have the single most nationally dispersed fan base of any team in the country. And as this season has shown, they can thrive in the playoff without the benefit of a bye that comes from winning a conference title.

So what on earth can joining a conference do for them? Are you going to try and lock Notre Dame out of a future playoff picture if they don't join a conference? Good luck doing that without a massive fight. The Irish are fiercely proud of and protective of their independent standing, and they have every right to be.

On top of that, the idea of someone voluntarily taking on the position of commissioner in college football is the height of absurdity. It works in a sport like the NFL because the owners (often begrudgingly) admit that in order for things to flourish, they have to work collectively and sacrifice a little control individually in order to make the most money and have the most success possible.

There's a reason why college football has never been able to put a central authority together to regulate and control the sport: it's like herding 135 angry, hostile cats that want as much as they can get while making sure that their neighbors get as little as possible. Even if you limit the commissioner to running a pared down version of the sport with, let's say 40 to 50 of the biggest programs in college football, you're dealing with a collection of schools who are very used to getting their way, and do not like the idea of having to compromise with one another.

Don't forget, one of the reasons that the Big 12 very nearly spun apart was because Texas ran an end around on the league and started their own television network, which led to some very unhappy schools around them. The reason the Pac-12 came to the very edge of death was because USC and UCLA jumped at the chance to make a little more cash and left the rest of the league scrambling to find life rafts.

Each of these schools would absolutely leave the rest of the sport high and dry if it meant they'd get a little more, or even if it meant their rivals got a little less.

We've barely had the current setup of college sports for a full year at this point; we have no idea how the power dynamics of how things are set up now will shake out. Asking someone to step in and run the show at this point would be an impossible task, and one that all but the least qualified idiots would take (someone please take Pat McAfee's phone away from him right now, lest he start making calls to see if they'd let him do it).

In other words, Franklin can moan all he likes about consistency and the need for centralized authority, but much like Penn State actually winning a game against a good opponent, it's a dream that is still little more than theoretical right now.

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