LAS COLINAS, Texas — Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork told leaders of the College Football Playoff on Tuesday that the sport’s calendar needs to change, and it’s a critical component as they consider the playoff’s future format.

Bjork, just months removed from watching his Buckeyes win the national title, attended a portion of the annual CFP spring meetings to provide feedback with the three other athletic directors who participated in semifinals and hosted first-round games: Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte, Penn State athletic director Pat Kraft and Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua, who is part of the CFP’s management committee along with the 10 FBS commissioners.

Bjork said CFP executive director Rich Clark asked if he had one major point he wanted to make before leaving.

“We’ve had so many disruptions over the last five-plus years that I think the time is now to not be reactive, be proactive,” Bjork told ESPN. “When we had this setting here with the commissioners, our job was to provide feedback on what was it like to go through the 12-team playoff … but it all gets impacted by the calendar. I felt it was important to lay that out with everyone in the room to say, separate from the CFP process, if we don’t fix our calendar as an industry, then we’re going to continue to have unintended consequences.”

Bjork shared with the commissioners the perspective of a school trying to win a national title while classes had begun Jan. 6. Ohio State’s academic advisers traveled with the team to the semifinal and national title game, he said, but some athletes missed class and the school had to apply for waivers around the countable athletically related activities, which limits schools to 20 hours of practice time while classes are in session.

“When you don’t have class, there is no limit to CARA hours,” he said, noting that Texas started classes later. “It created some disadvantages. It all goes back to what’s countable CARA hours, NCAA structure. The portal is the next big conversation after the House case and truly what kind of rules can we set? Will we have the authority around transfer rules to set some parameters?”

Bjork said the transfer portal needs to move to a 10-day period in May for fall sports because if the NCAA House settlement is approved, most of the players are going to be signing revenue share agreements with the schools from July 1 to June 30.

“May makes the most sense” to align player contracts with the portal, Bjork said.

Bjork, who said he’s on the implementation committee for the House settlement, said “if everyone follows the structure, it’s going to be a great structure.”

“And everyone has to follow the rules,” he said, “and agree that this is the structure, which we have to. If we don’t do that, then what good is the settlement?”

Tensions between US President Donald Trump and US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell have hit a new high.

But why has the pair’s relationship deteriorated so badly? And what are the issues behind their spat?

Sky News correspondents Mark Stone and Paul Kelso take a closer look…

Powell’s independence is a problem for control-obsessed Trump

Mark Stone, US correspondent

The feud between Donald Trump and Jerome Powell is as predictable as it is serious.

Jerome ‘Jay’ Powell holds one of the most powerful and influential positions in the world.

As chair of the US Federal Reserve, he wields the levers which control global economic stability, such is the power of the US dollar.

The position comes with a huge amount of autonomy. Fed independence is seen to be paramount.

For a full-control-obsessed president like Donald Trump, that’s a problem.

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The American president cannot tell the Federal Reserve chair what to do – and that is by design.

But Trump could fire Powell if he chose to – unprecedented as that would be.

You only need to look at the market reaction to Trump’s language about Powell for a hint at how his firing would impact the global economy.

“Powell’s termination can’t come fast enough,” Trump said last week.

On Monday, he called Powell a “major loser”. This schoolyard language has global economic implications.

The markets – including the all-important bond markets – reacted with sell-offs at the end of the day.

Powell is a registered Republican. Trump hired him as Fed Reserve Chair during his first term but the relationship became fractious, fast.

Yet Trump did not remove him back then.

The position has a four-year term and President Joe Biden nominated him to a second term in 2022. That gives him until 2026.

Trump sees Powell increasingly as a barrier to his agenda. Trump’s ‘burn hot’ economy ideology does not align with Powell’s more pragmatic centrist ideology.

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He is unable to influence and bend Powell in the way that he has done with his own cabinet and members of Congress.

In his first term, Trump was talked out of removing Powell. But we know this second term is wholly different. He was talked away from the edge on many issues during his first term. This time, in many areas, he’s jumped.

Remember, Trump forced out two FBI directors – one in each term – because neither was considered to be loyal enough. The FBI, like the Federal Reserve, is considered traditionally to be independent.

Of course, the Federal Reserve has a profound global influence in a way the FBI, as an institution, does not.

The fed chair, with his role in setting interest rates and so much more, is arguably the last powerful, independent pillar of the economic policy structure in the US.

Congress has largely devolved its role to Trump and the executive branch, as illustrated by his tariff plans (which Congress could have influenced but chose not to).

Donald Trump’s removal of Jay Powell and replacement with a compliant loyalist could fundamentally shake the global economy.

Powell is one of the few reliable actors left defending economic stability in the US

Paul Kelso, business and economics correspondent

Donald Trump’s disparagement of Jay Powell as a “major loser” is not the first time he has insulted the man he appointed as chair of the US Federal Reserve in 2018.

The president appears to have had buyer’s remorse from the moment he approved the former investment banker to fill a post that is fundamental to US economic stability.

Trump was calling for the Fed to cut rates and stimulate the economy long before he was re-elected, but online barbs have more consequence when fired from the Oval Office than the campaign trail.

Equivalent to the Governor of the Bank of England, the chair of the Federal Reserve ultimately directs US monetary policy, including the setting of short-term interest rates, with the aim of maintaining high employment and stable inflation.

That makes Powell a crucial figure amid the chaos and incoherence of Trump’s economic policy, which in less than 90 days has shattered the certainties that made America the world’s largest economy, and the dollar the global reserve currency.

The market reaction to Trump’s venting against Powell, and briefing that his administration is considering ways to remove him from office, suggests investors fear it will make a bad situation worse.

As traders returned from the Easter weekend with the president’s criticism of Powell ringing in their ears, the “Trump slump” deepened.

US stocks and the dollar fell, while yields on US Treasuries – the mechanism by which the government borrows money – rose, indicative of falling bond prices as investors dumped US debt.

Gold prices, meanwhile, hit a record $3,500 an ounce as investors piled into what remains the pre-eminent “safe haven” asset in times of uncertainty.

The combination of falling equity, currency and bond prices is a toxic trifecta more usually associated with emerging economies in political crisis, not the mighty United States.

We saw something similar here in 2022, when Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng’s unfunded tax cuts, presented without an independent assessment from the Office for Budget Responsibility, caused a run on the gilt market.

Then it was the Bank of England that stepped in to stabilise the bond market.

What’s happening in the US is both bigger and more consequential.

Trump’s tariff program, seemingly imposed and withdrawn by presidential whim, has already proved disastrous for market sentiment, with expectations of higher inflation and lower growth, at home and globally, set to be confirmed by the International Monetary Fund in Washington this week.

Powell and the Fed are among the few reliable actors in this drama, with markets betting their next meeting in May will see rates held, in part because of inflationary policy made in the White House.

The prospect of Powell being replaced by a more pliant figure hand-picked by Trump would pull another block from the wobbling Jenga tower of US economic credibility.

The independence of the Fed is one of the foundations of American stability, an assumption that underpins the $29 trillion Treasuries market that makes the world’s debt go round.

If investors large and small, state and private, fear that the US is not good for that debt, it could be calamitous for American pre-eminence and the global economy.

Powell’s term ends in 2026 and he believes he cannot be removed by presidential decree.

That does not mean he will not face more pressure to stand aside.

No matter how badly a fleet wants to electrify their operations and take advantage of reduced fuel costs and TCO, the fact remains that there are substantial up-front obstacles to commercial EV adoption … or are there? We’ve got fleet financing expert Guy O’Brien here to help walk us through it on today’s fiscally responsible episode of Quick Charge!

This conversation was motivated by the recent uncertainty surrounding EVs and EV infrastructure at the Federal level, and how that turmoil is leading some to believe they should wait to electrify. The truth? There’s never been a better time to make the switch!

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