Penn State football coach James Franklin has been among several figures in the college football world who have recently floated the idea that the sport should create a “commissioner” position for Nick Saban.

Franklin appeared on ESPN’s College GameDay Wednesday morning, a day after his Nittany Lions beat Boise State 31-14 in a College Football Playoff quarterfinal game at the Fiesta Bowl. Saban, in his first year as a GameDay panelist after 17 seasons at Alabama, couldn’t resist having a little fun with Franklin.

“James, congratulations on a great win, and I just want to ask — does this put you one step closer to being the commissioner of college football?,” Saban said, as the other GameDay panelists erupted in laughter.

Franklin was unphased, however, doubling down on comments he made Monday, when he said at a Fiesta Bowl preview press conference that Saban “would be the obvious choice” for a hypothetical executive position supervising the entire sport. However, he admitted Wednesday he had a backup plan.

“You can keep trying to avoid this all you want, and I know ESPN and those guys don’t want to lose you, but I just think your impact on college football and your global understanding of what we need is important,” Franklin said. “And right now, no one’s running it. Right now, I’m going with you. If you tell me to stop, I’ll start pushing for Chris Petersen.”

Petersen, the highly successful former coach at Boise State and Washington, is also widely respected within the college football world. He retired after the 2019 season, and now works as a college football analyst for Fox Sports.

College football of course has no commissioner, with conference commissioners, school presidents and bowl executives running the sport in oligarchical fashion within the NCAA structure. It’s not entirely clear what authority a commissioner would have, but that hasn’t stopped many in and around the sport from pushing the idea of creating the postion as those in charge struggle to get their arms around issues such as NIL, the transfer portal and the postseason format.

Georgia’s Kirby Smart — a long-time Saban assistant at Alabama — has also weighed in on the idea of his old boss as commissioner. He did, however, note that putting Saban (or someone else) in place as commissioner wouldn’t automatically fix the sport.

“I don’t know if it as simple as let’s name a commissioner, and it solves all our problems,” Smart told reporters Monday ahead of the Bulldogs’ College Football Playoff game against Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl on Wednesday. “I don’t think that’s that case. We are governed by separate circumstances. Conferences govern us. NCAA governs us. Now we have courts govern us.

“I think a commissioner would be a nice thing in theory, but what can they effectively get done if everybody can’t agree on something?”