It's the third week of the college football season and the Michigan State Spartans are taking on Notre Dame under the lights in East Lansing.

You're coming into town for the big game and plan on staying with a friend for the weekend. As you roll into campus, you call your friend with the same question everyone seems to have: Where can I park and not get a ticket?

A pair of MSU college students who hail from Bay County think they have a solution that not only solves that problem but could drastically change the parking landscape on college campuses across the country.

Drew Piotrowski and Zach Brewer, 2014 and 2013 Essexville-Hampton Garber High School graduates, are the founders of "Prndl Parking," an application that's best described as the Airbnb of parking.

"The real issue with parking isn't the number of spots," Brewer said. "Our research shows that there are eight parking spots for every car in America. Our app is going to make parking more efficient."

The app lets people rent out their private parking spaces -- be it in their driveways or commercial parking lots -- to those looking to park for either a few hours or an entire semester.

On-street and on-campus parking spots can't be rented out, but the developers say the goal is to have enough private spots that users would have no more than a 10-minute walk to anywhere on campus.

Those looking to park can set their location on their smartphone and look on a map to see what spots are available nearby. If they're going to Spartan Stadium, for example, they can see how many spots are available, how much each spot costs and how far of a walk it would be to the stadium. People renting out their spot can pick specific days and times it's available to rent, creating a potential revenue stream for people who work 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. during the workweek and have room in their driveway.

A map view of some available parking spots in East Lansing through the app Prndl Parking.

The user completes a secure transaction through the app and Prndl -- which stands for "park, reverse, neutral, drive, low" and is pronounced PRIN-DUL -- takes a percentage of that payment as its source of revenue. Parking spot owners set their own prices and can change them for demand, so likely expect higher prices during football games and other major events.

Jason Cody, spokesman for Michigan State University, said the college doesn't endorse third party companies and advises students and employees to use the service at their own risk.

"That said, it sounds like the individuals who came up with the idea are trying to be entrepreneurs and, for anyone, that's commendable," Cody said.

All users -- parking spot owners and those paying for the spots -- have profiles that can receive ratings and feedback based on how well they use the service. So, if a user has his or her car parked in a spot for longer than the allotted time, they could receive negative feedback and parking spot owners could choose not to offer their spot to that person in the future.

Brewer said both sides of the transaction can communicate with each other through the app if there's an issue with a car being parked for too long or if the spot that was reserved isn't available. In some cases, the owner of a parking spot could have a car towed that's not supposed to be there.

"That's something we would want to avoid," Brewer said.

A list view of a parking location on the Prndl Parking app.

The college students are focusing their efforts in East Lansing for now. This week, they were closing deals with churches near campus to put a portion of their parking lots on the app. In the coming weeks, they're going to target freshman, who aren't allowed to purchase a campus parking permit from the university. They also see an opportunity for older students and even employees who live off campus and still purchase a campus parking permit.

In 2015, MSU sold nearly 12,000 student permits and 11,500 employee permits, according to its police department's annual report.

The app's developers also expect the service to cut down on parking tickets. In 2015, 80,731 parking citations were issued at MSU. About 87 percent of those citations were paid.

"We're trying to alleviate that pain for students," Piotrowski said. "A cool selling point of this app is that we're expecting students to offer their parking spaces off campus, so when you're parking with Prndl, you're paying students rather than the giant system that's ticketing everyone."

In addition to cutting down on parking tickets, Piotrowski says the service will help alleviate issues of students being late or missing classes.

"My friends and I have had to skip classes because we circle around the block three or four times looking for a spot," he said.

Cody, MSU's spokesman, said parking becomes a perceived issue at any major institution.

"We have a good parking lot system for our students and employees," he said. "Most of the time, any issues with parking can be resolved by simply planning ahead."

Earlier this year, the students received $20,000 in funding for 5 percent equity from Conquer Accelerator, a Michigan State University program that mentors startup founders and provides them with a creative working space and other resources to grow their companies.

In the coming months, they plan to pitch their app to investors to obtain more funding. They hope to raise another $20,000 in the short term and then $200,000 as more people are signed up.

Once the service is up and running in East Lansing, they hope to expand to other universities, including the University of Michigan and Grand Valley State University.