On Saturday, at noon ET, Florida State and Georgia Tech kick off the 2024 college football season from inside Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland.
The international ACC showdown is one of four college football games played a week before the traditional Labor Day weekend kickoff — a date known as “Week 0.” The full smorgasbord of college games unfurls next week, featuring three top-25 matchups (Georgia-Clemson, Notre Dame-Texas A&M and LSU-USC) and two spicy in-state/border rivalry meetings (Miami-Florida and Penn State-West Virginia).
But what if those games were this weekend? What if the start of the season began a week earlier?
In the future, it could very well happen. In fact, not long ago, College Football Playoff leaders seriously discussed the prospect of shifting up by a week the entire regular season: Week 0 would become the new Week 1 and conference championship games would shift from the first weekend in December to the Thanksgiving week. Rivalry Week, traditionally played Thanksgiving week, would move to the third week of November.
The goal: Free up the second week of December to play the four first-round games of the expanded playoff. For now, those games are scheduled for the third week of December, when at least two of those games will go head-to-head with the NFL.
Is it realistic to shift up the entire regular season? Yes.
Is it difficult to shift up the entire regular season? Also, yes.
“We have to continue to consider Week 0 in my view,” ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said last year about the prospect. “I don’t know that anybody’s ready to say we can’t do it or we can do it.”
However, since Phillips uttered those words many months ago, conversations around the prospect have faded. College leaders begrudgingly made the decision to take on the NFL head-to-head. Two of the four first-round playoff games on Dec. 21 will be played at the same time as two regular season NFL games.
These aren’t just any ho-hum NFL games. The 1 p.m. ET kickoff, on NBC, is the Texans versus the two-time defending Super Bowl champion Chiefs and quarterback Patrick Mahomes. The 4:30 p.m. kickoff, on FOX, is one of the most attractive division rivalries of the last 20 years: Steelers vs. Ravens.
“They purposely scheduled aggressively against us,” said one college football executive.
The college game’s version of the First Four debuts this year with a game on Friday night, Dec. 20 and three games on Saturday, Dec. 21: a noon kickoff, 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. The two games competing with the NFL are scheduled to be televised by TNT Sports through a sublicense package from rights owner ESPN who, almost assuredly, expects a ratings dip for such games.
The TV ratings of those two games may lead college officials back to their old conversation: Should the entire regular season be shifted up a week to make Week 0 the new Week1?
“If (ratings) are in the tank, it will start the whole conversation again,” said one college leader with knowledge of the CFP’s discussions.
Of course, it’s never just that easy — moving an entire season up a week. There are long-term game contracts that would need adjusting, such as with venues for conference championship games. Normally played on the first weekend of December, title games would kick off Thanksgiving weekend to allow for, at very least, an agreed-upon 12-day period between the final league title game and the first playoff game.
“I’ve been a proponent of Week 0 without moving the end date of the season,” said MAC commissioner Jon Steinbrecher during an interview last December. “Moving championships a week is problematic for a lot of us if you’re doing your championships in NFL stadiums. You’re contracted out a ways.”
There are plenty more hurdles, like convincing your primary network partner to go along with this. Over the last two years, ESPN executives have expressed to some CFP leaders their concern over how such a move would impact television windows around the holidays.
More than 50 FBS games are played during the Thanksgiving week, many of them drama-filled rivalry meetings like Auburn-Alabama, Michigan-Ohio State and Florida State-Florida. These are rating giants on a holiday week, generating eye-popping figures. If the schedule is shifted up, Thanksgiving week would feature just nine games, and while all of them are conference championships, five of those would involve only Group of Five programs.
That’s not to mention the shifting of the traditional opening weekend, also built around a holiday (Labor Day).
“You’d diminish two of the best college football weekends,” said one college official.
But you’d also set up the sport for a great December, argued another. By shifting title games up, it clears college football to play its first-round games without NFL encumbrances on the second weekend of December.
For now, in a 12-team playoff, there are four of those first-round games, but what happens when the inevitable transpires and a 16-team field arrives? There would be eight first-round games. Many college leaders believe the sport should own the second weekend in December like it does New Year’s Day. In fact, if the season were to shift up, could the CFP semifinals return to their spot on New Year’s Day? That’s the long-term thinking of many in the industry.
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All of this shines a light on growing animosity between the NFL and its little brother. College football continues to grow in interest and viewers, eclipsing pro sports like the NBA, MLB and the NHL.
But it still pales in comparison to the beast that is the league. TV numbers bear it out.
Last year, NFL games accounted for 93 of the top 100 most-watched TV programs. The only other sport to make the top 100? College football. The sport had three events land in the top 100: Michigan-Ohio State (58th), the SEC championship game (71st) and the CFP national championship game (74th).
Aware of its growth and power, the NFL has expanded its games into traditional college football dates. The league has started to play on Black Friday. It followed college football’s lead in playing a weekly game on Thursday nights, too. The expansion of its own playoff means that college football — under the current playoff schedule — will hold weekday semifinal games, this year on Jan. 9-10 (Thursday-Friday) to avoid the NFL’s wild-card weekend.
Another curveball is on the way: The NFL is likely to approve an 18th regular season game. Will Labor Day weekend remain a sacred college football safe place? Or will the NFL move up its season to align with college football’s start?
There’s one way to guarantee an only-college football kickoff: Turn Week 0 into Week 1.
“It’s got to happen,” said one key decision-maker. “That’s where the world is heading.”
