Much has been said about who will play in the newly expanded College Football Playoff, but less about when.
The new first round of the CFP will feature four games between the eight teams seeded five through twelve. One game will take place at 8:00 p.m. ET on Friday, December 20th, and air on ABC and ESPN. The other three games will occur the following day, Saturday, December 21st. The first two games of the tripleheader will air at noon and 4:00 p.m. ET on TNT. Those games were sublicensed from ESPN to TNT and will compete directly against a pair of NFL games. The final first-round game will be played at 8:00 p.m. ET on ABC and ESPN, without NFL competition.
Make sense?
Good.
As any college football fan knows by now, the sport is an entertainment property engineered to maximize television audiences. So anyone with a rudimentary understanding of how television works can tell you that the two Saturday afternoon games on TNT face an uphill battle against the mighty NFL.
That’s why it’s all but certain that those two games will feature the weakest two matchups (from a television perspective) of the first round. And with the playoff picture becoming clearer after Tuesday’s latest set of rankings, it’s time to start looking at which games will be played and when.
Let’s start with the projected bracket as it stands. That means no upsets in the conference championship games that would cause a team currently on the outside looking in to make the playoff or alter which team receives a first-round bye. The four first-round matchups would be Ohio State (8) vs. Tennessee (9), Penn State (5) vs. Arizona State (12), Georgia (7) vs. Indiana (10), and Notre Dame (6) vs. Alabama (11).
THE UPDATED CFP BRACKET PROJECTION 🏈 pic.twitter.com/5dB1gqvoD0
— ESPN (@espn) December 4, 2024
In this scenario, it would be pretty clear when games are played. Tennessee-Ohio State and Alabama-Notre Dame would get the primetime slots on ABC/ESPN, while Indiana-Georgia and Arizona State-Penn State would play in the afternoon on TNT. That’s simply because Ohio State, Alabama, and Notre Dame have the most drawing power.
Now, the scenarios get a bit more complicated when playing out potential upsets.
Let’s begin with scenarios where just one favorite loses their conference title game, starting with Penn State beating Oregon in the Big Ten Championship. This one is pretty straightforward. Penn State would earn a bye (likely becoming the 2-seed), and Oregon would slot in as the 5-seed against Arizona State. This scenario would see the same television schedule as the first, just with Oregon playing in the 5-12 game instead of Penn State.
Should Texas lose to Georgia in the SEC Championship Game, but Oregon beat Penn State, the Longhorns would likely play host to Arizona State. This would shift Penn State down to the 6-seed against Alabama, and Notre Dame would slide to the 7-seed against Georgia. This scenario would be a tricky decision for the CFP. Arizona State-Texas would stay on TNT, but which two of Alabama-Penn State, Tennessee-Ohio State, and Indiana-Notre Dame do you pick for primetime? Those are three great home atmospheres to choose from, but I would guess that Indiana-Notre Dame would go to TNT with the other two games airing in primetime on ABC/ESPN.
But it’s a close one.
Suppose both Oregon and Texas get upset this weekend, putting Penn State and Georgia through to the quarterfinals. Assuming the ranking committee keeps Oregon ahead of Texas, the Ducks would play Arizona State, the Longhorns would face Alabama, Notre Dame would again slide to the 7-seed and play Indiana, and Tennessee-Ohio State would remain. In this scenario, Arizona State-Oregon would once again be on TNT, with Indiana-Notre Dame likely joining them. ABC/ESPN would air Tennessee-Ohio State and Alabama-Texas in primetime.
Upsets in the ACC, Big 12, and Mountain West would complicate things much further and take us too far into Speculation Land to opine on in this piece. Depending on who wins and loses those conference championship games vastly changes the complexity of who gets first-round byes and where teams will be seeded. For example, if Clemson beats SMU in the ACC title game, the Big 12 champion could receive a bye. Clemson is the lowest-ranked automatic qualifier, and whether SMU would remain in the field or drop out entirely is unknown.
If this was all too confusing, I apologize. That’s just where the sport of college football is these days. Just remember one rule of thumb: it’s a TV show, stupid. The best games will go where the most eyeballs are. And luckily for all of us, we’ll know who and when by this time next week.
