It’s been a few years not that the NFL moved its opening weekend off Labor Day weekend. When that happened college football expanded their opening weekend to fill out the entire holiday weekend. I absolutely love this! Labor Day weekend being the unofficial end of summer isn’t a downer now like when I was a kid and it meant back to school. Now it is the beginning of football season. Something that has been missed since February.
The NFL is the unquestioned and unchallenged juggernaut of professional sports. They can do whatever they want without any regard of any other league. We see this in how they added Christmas Day games a few years back. A day that used to belong to the NBA. They have now made Christmas Day games as marquee of a slate as Thanksgiving Day.
So for the NFL to move their opening weekend off Labor Day weekend and allow college football to fill the void was kind of a head scratcher. Why would the NFL do anything to aid any sort of competition for ratings?
Well, it’s because college football is their de facto feeder program. And college football isn’t any real direct competitor. College football is played on Saturday. The NFL is for Sundays. There’s a bit of competition on Thursday nights but neither has complained or made any attempts to change. You won’t get a top 25 matchup on Thursday, you won’t really see many ranked teams at all play Thursdays. It has in a way became a recruiting tool for some of the lower tiered college programs.
College football started their Week 0 as a way to deal with COVID issues in 2020. Although there were some ‘Kickoff Classic’ type games played before 2020 including some international games and quite a few games to support different foundations, the real start of Week 0 is probably the 2022 season with 11 games played that ‘opening’ weekend or the 2023 season when 13th ranked Notre Dame played Navy in Dublin, Ireland. If you’re called the Fighting Irish, taking your game to Ireland is the right thing to do. Might be tough to pull off every year but I hope Notre Dame does go back to Ireland in the near future.
History lesson complete. Let’s talk Week 1 college ball.
With college football being gifted a holiday weekend to kick off they do it big time! All college season you will have must see matchups. But with a three day weekend, college football gives at least one must see game each day. If you are a Marshall alum, you are going to watch your Thundering Herd no matter what. Same goes for Maryland fans or Cal grads or whatever your school is. You are going to watch your team. But come primetime all eyes turn to that matchup. Labor Day weekend gives three of those. Clemson/LSU, Louisville/Ole Miss, and SMU/Florida State.
Personally I’m going college football wall to wall this weekend. WVU, Georgia, Tennessee, Penn St, Michigan, Notre Dame, Washington, and then some. They are all going to get some of my eyeballs. That’s outside of the top tier matchups. I’ve got nothing but time this holiday weekend, and college football knows how to fill that time.
Happy football season everyone! I know we’ve all been salivating waiting for it to officially arrive. We made it everyone. Enjoy it y’all! And then the NFL arrives Wednesday. What a week it’s going to be!
