Pete Thamel details scheduling ‘rivalry’ between college football, NFL

As college football toys with the idea of an expanded College Football Playoff schedule, questions have arisen about how such moves might impact the broader landscape. In particular, how will the NFL react to a possible threat?

ESPN insider Pete Thamel opened up on that topic this week on the McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning radio program. He did acknowledge it’s a popular time of year to talk about it.

“Peak May talk, scheduling and windows, right guys? Look, the rivalry between the NFL and college football has been established,” Thamel said. “It’s there and how they handle the windows is going to be part of this, because in some ways, if all of these games are created, it almost creates too many games.”

With the concept of play-in games looming in college football, where they would fit on the calendar becomes a key question. Thamel explained.

“And then we quickly get into, ‘Hey, can they play that 4-5 SEC play-in game on Thursday?’ to go and find windows?” Thamel said. “And don’t think if college is sort of creating more of this inventory the NFL won’t strike back and try to take some of that real estate back.

“The NFL has clearly been aggressive and with the actual games that the NFL has scheduled, like the caliber, they sent a very clear message to college football that we’re drawing a line in the sand and we’re going to take over here.”

Still, there’s likely a world where the NFL can remain king while college football takes a bigger slice of its pie. Having competitive games will be key, and that’s where the concept of play-in games — likely between closely matched teams — comes into the mix.

“I think the window conversation is actually a little bit underdiscussed when all the sudden you’re getting all this wave of new inventory,” Thamel said. “Because play-in weekend could be pretty darned cool if you’re a hardcore college football fan. In that 4-5 game, South Carolina‘s up on Tennessee. You’ve got your four box up, you’ve got the ACC game… that could be pretty cool, but there’s also like if you’re creating premium inventory, the people you’re creating it for are going to want to showcase it.

“FOX doesn’t want to put a Big Ten play-in game on FS1. Right? And there’s only so many windows on FOX. So I’m just giving that as a general example. You could use SEC, ACC, Big 12 or any other network.”

Finding and allocating the proper space to college football is no small task. The weekend slots late in the year are already highly competitive.

You don’t want to double up. Less competition for slots is better for everyone, in some sense.

“It would get a little bit redundant, which I would think would give some of the decision-makers pause, which they would have to try to thread the needle there,” Thamel said. “But as you pointed out, Cole, there’s no clean answer.”