Urban Meyer 'really fearful' over losing marquee nonconference games

New formats to the College Football Playoff mean programs will deploy new scheduling philosophies in the nonconference. Some believe having the best possible record is all that matters. Strength of schedule was a major talking point during the 2024 season, at least when looking at the CFP bubble.

Urban Meyer is fearful for the future of high-level nonconference matchups. He sees teams scheduling easier wins to boost the resume, leaving behind the days of quality home-and-home — or even neutral site — matchups.

“I am really fearful we will never, or very rarely see, marquee nonconference matchups,” Meyer said. “You’re going to see the 50-7 preseason games for the first few weeks of the season. Big Noon will have to be at one of them, unfortunately.”

We have already seen an example of this mindset play out recently. Tennessee and Nebraska will no longer play each other, with the series set to begin in 2026. Nebraska would have hosted the first leg before traveling to one of college football’s top environments in Neyland Stadium the following season.

Nebraska AD Troy Dannen claimed the series needed to be canceled due to stadium renovations. Losing revenue from reduced capacity, Nebraska wanted to have eight home games to make up for some of the loss.

Reporting from ESPN’s Pete Thamel says differently, though. Thamel says Nebraska “just didn’t want to play the series” and cites the College Football Playoff as a major reason why.

“I think this just comes down to Nebraska just didn’t want to play this series,” Thamel said. “The one piece of empirical evidence we have of this 12-team Playoff indicates murky rewards for a tough non-conference schedule. That’s the data set we’re dealing with right now.”

When Meyer was done expressing his concern, Mark Ingram jumped into the conversation. He pointed out how Big Noon will have a marquee matchup next season in Week 1. The Texas Longhorns will head up to Columbus to face off against the reigning national champions, the Ohio State Buckeyes.

Ingram does have a point about the upcoming season. Alongside Texas-Ohio State in opening weekend are Alabama–Florida State, Clemson–LSU, South Carolina–Virginia Tech, and Miami–Notre Dame. Plenty of quality matchups are heading our way to kick off the 2025 season.

Meyer appears to be more concerned about the future when more data points are available with the Playoff. He is hoping fewer scenarios like the one involving Nebraska and Tennessee pop up moving forward.