The longest college football season in history will span 149 days from the season openers Aug. 24 to the national championship game Jan. 20. Yet with all that ground covered, there is a gaping hole in the schedule.

Thanksgiving Eve.

It’s the greatest untapped terrain available for the conferences and their media partners, with an audience desperate for football and nothing available — not even the MAC, which plays every Wednesday in November except this Wednesday.

Someone needs to take the plunge and play at 8 p.m. Eastern on Thanksgiving Eve.

Maybe it’s the Big 12, which is seeking creative ways to provide exposure and revenue.

Maybe it’s San Diego State and the rebuilt Pac-12, which is exploring all options as it pursues a new media rights contract.

The territory is wide open as the football-crazed audience waits impatiently for the NFL’s tripleheader on Thanksgiving Day.

“It could be the right opportunity for somebody and a way to separate themselves from other conferences,” said Dave Brown, the former ESPN programming executive whose scheduling service, Gridiron, is used by the majority of FBS schools.

“From a (TV) windows standpoint, that’s correct. The only thing going on the night before Thanksgiving is the NBA (and the NHL).”

Naturally, there are hurdles to playing in the middle of the week on the eve of a major holiday — and 10 days before conference championship games. None of them is a deal-breaker, however.

1. The campus environment

Immense resources are required to host football games, regardless of the day of the week. Beyond the issues of stadium volunteers, security teams and parking attendants, schools would need to decide about bookstore hours, tailgating parameters, traffic patterns and more.

Yes, students have scattered for the holiday, but that’s true for home games on the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving.

“Only the schools could really give you an idea if they could host the games,” Brown said.

2. The required preparation time

Players need at least four days between games, meaning they cannot play Saturday and then the following Wednesday.

Participants in any Wednesday game would need to play the previous Thursday or Friday, thus disrupting two weeks of competition, or they would need a bye the Saturday before the game.

A late-November bye is easier to build into conference schedules when there are 14 weeks in the regular season, which creates room for two byes.

“This year and next year, there are two byes,” Brown said. “In 2026, there’s only one, but they might have Week 0 games green-lighted by then.”

The NCAA sets the competition calendar and is considering opening up Week 0, the Saturday before Labor Day weekend, for a full lineup of games.

3.  The conference championship rest issue

Any team playing on Thanksgiving Eve would have three extra days of rest in the event it advanced to the conference championship game (10 days later). Its opponent, presumably, would have played a normal Saturday-to-Saturday schedule.

There would be no way to know in advance which teams are more likely to play for the title, and flexing teams into the Thanksgiving Eve window is (likely) untenable.

“You might get some pushback” — particularly from coaches — “about giving anybody a bye before the conference championship,” Brown said. “That’s where the rubber could meet the road.”

In a world where Stanford-Wake Forest, Utah-UCF and USC-Rutgers are conference games, university presidents and athletic directors have proven they will accept any inconvenience for the sake of every last dime.

Thanksgiving Eve offers the best, and perhaps only chance to claim new ground on the media landscape. By 8 p.m. ET on Wednesday, the football world is ready. The NFL is dark. The logistics are challenging but surmountable.

Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark is said to be interested, according to sources.

The rebuilt Pac-12 should do the same.

“If somebody wanted to create a new window,” Brown said, “it could be done.”

Wilner writes for Bay Area News Group. 

Originally Published: November 26, 2024 at 2:10 PM PST