Every December, the NFL tightens its grip on the sports calendar - and this weekend is no exception. With pro football now stretching across Sunday, Monday, Thursday, and increasingly into Fridays and Saturdays, even college football’s postseason has to navigate around the NFL’s massive footprint. And as the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff (CFP) rolls into its second year, that balancing act is on full display.
For the second straight season, two of the CFP’s first-round matchups will go head-to-head with Saturday NFL games. That’s not by accident - it’s a product of how the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 was originally crafted.
The law prohibits the NFL from airing games on Saturdays during most of the college football season, protecting the sanctity of fall Saturdays for the college game. But once mid-December hits, the NFL is legally in the clear - and it wastes no time capitalizing.
Last year, the NFL flexed its muscle in this exact slot. A Saturday afternoon game between the Chiefs and Texans pulled in 15.5 million viewers.
That same day, Penn State vs. SMU - a first-round CFP game - drew just 6.6 million.
Later that night, the Ravens and Steelers also topped 15 million viewers, while Texas-Clemson managed 8.9 million on the college side. The only CFP games that came close to matching the NFL’s numbers were the standalone matchups: Notre Dame vs.
Indiana on Friday night and Ohio State vs. Tennessee on Saturday night, both of which averaged over 13 million viewers.
This year, the CFP is bracing for a similar ratings split. The two games scheduled to overlap with NFL action - Ole Miss vs.
Tulane and Oregon vs. James Madison - were chosen in part because they feature the largest point spreads of the round.
In other words, they’re expected to be the least competitive. Both will air on TNT, sublicensed from ESPN, and both will go up against NFL regular-season matchups.
But there’s been some effort to minimize the direct overlap. CFP executive director Rich Clark said both sides - the CFP and the NFL - worked together to tweak kickoff times.
The first CFP game, Ole Miss vs. Tulane, now kicks off at 3:30 p.m.
ET, while the NFL’s Eagles-Commanders game doesn’t start until 5 p.m. That creates a 90-minute window where the college game has the stage to itself.
Oregon vs. JMU will begin at 7:30 p.m., while Packers-Bears kicks off at 8:20 p.m.
Clark said the CFP initiated the conversation about staggering the start times, and he credited the NFL for being willing to adjust.
“We realize that the NFL has been playing on that Saturday for a long time,” Clark said. “Our initial talks were to see how we could de-conflict.”
According to Clark, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has expressed a genuine interest in supporting college football. When the two met for the first time last year, Goodell reportedly emphasized how important the college game is to the NFL’s success. After all, college football is the NFL’s talent pipeline - and this weekend’s matchups feature players like Oregon quarterback Dante Moore and Miami pass rusher Rueben Bain Jr., both potential top-five picks come April.
Clark has held multiple meetings with Goodell, NFL Media COO Hans Schroeder, and other league officials over the past two seasons. Last year, the discussions came too late in the schedule-making process to allow for meaningful changes. This year, the two sides started talking early in the fall and reached an agreement by October.
“We met probably three times to try to figure out a way to work through it, and this was, I think, the best we could do,” Clark said.
But looking ahead, there’s a bigger solution on the table - and it would require a significant shift. One option being considered is moving the entire CFP schedule up by one week. That would allow the first-round games to be played the weekend before the NFL is allowed to air Saturday games, avoiding direct competition entirely.
Clark said that idea is “not off the table,” especially if the CFP expands beyond 12 teams in the future. Using that second weekend in December could become a necessity.
It would mean the Army-Navy game, which traditionally stands alone that weekend, would have to share the spotlight. Leaders from both service academies have acknowledged that might be unavoidable if the playoff grows.
Still, there’s a trade-off. The current schedule gives players a two-week buffer between conference championship games and the start of the playoff - a break many believe is crucial for player health and recovery. Clark said the CFP’s governing body - made up of conference commissioners and university presidents - values that time off but is open to reassessing the calendar each year.
“It’s a space that continually comes up in discussions,” Clark said.
So for now, the CFP will share the Saturday spotlight with the NFL - and hope that careful scheduling and compelling matchups can help college football hold its own in one of the most competitive windows on the sports calendar.