New Utah head coach Morgan Scalley recently did an interview with USA Today talking about saving bowl games. How do you do that? He suggested playing bowl games to start the season. “I am a big fan of bowl games Week 0. You keep the bowl sponsors happy, guys aren’t opting out, it’s good against good,” Scalley said. “And if you have a 24-team playoff, those games don’t necessarily hurt you if you lose and everyone’s fired up.”
When I first heard the idea, I thought it sounded crazy. It’s completely backwards from everything football fans have ever known. But after mulling it around in my head, I’m beginning to love the potential. If you’re an old school Nebraska fan, then you remember the Huskers playing in a couple of Kick-Off Classics. First against Penn State in 1983 and later against West Virgina in 1994. Both times the Huskers were highly ranked, and both opponents were in the Top 25. Husker fans were jacked up for both games, and with resounding wins the tone for the season was set.
From 2009 to 2021 we’ve seen other big games to start the season at Jerry Jones’s AT&T Stadium, featuring matchups like LSU vs Oregon, Alabama vs Michigan, Alabama vs USC, Michigan vs Florida and LSU vs Miami. Fans and television networks alike love games like this to start the season and it’s good for college football.
Two of the most anticipated early season games this year are marquee matchups between Ohio State-Texas and Michigan-Oklahoma. Nebraska had a game scheduled with Tennessee for 2027, but they let that one slip away, much to the chagrin of fans. The reason given was lost revenue and scheduling conflicts due to renovating Memorial Stadium. But if it had been a bowl game at a neutral site, the game would still be on.
So, how do we make Scalley’s idea work? First off, everybody must decide they want the opportunity to reap the benefits of playing a top-ranked preseason opponent out of the gate. If you’re Nebraska that means scheduling the upper half teams of the SEC, Big XII, and ACC for your opening game. The advantages to that, peak fan interest, increased revenue, and concluding the season closer to New Year’s Day.
You’ll have the old argument that a loss could limit your chances of making the CFP and Texas will quickly point out their loss to Ohio State last season as the reason they didn’t get in. It wasn’t the loss to Ohio State that cost them but the loss to a mediocre Florida team. They win that game and they’re in. To Scalley’s point, you can lose in the bowl game and still have a shot of making the CFP with a 24-team playoff in place.
If at least 40 Power Four teams tried to schedule such a game, that would be 20 bowls, or close to what used to be the norm. And don’t think you won’t be able to get the television networks to buy in, they’ll devour the opportunity for extra big game content. And just like the old days, bowls can invite or make bids for the top games. It’s simple, the better the opponent, the better the shot at a top-tier bowl.
As we’ve quickly learned, college football is ever changing, and this one makes sense to me. It may not happen, and it will probably take a while if it does. But this one shouldn’t be shelved, it just makes too much sense to start and end the season with a bang.
GO BIG RED!! SIMPLE, FAST, VIOLENT!!
Stay on top of Husker football at CarrikerChronicles.com