Livescore
When Nebraska canceled a home-and-home series with Tennessee for 2026 and 2027, both sides gave their reasons. Then Nebraska coach Matt Rhule told the truth.
In Rhule’s interview on The Triple Option podcast, Urban Meyer brought up his concerns about how nonconference schedules will look in the new age of the expanded College Football Playoff, which could include as many as eight automatic bids split between the Big Ten and SEC. Rhule’s reply was rather blunt, considering what you typically get from a coach in interviews.
“Why would you ever play those games?” Rhule asked. “If we’re being completely honest. Coach Meyer, I’m at the point in my career where, in my fourth job and getting fired in the NFL, I kind of say what I feel nowadays. I could[n’t] care less.
“Why in the world would a Big Ten team who is already playing nine conference games,” he continued, “why would you ever play one of those games?”
The man has a point! If the College Football Playoff gives automatic bids, there’s no real need for Big Ten and SEC teams to play these “résumé” games. It’s one of the reasons I don’t like the idea, but as I’ve written previously, there are some positive side effects to the new proposal. One of which would be the SEC finally expanding its conference schedule from eight to nine games.
But why stop there? Why not go to 10 conference games?
There have been a lot of changes in college football in recent seasons, and few of them have been good for fans. We’ve seen conferences torn apart, and while the transfer portal and NIL have been great for players (and long overdue), they have frayed the threads of the relationship between players and fans. We’re also seeing programs go away from spring games, which have often been one of the best options for fans to see their favorite teams in person and interact with players.
A change in nonconference scheduling would be another blow for fans. If you’re a Nebraska fan right now, and you’re spending money on season tickets, how excited are you to see that home game against Tennessee replaced with Bowling Green? I doubt you’re excited, and you aren’t getting a refund on those tickets. In fact, you’ll probably end up paying more.
Remember thinking schools would shift funds from building ridiculous facilities, and maybe we’d see coaches salaries decrease so they could use that money to pay players instead? How naive we were! If you’re going to follow the NFL model, that means nobody has to take paycuts! Not when fans can pay for it!
So why not throw the fans a bone? An expensive, condescending bone.
With conferences routinely featuring between 16 and 18 teams, it makes sense to expand conference schedules for a lot of reasons. If leagues went to 10 games per season, you’d see conference opponents more often. It would also allow leagues to keep more traditional rivalry games on the schedule every season. It’d also provide more attractive matchups, which is good for television partners and fans.
There have been whispers of the Big Ten and SEC talking about playing annual nonconference games against one another, which is great in theory — particularly if it’s like college basketball, where the matchups are based on the prior season’s finish. The problem here is that while TV partners would love to be guaranteed a game between the reigning SEC and Big Ten champions, if you’re a Mississippi State fan, how excited are you about Northwestern coming to town? Are Wisconsin fans getting fired up to host Kentucky? If you polled the fans of these schools, they’re more likely to prefer playing an extra conference game. Familiarity breeds contempt, after all, and not every school will compete for playoff bids. Contempt is all so many fans have.
While that 10th game might cost you an Ohio State vs. Texas every fall, it will also increase the odds you get Georgia vs. Alabama, or Oregon vs. Michigan. Those are games that will generate ratings and have stakes in conference and playoff races. (It will also increase the odds your best teams finish in the top four spots to get those auto bids … if you’re into that kinda thing.)
It would also help ensure there are more intriguing matchups each weekend. Now that there are so many different networks with rights to games, that matters. These schools love the money they’re getting in their new deals, but if they want to keep it coming, they need to keep those companies cutting the checks happy.
If they don’t, and those networks move onto something else, the fans you’ve been taking for granted all this time might not be so willing to help anymore.
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