With the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff, the schedule for Bowl Season looks considerably different this year with a plethora of games taking place beginning in mid-December. The Cricket Celebration Bowl begins the slate of games, taking place on Dec. 14 at 12 p.m. on ABC, followed by the Camellia Bowl that day at 9 p.m. EST on ESPN. One date in particular, however, stood out to Bob Fescoe and Josh Klingler on Thursday’s edition of Fescoe in the Morning on 610 Sports Radio upon discovering the schedule because of its placement within the National Football League slate of games.
A highly anticipated AFC matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and Houston Texans is scheduled to take place on Dec. 21 at 1 p.m. EST, coinciding with a tripleheader of first-round games within the College Football Playoff. This follows a first-round game taking place the night before at 8 p.m. EST broadcast on ABC and ESPN, a matchup that Fescoe presumes could include the Kansas Jayhawks playing at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Mo. With the Chiefs set to host a home game the next afternoon, such a scenario could prove to be chaotic in preparing the stadium and converting it from college football to the NFL.
“It’s just kind of like, ‘The NFL don’t care,’ like you could try,” Klingler said. “‘We’re going to do something really special. We’re going to have a 12-team playoff, [and] we’re going to play these first-round games at home college sites.’ Awesome. ‘Oh, you guys scheduled NFL games that day too. Oh, that kind of sucks.’”
Fescoe argued that the NFL needed to schedule games that day to provide enough time off between Saturday and Wednesday, which happens to be Christmas Day. The NFL will play two games on Christmas Day that will be presented exclusively on Netflix as part of a three-year deal with the media conglomerate.
Coinciding with discussion surrounding the Chiefs potentially relocating to Kansas in a new stadium, Fescoe knows that it would be a bad thing if the Kansas Jayhawks logo was faded on the field at Arrowhead Stadium the next day. From there, he asked the listeners if they would sleep at the stadium between the two games to commemorate what could be an all-time great sports day in Kansas City history.
“We’re going to that Chiefs game – that’s already on the schedule for us,” Fescoe said. “If Kansas is playing that Friday night in the college football game, how many people will camp at Arrowhead after the game on Friday night? I’m going to tell you what, Josh. This has got the potential of something good.”
The College Football Playoff is presenting a tripleheader of quarterfinal games throughout New Year’s Day on ESPN, which includes the Peach Bowl, Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl matchups. Although the NFL is not slated to play on that holiday this year, Fescoe believes that it is going to be coming in the future. In fact, he believes that the league will schedule a tripleheader involving the Chiefs on that day next year because of the proclivity the NFL has had over the last several seasons for expanding the breadth of its schedule.
“I think it’s funny because Roger Goodell is waking up and putting on his world domination pants this morning and going, ‘Who else can we screw?,’” Fescoe said. “‘Oh okay, let’s see here.’ Wait a second here. Next year, Josh, Jan. 1 is going to be on a Thursday. That sets up perfectly for an NFL regular season game, doesn’t it? To finish out the year on your final Thursday night game on Jan. 1 when all the Bowl games are going on.”
In thinking about how the league has changed over the years, Fescoe refers back to the 1991 World Series when Minnesota Twins starting pitcher Jack Morris threw a 10-inning shutout en route to a 1-0 victory over John Smoltz and the Atlanta Braves. The NFL did not play a Sunday night game that week because of the World Series, an action that represented acquiescing to baseball, according to Fescoe. Moreover, Christmas Day used to be dominated by NBA games, but the NFL has played two or more games on the holiday in every year since 2021.
“Now the NFL’s like, ‘Screw it – we’re playing on the World Series, we’re playing on Christmas Day, we’re doing all this,’” Fescoe said. “Roger Goodell is definitely putting on his world domination pants, and he’s going to continue to look at these schedules and see, ‘How can we dominate?,’ and before the NFL even came out for their schedule this year, we all knew that the College Football Playoff was going on that weekend, and the NFL went, ‘Nah, eff it. We’re going to play games that weekend. We don’t care; [it] has no impact on us.’”
