College football, NFL games will have schedule conflict in 2024
By expanding its playoff format from four teams to 12 this coming postseason, college football made its actual schedule longer by several weeks, and with the start of the new playoff coming much earlier combined with the usual NFL late regular season dates, fans will have more meaningful football to watch this winter.
But it will also create a scheduling conflict.
The second day of the first-round of the new College Football Playoff includes a triple-header of games played on campuses on Sat., Dec. 21.
But on that same day, the NFL will play a double-header: Houston at Kansas City at 1 p.m. Eastern, and Pittsburgh at Baltimore at 4:30 p.m. Eastern.
Those games will run directly against the CFP's first two games, set for 12 p.m. and 4 p.m. Eastern, but college football's 8 p.m. primetime playoff game likely won't have any competition.
Read More: College Football Playoff schedule set for 2024-25 games
Usually, Saturday has been the domain of college football, with the NFL only ever playing on that day late in its regular season and in the playoffs once the NCAA regular season and more important games have concluded.
But this marks the first instance where NFL and major college football games will run into each other, and there's a possibility that it will happen more often in the future.
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JAMES PARKS
James Parks is the founder and publisher of College Football HQ. He previously covered football for 247Sports and CBS Interactive. College Football HQ joined the Sports Illustrated Fannation Network in 2022.