The increasingly interconnected nature of college football was clear for all to see Wednesday with the release of two early-season kickoff times that cut to the heart of the sport's most controversial topic.
Sit back and let us explain how two entirely forgettable matchups on Fox's Big Noon broadcast are related to the potential expansion of the College Football Playoff.
Start times and TV networks for the first three weeks of the season were revealed Wednesday for conferences across the Football Bowl Subdivision.
The news included Fox's selections for its premier broadcast slot at noon Eastern.
The network's Week 1 matchup: North Texas at Indiana.
Yep, that's the best Fox could do for Sept. 5. There's a better game on the West Coast, where Boise State visits Oregon, but the Big Noon window doesn't work with kickoffs in the Pacific Time Zone.
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Meanwhile, Ohio State hosts Ball State, Penn State plays Marshall and Michigan hosts Western Michigan — a triple whammy of yuck.
As a result, Fox's programming executives determined North Texas against the defending national champion was the best option, even though nobody will mistake the matchup for Oklahoma-Michigan, which happens to be the Big Noon game for Week 2.
A similar issue exists for Week 3, when the Big Noon broadcast will feature ... wait for it ... Kent State at Ohio State.
Now, let's connect those can-miss matchups to the Big Ten's controversial proposal to expand the CFP to 24 teams.
Effectively, there are two components:
– Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti believes doubling the size of the field will spur teams across the Power Four leagues to play more challenging non-conference games because they won't view a September loss as death to their CFP chances. After all, a 24-team field will include numerous participants with three, and perhaps even four losses.
On this matter, the Hotline is slightly skeptical. Rare is the head coach who willingly accepts a more difficult path into the postseason. We envision coaches pushing to play three creampuffs, adding six conference wins and then charging into the CFP with 9-3 records.
That said, the situation can't get much worse. Four of the top programs in the Big Ten (Indiana, Penn State, USC and Washington) will play non-conference schedules composed entirely of Group of Six and FCS opponents.
– The conference's media partner, Fox, also favors a 24-team field for the very reason outlined above: It wants better September games.
North Texas-Indiana and Kent State-Ohio State simply aren't sufficient, given both the money (more than $300 million annually) that Fox is pouring into the Big Ten and the vital role Big Noon occupies within the network's broader sports portfolio.
Meanwhile, ESPN opposes expanding the CFP to 24 teams because it fears an engorged playoff would undermine the value of the regular season.
That perspective makes perfect sense because ESPN and ABC don't have inventory issues. Their regular-season lineups are stacked with heavyweight matchups.
While Fox broadcasts North Texas-Indiana, for example, the marquee game on ABC that day is Clemson-LSU.
And while Fox airs Kent State-Ohio State on Week 3, ABC will have LSU-Mississippi — the hotly anticipated return of Tigers coach Lane Kiffin to the school he abandoned last season.
Lane Kiffin speaks at a news conference as he is introduced as the new head football coach of the LSU Tigers at Tiger Stadium on Dec. 1, 2025, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
No wonder the sport's media overlords are at odds.
And guess what? So are their partners.
The Big Ten wants a 24-team field; the SEC wants 16.
The Big Ten and Fox believe 24 will increase the value of the regular season by making more teams and more games relevant.
The SEC and ESPN believe 24 could devalue the regular season by making marquee matchups less meaningful.
Now, to be clear: Fox's inventory problem is not with the Big Ten alone.
The network also partners with the Big 12, and there is a paucity of heavyweight matchups in that league, as well.
The best Big 12 home game on the first Saturday of the season is Boston College-Cincinnati (seriously), while the network views the best available option for Week 3 as Utah State-Utah.
(Fox picked both games for the 12:30 p.m. broadcast window, which follows Big Noon.)
Clearly, Fox has an early-season inventory issue that it believes an expanded CFP would solve.
The only problem: The SEC and Big Ten — and the rival networks — must agree on the field size. Otherwise, there's no expansion.
