August 23, 2024

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College football is back! If Week 0 snuck up on you, you’re not alone. We get into how teams qualify to play before Labor Day weekend, and why fewer of them took part this year.

— David Rumsey [[link removed]], Eric Fisher [[link removed]], and Colin Salao [[link removed]]

College Football’s Week 0 Kicks Off In Ireland, But It Runs Through Hawaii [[link removed]]

Craig Strobeck-USA TODAY Sports

The 2024 college football season officially begins Saturday when a Florida State-Georgia Tech matchup in Ireland kicks off a four-game Week 0 FBS slate.

But this year, fewer schools are taking part in the late-August tradition of playing a week before the rest of the nation does on Labor Day weekend. Montana State-New Mexico, SMU-Nevada, and Delaware State-Hawaii round out the four games involving FBS schools Saturday, down from seven Week 0 games in 2023 and an all-time high of 11 in 2022.

While fans may wish there were more games this weekend, the process of scheduling Week 0 games isn’t that simple—and actually runs almost exclusively through the Aloha State.

An Island Special

Outside of international contests like FSU-Georgia Tech, the only schools that can schedule a Week 0 game without requesting a special exemption are those playing a game in Hawaii that season. Both New Mexico and Nevada will visit the Rainbow Warriors this fall, and took advantage of scheduling an early matchup.

Hawaii has played on Week 0 each of the last eight years, excluding 2020. “By starting in Week 0, we can accelerate our build up to our first game,” Hawaii athletic director Craig Angelos tells Front Office Sports. “And then we have three byes throughout the season.” This weekend’s matchup with Delaware State will come after the FCS school was beset by travel delays leaving the East Coast [[link removed]] earlier this week.

Boise State, UCLA, and UNLV also play at Hawaii this season, but opted against a Week 0 game. There were no other special exemptions granted for Week 0 matchups, either. There are four Week 0 games scheduled for 2025, although it’s possible that more could pop up.

Travel Request

The other key of playing on the road in Hawaii is that it also allows football programs to add a 13th game, if they wish. New Mexico was the only one of Hawaii’s five home FBS opponents to take advantage of that this year, as that trend may also be slowing down.

“From what I’ve seen, that’s not as high a priority as much, to play 13 games,” says Angelos, who is entering his second year on the job. “I think schools like the [bye weeks] and like staying at 12. So, I haven’t seen that as much as it probably was in the past.”

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College Football’s New Reality: Miles Traveled Is Now a Key Metric [[link removed]]

Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

College football teams are usually measured based on their win-loss totals. There are all sorts of additional metrics, such as strength of schedule, yards gained and allowed, and points scored. You can even get granular with analytics that incorporate matchup and tracking data.

But one of the most meaningful statistics of this very different 2024 season will be miles traveled.

Ongoing upheaval across this part of the industry—led by conference realignment [[link removed]], the arrival of true coast-to-coast entities [[link removed]] in that reshuffling, and the expansion of the College Football Playoff [[link removed]]—is greatly increasing the distance that many teams will travel.

UCLA, now part of a remade Big Ten Conference [[link removed]] that stretches from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean, leads the way with a schedule [[link removed]] that will involve more than 11,000 miles of travel—fueled by away games at Hawaii, LSU, Penn State, Rutgers, Nebraska, and Washington.

But the Bruins are hardly alone in this new reality of college football, as other newly realigned schools such as Cal, Stanford, and the aforementioned Huskies are poised for similarly hefty travel demands this fall. A remade ACC, another conference now stretching across the entire continental U.S., is also prompting meteoric increases in travel for some of its incumbent schools, such as N.C. State and Georgia Tech, compared to last year.

“That’s part of the game. If you want to play big-time ball, you’re going to have to travel and go to new stadiums and hostile environments,” Bruins coach DeShaun Foster (above) said at the team’s recent Big Ten media days. “I think we’re looking forward to that.”

Notably, Foster, a former star Bruins player who went on to play professionally for six years, also said of the team’s schedule, “In the NFL, you travel, so it’s the same thing”—further highlighting the increasingly blurred lines between college and pro football.

What About Other Sports?

As the realignment wave has heightened, athletes and coaches in Olympic and non-revenue sports have consistently sounded the alarm [[link removed]] about the potential impacts of the new-look conferences on their programs. Historic levels of change in college sports’ revenue model [[link removed]] only add to those pressures.

Already, even powerhouse schools such as Ohio State are signaling a potential of reduced scholarships and altered structures for programs outside of football and men’s basketball.

“We’ll still have scholarships, we’ll still have programs,” Ohio State president Ted Carter told The Columbus Dispatch [[link removed]]. “Some of those sports may start to look and act a little bit more like a club sport, but yet compete at the Division I level and still travel.”

Other Olympic sports programs, such as beach volleyball at USC, were orphaned altogether, providing opportunity for upstarts such as the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation [[link removed]].

Frequent-Flyer Kings

Unsurprisingly, the West Coast schools of the Big Ten and ACC lead the way for most travel miles this season. UCLA’s first season in the Big Ten will include 11,042 miles of travel, the most for any university, while its fellow debutants Washington and USC are fourth and fifth on the list. Bay Area schools Cal and Stanford rank second and third.

Florida State and Georgia Tech would not crack this list if not for Saturday’s Aer Lingus College Football Classic in Dublin as each team is traveling 4,111 and 3,920 miles, respectively, without the trip to Ireland.

FRONT OFFICE SPORTS TODAY College Football’s Post-Realignment Era Begins

FOS illustration

Week 0 of college football is here. Ben Stevens of SportsGrid joins the show to explore the major narratives of the first season with a conference map reshaped by realignment. We also look at how the 12-team College Football Playoff format could shift how teams operate.

Plus, Front Office Sports reporter Margaret Fleming breaks down the NWSL’s new CBA, which improves player pay, partially ties the salary cap to league revenue, and eliminates the entry and expansion drafts.

Watch, listen, and subscribe on Apple [[link removed]], Spotify [[link removed]], and YouTube [[link removed]].

LOUD AND CLEAR Working Relationship

Jim Dedmon-USA TODAY Sports

“We’re going to fight, and that’s the way it should be.”

—Jim Phillips (above), commissioner of the ACC, said on ESPN [[link removed]] about the conference’s ongoing legal battle with Florida State and Clemson. Philips has repeated this sentiment [[link removed]] about the complaints, first filed by Florida State back on Dec. 22, then followed by Clemson on March 19. The complaints involve the validity of the ACC’s bylaws and media contracts that bind the schools to the conference. The goal for both universities would be to have the flexibility to move to another conference, though Clemson officials have said that the school has no immediate plans [[link removed]] to change conferences.

Phillips said he hopes that all parties can “compartmentalize” since the season is about to begin. “With the kickoff this weekend, we can maybe put the legal issues to the side,” he said.

FRONT OFFICE SPORTS EVENTS

YouTube's Jon Cruz Joins the Roster

On Sept. 10, Front Office Sports is bringing together leaders within the sports media space for our inaugural sports media summit, Tuned In [[link removed]].

The event will feature intimate discussions with leaders within the sports media space—ranging from athletes and on-air talent to media moguls and league executives who are instrumental in shaping the future of how fans view sports. Jon Cruz, Director and Global Head of Sports Partnerships at YouTube, joins the list of industry experts to speak at the event.

Registration includes a full day of programming, networking lunch, and closing happy hour reception.

Tickets are going fast— reserve your seat [[link removed]] now.

Conversation Starters Patrick Mahomes and his wife, Brittany, are donating $5 million toward Texas Tech’s football upgrades [[link removed]], which will include a walkthrough area in the Womble Football Center named after him. Kirk Herbstreit will be in Cincinnati for Thursday Night Football, then travel more than 3,500 miles to Dublin, Ireland, for ESPN’s College GameDay. Check out his trip [[link removed]]. An upcoming Hulu series about Chad Powers, the character created by Eli Manning and Omaha Productions, just dropped its first look at the character played by Glen Powell. Take a look [[link removed]]. More College Football Everything to Know About the 12-Team CFP Era [[link removed]]by Amanda Christovich [[link removed]]The expanded playoff will include several elements never seen before in FBS. Alabama Football GM Has Record $825K Deal, Less Than Eight Tide Coaches [[link removed]]by Alex Schiffer [[link removed]]Courtney Morgan got a new contract six months into his initial one. The House v. NCAA Settlement Probably Won’t Kill NIL Collectives [[link removed]]by Amanda Christovich [[link removed]]Stakeholders tell FOS the restrictions could lead to more lawsuits. Georgia Tech Sets Athletics Funding Record Amid ACC Chaos [[link removed]]by Colin Salao [[link removed]]Georgia Tech received some positive news even though the future of the ACC is in flux. Question of the Day

Would you like to see more college football teams play games on Week 0?

Yes [[link removed]] No [[link removed]]

Thursday’s result: 75% of respondents said they would like to see Augusta National host a professional women’s Masters event.

Advertise [[link removed]] Awards [[link removed]] Learning [[link removed]] Video [[link removed]] Podcast [[link removed]] Sports Careers [[link removed]] Written by David Rumsey [[link removed]], Eric Fisher [[link removed]], Colin Salao [[link removed]] Edited by Matthew Tabeek [[link removed]], Or Moyal [[link removed]]

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