It’s the NFL vs. college football on the Saturday before Christmas.
Thus far, Penn State defeated SMU 38-10 to advance to the quarterfinal. Meanwhile, shortly thereafter, the Kansas City Chiefs outlasted the Houston Texans at home, 27-19, to improve to 14-1 and move one step closer to clinching the AFC’s No. 1 seed.
While it may not seem like a big deal, the Pittsburgh Steelers are playing the Baltimore Ravens while concurrently, Texas is playing Clemson in the second game of a playoff triple-header, and following Texas-Clemson, ABC caps off the schedule with Ohio State vs. Tennessee, which kicks off at 8 p.m. ET.
This arrangement gives viewers a choice between watching college football or the NFL. While both men agree that having options is a good thing, Kornheiser smartly mentioned other sports, such as the MLB and golf, change their schedule or have tournaments end to accommodate each other.
“Football-on-football crime, this is pretty new,” Kornheiser said.
Kornheiser took an interesting stance, however, explaining that college football is attempting to step on the toes of the NFL, not the other way around.
Meanwhile, Wilbon disagreed and said there are other ways to watch multiple games, such as owning multiple TVs or visiting a local establishment to watch everything unfold.
“They [the College Football Playoff networks] could have put all four games on Friday,” Wilbon said. “They could’ve essentially declared Friday a College Football Playoff holiday, and they could have gone 3 o’clock, 6 o’clock, 9 o’clock, 11:30, whatever. They could have done that. Nobody’s working tomorrow [Saturday], certainly not in the second half of the day.”
Whatever the case, barring any changes, this issue may be a yearly tradition but indeed a subject of hefty debate among those who enjoy watching both products.
