NFHS 'disappointed' with plan to increase college football games on Fridays

INDIANAPOLIS — According to a March 7 announcement, Fox Sports intends to increase its television coverage of college football games on Friday nights this fall, with the expanded list expected to include top teams from the Big Ten and Big 12 Conferences. In fact, early indications are that Fox plans to have a regular Friday night game involving teams that would be on the same level as its Saturday noon games — the time slot where the Ohio State-Michigan game aired last year. The Big Ten Conference intends to schedule at least nine Friday night games on Fox networks in 2024 — up from five last year. In an interview with The Athletic, Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti said, "It'll be significant in terms of the amount of national exposure that we have on Friday night on Fox." While there have been more and more college games on Friday nights over the past several years, the plan to schedule games involving Top 10-level teams on the night traditionally reserved for high school football is extremely disappointing. Except for the Labor Day weekend and the Friday after Thanksgiving, the four-to-five games on Friday nights in previous years have been mainly on cable and not pitted Top 10 teams. This plan, in essence, would make Friday night a second day of regular college football programming for Fox. On any given Friday night in the fall, there are about 7,000 high school football games being played in communities throughout our country. But they are more than just "games." They are symbols of school and city pride and prime opportunities for people to stand together while cheering on their hometown squads. Simply put, FOX's plans stand as a threat to these impactful community events. The NFHS and its member state associations are opposed to colleges playing on Friday nights. High school coaches, administrators and fans are opposed. And while the climate has changed dramatically in college sports, playing on Friday night is not a universally accepted idea on the part of college coaches and fans. In fact, among teams in the Big Ten Conference, Ohio State, Penn State and Iowa have expressed reluctance to play at home on Friday nights, and Michigan has said "no" altogether to playing on Friday nights. In an article on the SI.com website, an Ohio State spokesperson said the program is far from excited to potentially have games on Friday because of the logistics of student-athletes' schedules and the impact on recruiting. "They do present challenges, namely: significant all-day traffic concerns on a Friday with classes in session and our stadium on campus; and the fact we don't want to go head-to-head with the rich tradition of Ohio high school football on Friday nights," the representative said. There seems to be a message from those universities about preserving Friday nights for high school football in the states of Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania. In addition, former Indiana University football coach Tom Allen, a former high school coach himself, had strong feelings about playing on Friday nights: " ... Friday night is for high school football, bottom line. I'll say it 'til I'm blue in the face, 'til somebody tells me to shut up. Then I'll probably say it again. Friday night is for high school football." And as news of the expected uptick in televised college games on Friday nights has circulated, it was a reminder of recent trends in that direction. According to the Austin American-Statesman, when Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark announced last fall that the conference was looking into playing more games on Friday nights, Austin Westlake High School football coach Tony Salazar told the American-Statesman that college programs should "stay out of the domain of high school athletics." Dating back as far as the early 1960s, there have been agreements to preserve Friday nights for high school football. It frankly helps every level of the game to keep it that way. In 2017, the NFHS and its member state associations adopted a resolution regarding Friday night high school football. A portion of that resolution stated that "college and professional football teams should refrain from scheduling contests on Friday nights. Such restraint would be an investment in their own future success. It would also demonstrate that high school football has value well beyond the field of play. Schools, communities and scholastic teams for girls and boys all benefit when football is strong." High schools should not have to compete with colleges for that revered and time-honored space of Friday night. In the past, some high schools have had to move games to earlier in the day or to other days of the week to accommodate conflicts with colleges playing on Friday nights. This should never be the case. Instead of flooding every day of the week with college football games, we urge the major conferences and TV networks to leave Friday nights alone, because in the fall, those nights should be spent in the stands, not on the couch. ----------------------------- Dr. Karissa L. Niehoff is in her sixth year as chief executive officer of the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) in Indianapolis.