Hill: Make Sunday’s extraordinary game in Las Vegas normal
While there is nothing ordinary about Sunday’s blockbuster game between Louisiana State and Southern California at Allegiant Stadium, this should represent a new normal for the sport.
These massive matchups between national powerhouses should happen every year on Labor Day Weekend, but recent shifts in the landscape have put some roadblocks in the way of scheduling such events.
That’s to the detriment of fans and, ultimately, the sport of college football.
Let’s start with the obvious: Atlanta is cool and all, but Las Vegas is the ideal home for such games. There’s no reason for Mercedes-Benz Stadium, even with its ultra-fan-friendly nature, to be the de facto home of games like Saturday’s matchup between No. 1 Georgia and No. 14 Clemson.
Sunday will mark the second installment of the Vegas Kickoff Classic, a property of the Las Vegas Bowl. Another one is scheduled in 2027 between Miami (Florida) and Utah.
It needs to be a far more frequent occasion, and it likely will be at some point.
But all of the conference realignment over the past few years has undoubtedly made for a scheduling nightmare, as it could have been possible to book a major matchup of teams from two very different parts of the country that all of a sudden found themselves in the same conference.
Now that the tide has started to settle a bit on the mass shuffling of leagues, there is likely another issue getting in the way of booking powerhouse programs against one another: the expanded College Football Playoff.
Programs with aspirations of finishing in the top 12 are wildly scrambling to figure out the proper formula that will impress the committee. Is it better to challenge yourself and potentially lose an opening game? Or pad your resume early in the year with an easy tuneup game?
After a few cycles, it will become clear. For the sake of college football, let’s hope the committee gives the nod to good losses over free wins and inspires teams to step up and play games like this every year.
Especially in Las Vegas.
It’s the one week college football has the national stage to itself with no NFL games on the slate. This should be a weekend full of huge neutral-site matchups in the college football world.
For now, we should really enjoy games like Sunday’s.
Saban settling in
Perhaps the only thing more surprising than “College GameDay” on ESPN bringing TikTok to college football with a “very demure, very mindful” reference on Saturday was Nick Saban cursing on live television.
Saban is starting to actually look comfortable in just his second week as an analyst on the wildly popular program, not to mention the fact he held it together on air just days after the death of his mother.
“You keep talking about a $20 million roster,” he said of Ohio State. “If you don’t pay the right guys, you’ll be (expletive) out of luck.”
The show ended with Lee Corso dressed as the Notre Dame leprechaun as a shirtless Pat McAfee put his arm around Saban.
“I’ve never experienced anything like this,” the former Alabama coach said. “This is so much fun.”
Too real
Sometimes when we discuss franchise relocations, we get caught up in the intricacies of the business deals and legislative maneuvering and forget the personal side of things.
That was driven home in an interview I heard with Brodie Brazil of NBC Sports Bay Area this week.
Brazil, a lifelong resident of the area who does the pre- and postgame Athletics studio show, revealed a recent conversation when his 7-year-old son asked if it would be possible to go to one more baseball game in Oakland before the team relocates, first to Sacramento, California, then Las Vegas.
“I didn’t know what to tell him,” Brazil said. “I want to go with him and my wife and maybe my parents and extended family. But I know I will be a mess the entire time. I’ve just avoided going there this year because sometimes at a funeral you don’t like looking at the open casket.”
Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on X.