College football needs more games like BYU-Coastal Carolina.
College football needs more games like BYU-Coastal Carolina. The eighth-ranked Cougars and No.14 Chanticleers put on an intense and chippy show Saturday with a thrilling end reminiscent of the Titans-Rams Super Bowl in 2000. The result was a wild celebration in Conway, South Carolina, after the 22-17 victory, an end to the BYU hype and maybe an outside chance for Coastal Carolina to sneak into a New Year’s Six game. But what if the lasting legacy of this showdown of unbeatens thrown together on a Wednesday is a willingness in college football to try something like it again? Maybe not to such an extreme. The BYU-Coastal Carolina game became official 56 hours before kickoff. But creating some flexibility in schedules to create big games would be a tremendous addition to college football. Especially for the non-Power Five teams that could use a late-season boost to a resume to improve their chances to reach a major bowl — or even crack the playoff, as unlikely that is. There is a chance that if No.7 Cincinnati wasn’t recovering from an COVID-19 outbreak, BYU would have been in Ohio this weekend, unable to take Coastal’s call when No.25 Liberty had to pull out because of its own issues with the virus. There are plenty of reasons why holding open dates late in the season for the football equivalent of college basketball bracket busters would be difficult to do. It’s hard to sell tickets in advance to games listed as TBD. Maybe the more realistic goal would be simply persuading programs big and small to not schedule so far out. In college basketball, teams that are confident they’re going to be good frequently make matchups for more significant early season nonconference games in the preceding offseason. College football is not quick to embrace change, but figuring out a way to recreate the BYU-Coastal Carolina experience would be good for a sport looking for ways to make more regular-season games meaningful. BUCKEYES ARE BACK What’s next for the Buckeyes and the Big Ten? Michigan is having COVID-19 issues and if it can’t play the Buckeyes next week, that would put Ohio State below the minimum number of games required by the conference to play for the league title on Dec.
