ESPN brought College GameDay to College Station, TX, ahead of Saturday’s College Football Playoff game between No. 10 Miami and No. 7 Texas A&M. Even with Nick Saban continuing to accuse Texas A&M of piping in artificial crowd noise, the College GameDay crew loved the atmosphere at Kyle Field, and they made it clear that they want more home games in the CFP instead of neutral-site matchups.
Currently, the first round of the CFP features home games for the higher-seeded team. But the quarterfinals and semifinals are played at a neutral site, with the New Year’s Six Bowls (the Cotton, Fiesta, Orange, Peach, Rose, and Sugar Bowls) rotating as hosts. And the CFP National Championship is played at a neutral site, with the host location set years in advance (the locations are set through the 2029-30 season, for example).
“How much fun are these home playoff games for college football?” Kirk Herbstreit, ESPN’s top college football analyst, said on College GameDay. “I mean, the NFL goes all the way through the AFC, NFC Championship Game. The bowl games have to be a part of it. But it would be great to see, [if the CFP expands to 16 teams], the first couple rounds, wouldn’t it be great to have these home-field (games)?”
“I’m not the one that thought of this; I do not want to act like I was,” Pat McAfee responded. “Bowl games, first game of the year. Have all the big teams play against each other. It won’t count against your record. Can use the rankings after those. So, now we’ve got big names in the big games at the beginning of the season. Then we can do home-field advantage all the way to the championship. I didn’t come up with it. Feels like it’s not a bad solution.”
“The other thing, too, is no one ever thinks about the fans,” College GameDay host Rece Davis said. “And if you have more home games, you help them out. You help the atmosphere out, and you help the fans and the travel.”
“You know the average fan; I’m glad you mentioned that,” Saban, a seven-time national champion as a college football head coach, said. “They can’t travel to all these games when we have them at neutral sites. So, you should get rewarded for winning so that you can play at home. And the atmosphere [for Alabama-Oklahoma in Norman], and the atmosphere in this place today, that’s what college football is all about.”
About Matt Clapp
Matt is an editor/writer at The Comeback and Awful Announcing.
He can be reached by email at mclapp@thecomeback.com.