Labar: This College Football Season is Going to be Unlike Anything We’ve Experienced

By Abby Labar
Sportmoney Columnist

This was the first week it truly felt like football season is within our reach. Fresh off of attending the annual 2024 ESPN college football seminar, I’m so ready for Saturdays, the pageantry and sold out stadiums. There is nothing like it. 

This year, the theatrics and the drama will be extended for the longest college football season in history. The long awaited expanded college football playoff is officially here, and it has fans across the country going into the season with a different type of emotion and energy. Could this be THE year that our school wins a National Championship?!

If as fans we’ve got that mindset and we’re feeling some type of way that we’ve never felt before because a National Championship was so far out of reach, how do we think the coaches and players feel? Unknowns can be scary, but there is also this thrill of not having a precedent and knowing that anything can be possible. It’s new territory for everyone and it goes beyond the playing field (literally and figuratively) to broadcast partners, athletic departments, universities as a whole, the pipeline to the NFL, recruiting and much more. 

These are some of the storylines I’ll be watching this season that might carry more weight and create more buzz and excitement this year than in years past:

• Games in November: You think November was fun because of all the rivalry games? Add the level of the competition we’re going to see now on top of that as teams are fighting for final seedings, conference championships, and home field advantage for the first round of the playoffs. November games will be more important than ever as the year comes down to the wire, something we see in professional sports but have yet to really witness in college sports. As the cold weather creeps in and it’s easy to just stay home during Thanksgiving and watch the games around a fire with family, it will also be interesting to see how game attendance increases during that time of year with more on the line for several of these programs. 

• Rivalries — Conference Realignment and a Higher Level of Competition: We could dedicate an entirely different column to the conference realignment, but I figured it was worth mentioning here. There could very much be a correlation between the new rivalries forming in conferences due to the realignment and the rise in competition due to what’s at stake. Think about  Texas coming into the SEC. Your first instinct is to look at the Texas and A&M long standing rivalry. It now carries even more weight since they are in the same conference and they are both going to be fighting for the most wins against conference foes because of the impact that will have on the final rankings for bids to the college football playoff. Outside of A&M, Texas comes into the SEC ranked 3rd in ESPN’s latest 2024 FPI National Championship odds. Think of how many teams in the SEC will be out to get Texas…for more than one reason…then add the heat of the competition that could spark a new level of animosity between certain fan bases and teams.

   

• Game Day Experience: I mentioned it above and I’ll mention it again: The best part about college football is the pageantry, the tailgates and the stadiums. The experience of college football is unmatched. Having recently moved from North Carolina to New York, I went from the mecca of college sports to meeting people who are way more obsessed with MLB and the NBA than attending a college football game. Now? I already know people talking about wanting to go to a Penn State game. It’ll be interesting to see how many of the casual college football fans start attending games late in the season and as the playoffs roll around as fans have more options to adopt teams that actually have a chance to win a championship. Turnout at stadiums, new traditions, new fans to argue with…the world is our oyster. 

• Game Day Depth Charts and Roster Construction for Longevity and Injuries: Will we see more backups get playing time? When “every game matters” maybe you can argue not so much. But with the length of this season being new territory for everyone, especially strength and conditioning programs, it will be interesting to see if teams adjust playing time for student-athletes to maximize their physical and even mental health as they navigate school and exams (which will occur during a crucial time of the season). Then there are the opt outs. Do we see a decrease in these with something bigger to play for as the season dwindles down and in the conference championships? 

As somebody who went to NC State and has been a part of the ebbs and flows of the last several years of their football program, I’d say the Wolfpack are a perfect example of a team that will have a lot more excitement and eyes on it than in years past because of the opportunity at hand here. Dave Doeren returns for his 12th season as the winningest coach in NC State history. In both 2021 and 2023, the Wolfpack finished the year as a nine-win team ranked in the Top 25 in the final AP Poll. 

In the 2024 ACC Football Preseason Poll, they’re ranked 4th with eight first place votes, behind Florida State, Clemson and Miami. As a fan and an alum, there’s already so much buzz around the team for this upcoming year, and you can feel a little extra something knowing that it is very realistic we could make it to the ACC Championship and have a chance to be one of the teams in the CFB Playoff. All this to say, the 2024 college football season is going to be unlike anything we’ve experienced before, and I am so beyond ready for it.