BUFFSBLOG BIG BOLD BRAINCHILD: MOVE FCS FOOTBALL TO THE SPRING

It’s peak off-season time and here at BuffsBlog we’re going to introduce a new alliterative recurring column:  the BuffsBlog Big Bold Brainchild.  It’s a chance to talk about big ideas that interest us but that we haven’t seen discussed on the latest ESPN Screaming Heads tv show or talked about on local sports radio.  We’d love to get your thoughts/opinions, so drop a comment and your opinion below to let us know your thoughts on today’s BuffsBlog Big Bold Brainchild.   

Today’s brainchild: it’s time to move FCS football to the Spring.  

There are 129 schools in the FCS — including national powers like North Dakota State (who gave Colorado a hell of a football game last fall and won last year’s FCS national championship),  South Dakota State (2023 national champs), Montana, and Delaware.  Here at BuffsBlog, we kindly would like to forget about FCS foes Sacramento State, who beat the Buffs in 2012, and Montana State, who beat Colorado in 2006. 

FCS teams are not comprised of tired D2 players or washed up high school players.  These guys can play.  

Trey Lance? FCS.
Cooper Kupp? FCS.
Walter Payton? FCS.
Steve McNair? FCS.

Travis Hunter and Sheduer Sanders?  Yep, they played in FCS, too, at Jackson State. 

The problem isn’t the product. It’s the placement.

FCS plays in the fall — directly up against Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, Michigan, USC, and now Deion Sanders’ Colorado.

These schools don’t have a chance to draw national attention — it’s like putting your indie film in theaters the same weekend Avengers: Endgame drops. Even if your movie is good — and there’s a lot of great indie movies — no one’s watching.

Now imagine this instead….

You put FCS football in the spring.

No NFL.
No FBS.
No College Football Playoff.

Just FCS football on Saturdays, owning the entire gridiron spotlight from March to May. You think fans would watch the passion-less, tradition-less, no-one-in-the-stands UFL football (or XFL or USFL or WWF or whateve the spring league is now called) over actual college football? Get out of here.

TV networks would kill for real college football content. Instead of showing replays of the Cheez-It Bowl or coverage of spring practice fluff, ESPN and FOX could be airing FCS rivalries, playoff races, and full-blown national championships — in primetime.  Packed stadiums, college marching bands, student sections, tailgating……

The eyeballs would follow.

Maybe more importantly, the money would follow.

Right now, FCS schools scrape together local TV deals or get buried on ESPN+. You move the season to spring, and suddenly you’re talking about actual broadcast windows, national exposure, and real TV contracts.

Just look at what happened in 2021 when COVID pushed the FCS season to the spring. Viewers tuned in. Players got noticed. NFL scouts had more time to evaluate. It worked — and then everyone went right back to the old model.

It makes no sense.

The Main Event – Spring FCS Football

You’d be giving FCS programs room to breathe — and fans a reason to care. Instead of being background noise during a fully loaded fall Saturday, FCS games would be the main event.  I’ve wanted to go to a football game at Northern Colorado in Greeley for the last 25 years.  Unfortunately, Saturdays in the fall are made for my beloved Buffs and Wolverines.  I can’t (won’t?) sacrifice my Saturday to go watch a game up in Greeley. I haven’t made it yet.

But I’d be in Greeley every Saturday if they played in the spring.  

Imagine the Dakota Marker rivalry game — South Dakota State vs. North Dakota State — on ESPN2 on a Saturday night in April. Thousands of crazed fans in the stands and millions more watching on ESPN or Fox.

Imagine a national title game in late May, right as sports fans are dying for football content.

The move is obvious.

FCS in the spring isn’t just better for fans. It’s a lifeline for programs struggling to keep the lights on. It’s a pathway to bigger TV deals, more donor money, more relevance.

FCS has the talent. It has the storylines. It just needs the stage.

And that stage is wide open in the spring.