What Could the Friday CFB Schedules Look Like for 2025?

Friday nights have become a substantial night for college football to be played.  Figured this would be a good topic to explore for the upcoming season.

The games in red italics are games I moved from Saturday dates and are not confirmed whatsoever.

ESPN & ESPN2

8/29: Georgia Tech at Colorado

9/5: West Virginia at Ohio (ESPN2) James Madison at Louisville (ESPN2)

9/12: Colorado at Houston & Kansas State at Arizona

9/19: Tulsa at Oklahoma State

9/26: Florida State at Virginia & TCU at Arizona State

10/3: Charlotte at South Florida & West Virginia at BYU

10/10: South Florida at North Texas

10/17: Louisville at Miami (FL) & North Carolina at California

10/24: California at Virginia Tech (ESPN) & North Texas at Charlotte (ESPN2)

10/31: North Carolina at Syracuse (ESPN) & Memphis at Rice (ESPN2)

11/7: Houston at UCF (ESPN) & Tulane at Memphis (ESPN2)

11/14: Clemson at Louisville

11/21: Florida State at NC State

11/28 (Black Friday): AAC Game TBD in early afternoon 

* A decent portion of their schedule gets set with the release of the AAC and ACC schedules.  As with other prior seasons, the 2nd Friday of the season will be an ESPN2 game due to the US Open mens semifinals.

* With the new NBA agreement, ESPN no longer has weekly Friday night NBA games, instead carrying their regular Wednesday doubleheaders, ABC Saturday games and select Friday games.  I'm assuming the Friday football schedule will be weekly on ESPN with the known exception of the last Friday of the US Open.  There may be weeks where games still air on ESPN2 due to the NBA or possibly a marquee college basketball game, but I see a few weeks where they'll double up with either doubleheaders or concurrent games.

FOX

8/29: Auburn at Baylor

9/5: Georgia Southern at USC

9/12: Western Michigan at Illinois

9/19: Maryland at Wisconsin

9/26: UCLA at Northwestern

10/3: Illinois at Purdue

10/10: Rutgers at Washington

10/17: Nebraska at Minnesota

10/24: (World Series Start Date)

10/31: (World Series Game 6 if needed)

11/7: Maryland at Rutgers

11/14: Minnesota at Oregon

11/21: Washington at UCLA

11/28 (Black Friday): Utah at Kansas

* I did make a change in the Friday selections from what I guessed for Week 3 vs. what I've guessed here.  I ran the risk of having three UCLA games on Friday, two of them as home games.

* Is there a possibility of a Friday night game after Game 1 of the World Series like last year's Rutgers-USC game? Maybe.  Wisconsin at Oregon & Illinois at Washington would be the options, but would affect other choices down the line.  Per Scott Dochtermann, schools have to grant approval for a 2nd home or 2nd road Friday night game.  I think they'll stay away from scheduling a game on 10/31 just like last year for the Friday that would have been World Series Game 6.

* Big Ten homecoming weekends influenced several of these choice.  I know that UCLA's homecoming game was moved to a Friday night.  I suspect that schools will try to avoid that going forward.  

• TBD: Oregon, UCLA, Washington
• 9/27: USC at Illinois, Indiana at Iowa
• 10/4: Michigan State at Nebraska, Minnesota at Ohio State, Wisconsin at Michigan
• 10/11: UCLA at Michigan State, Purdue at Minnesota, ULM at Northwestern, Northwestern at Penn State, Iowa at Wisconsin
• 10/18: Michigan State at Indiana, Oregon at Rutgers
• 10/25: Rutgers at Purdue
• 11/1: Indiana at Maryland
• 11/15: Iowa at USC

In addition to that, it is known that five schools will not host Friday night games (Iowa, Michigan, Nebraska (?), Ohio State and Penn State) and Michigan will not play road Friday night games either.  The question mark next to Nebraska is that their AD has requested no more Friday night home games with the exception of Black Friday, but its unclear whether this request was granted.

Others

* The Mountain West allows for a total of 10 Friday night games, five each for CBS Sports and FOX Sports.  These are on top of any games aired on special dates like the Sunday & Monday of the Labor Day holiday and Black Friday.

My expectation is that UNLV will host at least one Friday night game based on the Raiders schedule since the Raiders require at least 24 hours for the playing surface to be turned over from UNLV to the Raiders.  I don't think the TV partners will use all ten weeknight games.

* I expect CBSSN will carry at the Tarleton at Army West Point game, and the WKU at Delaware game on 10/3 seems earmarked for CBSSN.  If UConn's rights stay with CBSSN, I can see the possibility of a game or two moving to Friday night.

* ESPNU has carried a handful of FCS games on Fridays for several years.  I'd expect 4-5 Ivy League games on Friday nights (maybe 1-2 get elevated to ESPN2), along with the MEAC and SWAC contributing a couple games total.  Occasionally these games get elevated to ESPN2.

* ACC Network should carry some early season Friday night games like Kennesaw State at Wake Forest (8/29) and Colgate at Syracuse (9/12).  Depending on how the Friday NBA schedule gets laid out, if ESPN does take NBA for some of those early season Fridays, games like Virginia Tech at California (10/24) and North Carolina at Syracuse (10/31) could end up on ACCN too.