College football executives will eyeball the NFL’s 2026 schedule upon its release Thursday evening, primarily to identify threats.

Will there be a Black Friday doubleheader to steal viewers who otherwise would be focused on college rivalries?

Which teams are playing on Saturday of Week 15, when NFL showdowns on Fox and CBS go head-to-head with the opening round of the College Football Playoff?

How attractive is the NFL’s new doubleheader on Jan. 2, a day that was stacked with bowl games last season?

Retired Fox Sports president Bob Thompson used the term “intentional creep” to describe the NFL’s strategy of moving into broadcast windows that once were the domain of other sports — for example, its takeover of Christmas Day from the NBA.

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” Thompson told the Hotline last year. “But the gorilla is coming. And it will stomp on everything.”

That “creep” will only become more problematic for college football if the NFL adds an 18th regular-season game. But commissioners and athletic directors alike should take notes Thursday evening, as well. They could learn a thing (or five) from the NFL.

Atop the list: Stop setting conference opponents years in advance.

Instead, every league in the Football Bowl Subdivision should wait for the transfer portal and coaching carousel to settle, then craft schedules for the upcoming season in February or March.

With rosters largely set, the conferences could create fair and balanced lineups for each team — those with loaded depth charts and those in rebuilding mode. The approach would offer the best inventory for TV partners and fans and maximize College Football Playoff opportunities for each conference.

The sport makes so many nonsensical decisions — how much time do you have? — but regularly declines easy strategies to improve the product.

In this case, the schools likely would resist any delay in the schedule reveal because they want to promote the opponents and dates as early as possible to sell tickets.

December is the standard window, but the Big 12, ACC and Big Ten all delayed their 2026 schedule announcements until January. Of course, that was merely the sequencing of games. The opponents were already known. Each conference establishes an opponent rotation years in advance to account for geography, rivalries and competitive balance.

But the data used to build the post-realignment opponent rotations is outdated thanks to NIL and the portal. The Big Ten created the Flex Protect XVIII matrix three years ago, for example, but the 2026 matchups assuredly would be different had the conference known of Indiana’s transformation into a powerhouse. Same with the Big 12 and Texas Tech.

To prioritize competitive balance — and mitigate the impact of the schedule “misses” — the leagues should work on a year-to-year basis. Naturally, every team would have two or three fixed opponents to preserve the rivalries that form the sport’s heartbeat.

But why not remain flexible with six or seven of the nine conference games? And why not wait until rosters are set? Would a two- or three-month delay in the schedule release result in a material drop in ticket sales? That seems unlikely, especially if fans were made aware in advance and a firm date was set.

In fact, the sport should turn the schedule reveal into a week-long branding opportunity. Pick a window in the late winter or early spring — as long as it didn’t conflict with March Madness — and block five days for reveals: One each for the SEC, Big Ten, ACC and Big 12, then a fifth for the Group of Six.

The TV partners would be delighted.

Speaking of TV, there’s another component to our plan. Instead of announcing the order of games in December and the early-season kickoff times in late May, do both at once in March or April.

Lastly, and because so much of college football is about cash, we should address the money issue.

If the conferences believed crafting the opponents and sequence of games on a year-to-year basis would generate substantially more revenue, the strategy would have been implemented years ago. Our sense is the strategy shift would not spur media partners to alter the contracts and hand over more cash.

But the plan isn’t without the opportunity to generate additional revenue. With schedules based on the post-portal rosters, each team would have a better chance to produce a winning season, and winning leads to ticket sales.

It could also lead to playoff opportunities.

The NFL has mastered the art of monthly tentpole moments. It has the Super Bowl in February, free agency in March, the draft in April and the schedule release in May.

College football should devise a similar approach while it frets over the “intentional creep.”

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