On Saturday night, Sept. 19, a large audience of eyeballs watching college football will be focused on Tuscaloosa. In what will no doubt be a primetime slot, Alabama Football will host Florida State in Bryant-Denny Stadium.
ESPN analyst Harry Lyles Jr. called the matchup a “must-see” game. There are other games Disney could choose for primetime that Saturday. Georgia will be at Arkansas, Florida will be at Auburn, LSU will be at Ole Miss (getting the ABC primetime slot), and SMU at Louisville. The Crimson Tide and the Seminoles will be second fiddle to the Lane Kiffin show, but still a primetime broadcast.
A quick response is that the Alabama Crimson Tide brand is the main factor giving the game a high profile. As proven again in the 2025 season, no other college football brand drives so many eyeballs as Alabama. The core attention is that so many college football fans want the Crimson Tide to fail in any game and for Kalen DeBoer to fail as Alabama's coach.
Alabama Football Hot Seat?
Lyles stated. "A loss for either the Seminoles or the Crimson Tide will put their coach firmly on the hot seat, assuming both teams enter this game 2-0. I think both Alabama's Kalen DeBoer and FSU's Mike Norvell are really good coaches, but knowing college football fans, the heat will be on for the loser of this one and the margin for error will become pretty much zero."
Zero margin for error is extreme for Week 3 of a college football season. Both teams and coaches would have the opportunity to recover from a loss. Norvell goes into the season with almost no margin for error, but DeBoer is on less shaky, but not solid ground. No matter how shaky or solid, DeBoer would not get the axe for losing to FSU again.
Maybe it is a stretch to consider the game purely as an entertainment product, rather than a sports contest. But when two teams, each (too early) projected to be mid-tier in their conferences, the game in a primetime slot is an 'entertainment' decision.