NBC College Football Game of the Week

The NBC College Football Game of the Week refers to nationally televised broadcasts of Saturday afternoon college football games in the 1950s and 1960s that were produced by NBC Sports, the sports division of the NBC television network in the United States. Bowl games were always exempt from the NCAA's television regulations, and the games' organizers were free to sign rights deals with any network. In NBC's case, the 1952 Rose Bowl at the end of that particular season was the first national telecast of a college bowl game.

Background

NBC first televised college football on September 30, 1939. NBC broadcast the game between Waynesburg and Fordham on station W2XBS with one camera and Bill Stern was the sole announcer. Estimates are that the broadcast reached approximately 1,000 television sets. Twelve years later, the first live regular season college football game to be broadcast coast-to-coast aired on NBC. The game in question, was Duke at the Pittsburgh on September 29, 1951.
Pretty soon on June 6, 1952, NBC Head of Sport Tom Gallery led negotiations towards a one-year football contract with the National Collegiate Athletic Association. The contract incidentally came about after the 1951 NCAA convention voted 161-7 to outlaw televised games except for those licensed by the NCAA staff. The deal allowed NBC to select one game a week to broadcast on Saturday afternoons, with the assurance that no other NCAA college football broadcast would appear on a competitive network. In the first college football game to be broadcast under this new NCAA television contract, on September 20, Kansas defeated TCU 13–0.
By 1953, the NCAA allowed NBC to add what it called "panorama" coverage of multiple regional broadcasts for certain weeks – shifting national viewers to the most interesting game during its telecast. After NBC lost its college football contract following the 1953 season, they carried Canadian football in 1954. NBC regained college football rights in 1955 and aired games through the 1959 season. NBC regained the NCAA contract for the 1964 and 1965 seasons.
Even after losing the rights to regular season college football in both 1959 and 1965, NBC continued to carry postseason football. NBC carried the Blue–Gray Football Classic, an all-star game, on Christmas Day, until dropping the game in 1963 as a protest of the game's policy of segregation. It consistently served as the Rose Bowl's television home until 1988 and added the Sugar Bowl from 1958 to 1969.

Commentators

Play-by-play

Color commentary

Schedules

''All rankings are from that week's AP Poll''

1952">1952 college football season">1952

Mel Allen and Bill Henry served as the primary broadcast crew.

Date	Teams	Time
September 20	#9 TCU at #17 [1952 1957 Kansas Jayhawks football team\|Kansas Jayhawks football team\|Kansas]	3:45 p.m.
September 27	#12 Princeton at Columbia	1:25 p.m.
October 4	Michigan at Stanford	4:40 p.m.
October 11	Texas A&M at #2 Michigan State	1:45 p.m.
October 18	[1952 1952 Cornell Big Red football team\|Cornell Big Red football team\|Cornell] at Yale	1:45 p.m.
October 25	Purdue at Illinois	2:15 p.m.
November 1	Ohio State at Northwestern	2:15 p.m.
November 8	#4 Oklahoma at #10 [1952 1955 Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team\|Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team\|Notre Dame]	2:15 p.m.
November 15	#12 Alabama at #2 Georgia Tech	2:15 p.m.
November 22	#4 UCLA at #3 [1952 1952 USC Trojans football team\|USC Trojans football team\|USC]	4:45 p.m.
November 29	[1952 1957 Army Cadets football team\|Army Cadets football team\|Army] vs. [1952 1957 Navy Midshipmen football team\|Navy Midshipmen football team\|Navy] at Philadelphia, PA	1:00 p.m.

1953">1953 college football season">1953

Mel Allen and Lindsey Nelson served as the primary broadcast crew.

Date	Teams	Time
September 19	Oregon at Nebraska	3:45 p.m.
September 26	Dartmouth vs. Holy Cross at Lynn, MA	1:45 p.m.
October 3	#6 Ohio State at California	4:45 p.m.
October 10	#16 Oklahoma vs. #15 [1953 1957 Texas Longhorns football team\|Texas Longhorns football team\|Texas] as Dallas, TX	2:30 p.m.
October 17	Tennessee at Alabama	2:45 p.m.
October 24	Cornell at Princeton Arkansas vs. Ole Miss at Memphis, TN Syracuse at #7 Illinois Indiana at [1953 1957 Iowa Hawkeyes football team\|Iowa Hawkeyes football team\|Iowa]	2:45 p.m.
October 31	Pittsburgh at #14 Minnesota	2:45 p.m.
November 7	Georgia at Florida Wisconsin at Northwestern Kansas at Kansas State	2:45 p.m.
November 14	Michigan at #4 Michigan State	1:15 p.m.
November 21	#5 UCLA at #9 USC	4:15 p.m.
November 26	BYU at Utah	2:45 p.m.
November 28	#18 Army vs. Navy at Philadelphia, PA	1:15 p.m.
December 5	SMU at #2 Notre Dame	2:00 p.m.

1955">1955 college football season">1955

Lindsey Nelson and Red Grange served as the primary broadcast crew.

Date	Teams	Time
September 17	#9 Miami (FL) at #10 Georgia Tech	3:15 p.m.
September 24	#7 Pittsburgh at Syracuse	1:15 p.m.
October 1	#8 Ohio State at Stanford	4:45 p.m.
October 8	Villanova at Boston College	1:45 p.m.
October 15	#4 Notre Dame at #13 Michigan State	2:45 p.m.
October 22	Princeton at Cornell 14 Colorado at #3 Oklahoma	1:45 p.m.
October 29	Iowa at #3 Michigan	2:15 p.m.
November 5	#6 Notre Dame at Penn	1:15 p.m.
November 12	#13 Navy at Columbia	1:15 p.m.
November 19	#5 UCLA at USC	4:15 p.m.
November 24	Texas at #8 Texas A&M	2:00 p.m.
November 26	Army vs. #11 Navy at Philadelphia, PA	1:15 p.m.
December 3	[1955 1957 North Carolina Tar Heels football team\|North Carolina Tar Heels football team\|North Carolina] at [1955 1957 Duke Blue Devils football team\|Duke Blue Devils football team\|Duke]	1:45 p.m.

1956">1956 college football season">1956

Lindsey Nelson and Red Grange served as the primary broadcast crew.

Date	Teams	Time
September 22	#4 Georgia Tech at Kentucky	3:00 p.m.
September 29	Cornell at Colgate UCLA at #13 Michigan Iowa at Indiana	1:45 p.m.
October 6	Arkansas at #8 TCU	4:00 p.m.
October 13	Holy Cross at Penn State 5 Ohio State at Illinois California at Oregon State	1:45 p.m.
October 20	Army at #13 Syracuse 2 Michigan State at Notre Dame Washington at #9 USC	1:45 p.m.
October 27	#2 Oklahoma at Notre Dame	2:45 p.m.
November 3	Notre Dame vs. Navy at Baltimore, MD Illinois at Purdue Oregon at California	1:45 p.m.
November 10	#15 Iowa at #6 Minnesota	2:15 p.m.
November 17	#20 Princeton at Yale 3 Michigan State at #10 Michigan Washington at Stanford	1:45 p.m.
November 22	Cornell at Penn	1:45 p.m.
November 24	USC at UCLA	4:15 p.m.
December 1	Army vs. #13 Navy at Philadelphia, PA	1:15 p.m.
December 8	#13 Pittsburgh at #6 Miami (FL)	2:15 p.m.

1957">1957 college football season">1957

Lindsey Nelson and Red Grange served as the primary broadcast crew. On October 12 and 26 and November 9, 23 and 28, NBC showed regional games with Mel Allen/Bill Flemming, Jim Simpson/Charley Harville, and Chick Hearn/Lee Giroux.

Date	Teams	Time
September 21	Maryland vs. #2 Texas A&M at Dallas, TX	4:45 p.m.
September 28	Northwestern at #16 Stanford	4:45 p.m.
October 5	#2 Michigan State at California	5:15 p.m.
October 12	#12 Notre Dame vs. #10 Army at Philadelphia, PA Wake Forest at Maryland Illinois at Ohio State Iowa State at Kansas Washington at UCLA	1:45 p.m.
October 19	#4 Minnesota at Illinois	2:15 p.m.
October 26	Penn State at Syracuse 4 Duke at #11 NC State 14 Minnesota at #20 Michigan Washington State at USC	1:15 p.m.
November 2	#3 Iowa at #12 Michigan	1:15 p.m.
November 9	#16 Duke vs. #7 Navy at Baltimore, MD North Carolina at South Carolina	1:45 p.m.
November 16	Notre Dame at #2 Oklahoma	2:45 p.m.
November 23	Harvard at Yale North Carolina at #11 Duke 9 Notre Dame at #8 Iowa Missouri at Kansas	1:15 p.m.
November 28	Colgate at Brown 4 Texas A&M at Texas Wyoming at Denver	1:15 p.m.
November 30	#10 Army vs. #8 Navy at Philadelphia, PA	1:15 p.m.
December 7	Pittsburgh at Miami (FL)	3:45 p.m.