The NFL and college football rarely compete for eyeballs. They’ll be doing just that on Saturday.

A pair of college football playoff games will be played, starting at noon ET (SMU-Penn State) and 4:00 p.m. ET (Clemson-Texas). A pair of NFL games also will be played, starting at 1:00 p.m. ET (Texans-Chiefs) and 4:30 p.m. ET (Steelers-Ravens).

It’ll be interesting to see the numbers. The NFL typically trounces other sports that dare to compete with it. To go against college football in the opening round of the first 12-team college playoff is gutsy, to say the least.

The other rounds of the college playoff avoid conflicting with the NFL. As originally scheduled, Saturday’s games did, too. The NFL moved two games from Sunday only because the four teams who are playing in those games will be playing on Wednesday.

The NFL originally said it wouldn’t stage Christmas games in the years that saw December 25 land on Tuesday or Wednesday. And then the NFL realized that there was too much money to be made by playing that day.

So that’s how it happened. The NFL didn’t pick a fight. The NFL also didn’t run from it.

Either way, the fight is happening.