Big-name universities aren’t the only ones not thrilled with expanded Friday night college football coverage coming this fall

Earlier this month, FOX Sports announced it will air a package of college football games on Friday nights, involving teams from the Big Ten, Big 12 and Mountain West Conferences. But the news didn’t exactly draw rave reviews from everyone.

The goal for FOX is to take advantage of what has generally been an open time slot. Typically, Friday night games might happen early in the season or the day after Thanksgiving. But the new package will be for the entire season, though no matchups have been announced.

Still, some schools aren’t thrilled. And neither is the NFHS, the National Federaton of State High School Associations.

Writing on the NFHS website this week, in a post called “The NFHS Voice,” Dr. Karissa Niehoff – the organization’s CEO – has come out against the plan.

“On any given Friday night in the fall, there are about 7,000 high school football games being played in communities throughout our country,” she writes. “But they are more than just ‘games’ – they are symbols of school and city pride and prime opportunities for people to stand together while cheering on their hometown squads. Simply put, FOX’s plans stand as a threat to these impactful community events.”

You can read the whole post by clicking here.

Dr. Niehoff notes that “among teams in the Big Ten Conference, Ohio State, Penn State and Iowa have expressed reluctance to play at home on Friday nights, and Michigan has said ‘no’ altogether to playing on Friday nights.” That was reported in a story on The Athletic from back in October with new Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti.

An Ohio State spokesman said in a published report picked up by SI.com that Friday night games “do present challenges, namely: significant all-day traffic concerns on a Friday with classes in session and our stadium on campus; and the fact we don’t want to go head-to-head with the rich tradition of Ohio high school football Friday nights.”

Of course, Saturdays used to be the day for high school football until more and more high schools started adding lights. In the Big Central Conference, Spotswood will be adding permanent lights for next season. Out of the 59 schools in the league, only a handful play Saturday afternoons anymore.

Dr. Niehoff concludes by noting that some schools have had to move games to other days of the week to accommodate conflicts with colleges playing on Friday nights, adding “This should NEVER be the case.”

She adds, “Instead of flooding every day of the week with college football games, we urge the major conferences and TV networks to leave Friday nights alone, because in the fall, those nights should be spent in the stands, not on the couch.”