1) Football, 8 p.m. ET, ABC. The new college playoff system opens with teams from opposite pasts. Notre Dame has won 11 consensus national championships plus 11 disputed ones; overall, it’s won 74 percent of its games. During a 66-year stretch, Indiana(shown here) won only 37 percent and two conference titles. They collide, with three more games Saturday.
2) “Josh Groban and Friends Go Home for the Holidays,” 9-10 p.m., CBS. Each year, the “Home For the Holidays” special mixes passionate music and warm stories about adoptions. Now the format has changed slightly; it includes an on-stage adoption, plus music by Groban, Jennifer Hudson, James Bay, Tori Kelly and The War and Treaty.
3) “National Christmas Tree Lighting,” 8 p.m., CBS. The duo known as The War and Treaty is featured here, too. Other performers are Mickey Guyton (who hosts), James Taylor, Trisha Yearwood, Adam Blackwood, Muni Long, Stephen Sanchez and Trombone Shorty.
4) “Happy’s Place,” 8:30 p.m., NBC. This reruns the episode that reunited Reba McEntire with Steve Howey, who played her son-in-law in “Reba.” In a moderately funny episode (following the so-so “Shrek the Halls”), he plays a rich guy who might choose the bar for his Christmas party.
5) “Meet Me in St. Louis,” 8 p.m. ET, Turner Classic Movies. This gorgeous film has Judy Garland debuting “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” Oddly, that wasn’t one of the 12 Oscar nominees for best song. “The Trolley Song” (from the same movie) was, but it lost to “Swinging on a Star.”
— Mike Hughes, TV America