Sunday, October 13, 2019

CFB TV Guesses for 2019 Week Nine (10/26/19)

Here are the games already set for television and/or webcast.  Here are the known available telecast windows.

Through Week 8
* ESPN & FOX Sports share rights and first pick on the Big 12, Big Ten and Pac-12.  Based on the games selected and known selection orders, often provided from media member posts, here is what I believe were the 1st choice networks for each conference through the 10/19 selections by week number.

Please know that networks have admitted that weeknight games are selected/drafted separately and are not part of top choice selection for a given week.
  • Big 12
    • ESPN: 1, 2, 4, 6
      • Selections used, including future games: 14 (max of 23)
    • FOX Sports: 3, 5, 7, 8
      • Four games confirmed for FOX broadcast network (min of 6)
    • Games on ABC, FOX, ESPN and FS1 (includes future games): 22 (min of 25)
      • Excluding UNI-Iowa St., which was to be Iowa St.'s member retained game
  • Big Ten
    • ESPN:  5, 6, 7, 8
      • Selections used, including future games: 18 (max of 27)
    • FOX Sports: 1, 2, 3, 4
      • Selections used, including future games: 17 (range of 24-27)
  • Pac-12
    • ESPN: 1, 2, 4, 8
      • Games on ABC: 1 (min of 2, must have one more in primetime)
      • Selections used, including future games: 14 (max of 22)
    • FOX Sports:  3, 5, 6, 7
      • Games on FOX: 5 (min of 8, must have two more in primetime)
      • Selections used: 13 (max of 22)
Things to know in advance
* The following games have had their start times set without a TV assignment:
  • Iowa at Northwestern, 12pm
* The following games have had their network groups selected in advance:
  • Maryland at Minnesota (ABC/ESPN/ESPN2)
  • Notre Dame at Michigan (ABC/ESPN/ESPN2)
  • Utah St. at Air Force (Any ESPN platform except ESPN+)
  • Colorado St. at Fresno St. (Any ESPN platform except ESPN+)
* FOX has no night game due to World Series Game 4.
* FS1 has no 12pm game due to a NASCAR Truck Series race.
* BTN has two games listed for 12pm.

Decisions I made
* I assumed that Notre Dame at Michigan was the top choice for the Big Ten this particular week by ESPN, but that FOX has the top remaining choice of Big Ten games.  Also think that ESPN has three Big Ten games to air which is why they also got Penn St. at Michigan St.  Note that this would only increase their number at the top by one because Notre Dame at Michigan & Maryland at Minnesota were already selected & included in the count.
* I gave ESPN the top Big 12 choice as well and sent the top Pac-12 choice over to FOX Sports.  Bay Area News Group's Jon Wilner often posts the Pac-12 selection order in advance, but I haven't seen it listed on his Twitter feed yet.  So the networks involved could be wrong.
* EDIT: Pac-12 selection order.  I have adjusted as well.
* Going back to my piece on "Would you put Notre Dame at Michigan at night?", you can see my answer is "Yes".  I understand there are EEE concerns around Ann Arbor, and that alone might be worth the schools asking "please don't".  So I had two backup plans in mind:
  • If I put it at noon, swap Boston College at Clemson to the ABC night game.
  • If I keep it in the evening, I ask the Big Ten for flexibility on the start time and consider airing it on ESPN & send Oklahoma at Kansas St. over to ABC, similar to what they did with Notre Dame at Northwestern last year.  No, Northwestern is not the same quality of opponent as Michigan.  I can at least look at the World Series, right now through two games in both series (Game 2 ALCS being played tonight) and the result of Michigan at Penn St. and say "yeah, I'm willing to take this matchup to primetime, but I'll wait out knowing the NL side". 
* Iowa on BTN is to clear the Hawkeyes of their BTN requirements.
* By choosing Cal at Utah for FS1, I had to move the TV window up to 10pm ET / 8pm MT.

All times Eastern

12pm ABC: Boston College at Clemson
12pm FOX: Wisconsin at Ohio St.
12pm ESPN: Arkansas at Alabama
12pm ESPN2: Oklahoma St. at Iowa St.
12pm ESPNU: Memphis at Tulsa
12pm SEC: Missouri at Kentucky
12pm BTN: Iowa at Northwestern
12pm BTN: Liberty at Rutgers
12:30pm ACC RSN: Miami (FL) at Pittsburgh
3:30pm ABC: Penn St. at Michigan St.
3:30pm CBS: Auburn at LSU
3:30pm FOX: Texas at TCU
3:30pm ESPN: Maryland at Minnesota
3:30pm ESPN2: UCF at Temple
3:30pm FS1: Indiana at Nebraska
3:30pm ESPNU: Appalachian St. at South Alabama
3:30pm BTN: Illinois at Purdue
4pm SEC: South Carolina at Tennessee
4pm ACCN: Duke at North Carolina
4pm Pac-12: Arizona at Stanford
7pm ESPN: Oklahoma at Kansas St.
7pm ESPN2: Syracuse at Florida St.
7pm ESPNU: Colorado St. at Fresno St.
7pm FS1: Texas Tech at Kansas
7pm CBSSN: USF at East Carolina
7:30pm ABC: Notre Dame at Michigan
7:30pm SEC: Mississippi St. at Texas A&M
7:30pm ACCN: Virginia at Louisville
8pm Pac-12: Arizona St. at UCLA
10pm FS1: California at Utah
10:15pm ESPN2: Utah St. at Air Force
10:30pm ESPN: Washington St. at Oregon

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