Now that the Big East released its football schedule, it also fills out a sizeable portion of the ESPN late week schedule of games. But there's several openings out there to fill. My thoughts on filling them.
Thursday (confirmed in bold)
8/30 - South Carolina at Vanderbilt
9/6 - Pittsburgh at Cincinnati
9/13 - Rutgers at USF is listed with a "subject to date change" for this week. TCU-Kansas is also sitting out there.
9/20 - Maryland at WVU & Virginia at TCU are in play. A dark horse, depending on what they do with Rutgers-USF could be the Rutgers at Arkansas game
9/27 - Stanford at Washington (not confirmed for ESPN, but set for this date)
10/4 - USC at Utah (not confirmed for ESPN, but set for this date)
10/10 - Arizona St. at Colorado (not confirmed for ESPN, but set for this date)
10/17 - Oregon at Arizona St. (not confirmed for ESPN, but set for this date)
10/24 - Clemson at Wake Forest
11/1 - Virginia Tech at Miami (FL)
11/8 - Florida St. at Virginia Tech
11/15 - North Carolina at Virginia
11/22 - Long rumored to be TCU at Texas
11/29 - Louisville at Rutgers
Friday (confirmed in bold)
8/31 - Boise St. at Michigan St.
9/7 - Utah at Utah St. on ESPN2. NASCAR on ESPN
9/14 - See the Thursday list. One of those two could end up here
9/21 - See the Thursday list, plus one of the three MAC non-conference games, but don't expect Rutgers at Arkansas on a Friday
9/28 - Could see Hawai'i at BYU end up here
10/5 - Pittsburgh at Syracuse
10/12 - Could see Oregon St. at BYU end up here
10/19 - Syracuse at Connecticut
10/26 - Louisville at Cincinnati
11/2 - Washington at California (not confirmed for ESPN/2, but set for this date)
11/9 - Pittsburgh at Connecticut
11/16 - Feels like a Big 12 game
11/23 - Either Syracuse at Temple OR Rutgers at Pittsburgh
11/30 - Likely the MAC Championship
Any ideas or rumors?
Expect a double network schedule on 10/5. Utah State at BYU sits on that night. Unless they let BYUtv have two games (since most people are sure that Weber State will be the BYUtv game), then ESPN2 or ESPNU will carry Utah State at BYU on 10/5.
ReplyDeleteAgree with bigddan11. I saw that Cuse-Pitt was scheduled for 7pm, meaning there could even be a doubleheader
DeleteFair point by both. I had the Pitt-SU game an hour later at 8pm but that is incorrect. I like Dan's idea for ESPN2 or ESPNU. They could start the game at 9pm ET / 7pm MT in that case.
ReplyDeleteLast year ESPN and ESPNU had Thursday's games while ESPN2 actually had the Friday games, and there were weeks where games were on ESPN and ESPN2 Friday Nights. I think ESPN2 had a game all but 1 Friday last year. The fact that ESPN is broadcasting Friday Night games makes me think they will have games on ESPN and ESPN2 most Friday's.
ReplyDeleteLate in the season (ie. November) when ESPN/ESPN2 had concurrent games was out of necessity due to missing NBA programming from the lockout.
DeleteTypically the Friday games start out on ESPN then move to ESPN2 once the NBA season starts. The 9/7/12 game is on ESPN2 due to NASCAR.
ESPN2 had two Friday night games in September and October total (9/16, 10/21) and those Fridays had games on ESPN at the same time. In November 11/4 & 11/18 had concurrent Friday night games on ESPN/ESPN2 due to the lockout. 11/11 did not as ESPN carried the Carrier Classic and ESPN2 had CFB.
That was because ESPN kept changing the network for the Friday Night Games last year. When BYU announced their 2011 schedule (the one before they removed La. tech and added TCU), it had 2 of the 3 Friday Night games listed (UCF and Utah State), and it had both as airing on ESPN2. They were both moved to ESPN because ESPN chose to move Friday Night Football from ESPN2 to ESPN last year. When you look at their sports properties though, they still list it as Friday Night Football on ESPN2.
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