A look at the FOX CFB schedule announcement

* Why are there less games on FOX's broadcast network?  Allegedly some of FOX's east coast affiliates wanted the ability to have a local newscast in the early evening.  Looks like they won with ten of the games at 7pm ET.

The three mid-October games not at 7pm ET are due to FOX's MLB playoff commitments.

* And why didn't FOX take a game for Labor Day weekend?  They aren't televising MLB on August 31st either.  Could be a lack of games they felt were worthy to carry.  They clearly wanted to carry college football that day on FOX Sports 1 and still ended up with a pair of FCS vs. FBS games.  Maybe they felt the Georgia-Clemson game on ABC that night was going to draw a lot of attention so they backed away.  I really don't know.

* FOX's broadcast window on 10/19, assuming it remains at 12pm, virtually locks in the Big 12 into that time slot.

* Assuming the remaining four late night windows on FOX Sports 1 belong to the Pac-12, FOX will have accounted for fifteen of their 22 Pac-12 selections:

8/29 8pm: Utah St. at Utah (FS1)
8/31 4pm: Nicholls at Oregon (FS1)
8/31 10pm: Boise St. at Washington (FS1)
9/7 10:30pm: Washington St. at USC (FS1)
9/14 7pm: Ohio St. at California (FOX)
9/14 10pm: Oregon St. at Utah (FS1)
10/5 10pm: UCLA at Utah (FS1)
10/7 10pm: TBA (FS1)
10/12 10:30pm: Arizona at USC (FS1)
10/21 10pm: TBA (FS1)
10/28 11pm: TBA (FS1)
11/16 10pm: TBA (FS1)
11/29 3:30pm: Washington St. at Washington (FOX)
11/29 7pm: Oregon St. at Oregon (FS1)
11/30 TBA: Notre Dame at Stanford (FOX or FS1)

FOX broadcast network is supposed to carry at least eight Pac-12 games per season, which would lead you to believe that FOX Sports 1 can carry no more than fourteen Pac-12 games per year.  Again, assuming the late evening windows belong to the Pac-12, twelve of those fourteen windows have been accounted for.

* The Big 12 also has a minimum of six FOX broadcast windows per season with the WVU-Oklahoma game accounting for one of those windows.  As pointed out earlier, the noon window on 10/19 should account for a 2nd selection.  The Big 12 is also the only conference that FOX is currently contracted to that can fill the 3:30pm slot on December 7th, so the count is presumably up to three.

There is also a minimum of six games on a national FOX cable outlet.  Previously that was F/X, now its FOX Sports 1.  The cable minimum has been reached through early season selections and Thursday night games.

* I noticed that the FOX cable windows on September 28th did not line up with the selection of Army vs. Louisiana Tech, which also had a kickoff time of 3:30pm ET assigned to it.  I'm not sure that its something to get worked up over yet.  There is a FOX Sports 1 window that day of 4pm and I haven't found a network yet that stuck exactly to their scripted time slots, so the FSN window that day at 12pm could move too.  Entirely possible that FOX, Conference USA and the Heart of Dallas Classic organizers are looking to change the kickoff time too.  Keep an eye on it.

The same holds true for the October 12th windows.  FSN only lists a 12pm window and FOX selected Tulsa at UTEP, which would have a 10am local time kickoff if it aired on FSN.  FOX could always elect to move their FSN window later to accommodate the local of the game.

* FSN lives on as a regular outlet for college football with 18 games scheduled on the FOX owned and affiliated RSNs.  Of the four Big 12 institutionally controlled games on FSN, I'm not how many of them will be delivered to all FOX RSNs.  For example, the Wofford-Baylor game could get cleared on a lot of alternate channels, if it does at all in many regions, because many RSNs will have local MLB commitments that evening.

With the remaining ten FSN windows being set six to twelve days in advance, C-USA could have as anywhere from the currently listed two games to up to ten games on the regional nets and the Big 12 at least ten games (up to sixteen possible games), with six games currently set.

* FOX College Sports also lives on, carrying nine C-USA games plus one game involving future C-USA football members Charlotte and Old Dominion.  Neither future member is playing a C-USA schedule this year, though Old Dominion will face exiting C-USA member East Carolina in one of the FOX CS telecasts.

* FOX did guarantee that at least ten of the C-USA games they selected would air on FOX Sports 1 and they've hit that benchmark with seven Thursday night games, two Saturday games and the Black Friday game between FIU and FAU.