Site news, 2015 CFB and other info

* The last set of CFB TV guesses for '14 are available.  Yes, Wake Forest at Duke has already been set for ESPNU at 7pm, so that's incorrect but it was published before the game was played.  Looks like I'll have a couple opportunities to do this for college basketball games on 2/28 and 3/7.

* My intention is to do another rework of the site's guts this football offseason and that could delay when the 2015 site will be live.  I can't say that the place will look any more modern that what it does, but the goal is to make it more mobile friendly than it already is (its fairly mobile friendly).  I'm sure you'll be fine without 2015 for a little while and this would not affect the basketball schedule.

* Conference USA's rights agreements are the next conference agreements to expire, with the 2015-16 athletic year as the final year of those agreements.  Over the next several months the conference will likely sit down with FOX and CBS Sports Network, along with syndication service American Sports Network, to map out the future.

During the last round of negotiations, CBS's agreement was announced in July of 2010, right around the conference's football media days.  The ESPN agreement that was being finalized never came to fruition and the conference signed an agreement with FOX Sports.

The conference's football championship remained on ESPN as part of the settlement of a lawsuit between ESPN and the conference regarding the details surrounding the negotiations & consummation of the FOX agreement.  FOX offered up the game as a gesture.  I am unsure if this remains with ESPN as part of any new negotiations or if it would return to FOX or a new rightsholder.

* As a side note regarding Conference USA, there are some rumblings around UAB football and its future, which could affect the school's future in C-USA.

* ROOT Sports Southwest appeared on Monday as the new home of the Rockets & Astros.  For college content, it looks like the Mountain West will have its content shown here from the other ROOT Sports RSNs plus the network will carry some games from the American Sports Network syndication outlet, presumably for Conference USA.

I don't have DirectTV anymore, but I assume it is available in the Sports Pack for subscribers who are in-market for the RSN.  As an out-of-market U-Verse subscriber, I do not have access to the channel for the moment as its channel number is not available to me even though I get the Sports & HD Extra packages.

It is my understanding is that there are two feeds of RSSW being made available much like there were two feeds of CSN Houston.  This is due to the Rockets' in-market territory being much smaller than the Astros.

* ESPN MediaZone has not tipped their hand as to which date they will air their NFL Wild Card playoff game.  It will be either January 3rd or 4th.  For now, I am following what MediaZone has planned for ESPN and ESPN2 on those dates.  ESPNU listings for those dates have not yet been generated.

* 2015 is beginning to shape up already.  ESPN announced their FCS Kickoff game of North Dakota St. at Montana.  The SEC, Pac-12 and Big 12 have announced their schedules and they've framed up a fair portion of Thursday & Friday night games.  The Big Ten schedule has been out for some time and the ACC schedule should be available early in 2015.  The schedules for the Group of Five conferences, much like the ACC schedule, are often influenced by TV and those come out in the late winter & early spring.

I did not see a Black Friday or Thanksgiving game come out from the SEC, but they sometimes choose a game for two straight years to have a matchup at both schools on Thursday or Friday, so Missouri at Arkansas could again be on Black Friday & Texas A&M at LSU could be the Thanksgiving game assuming FOX Sports 1 airs Texas Tech at Texas.

EDIT: LSU will not host Texas A&M on Thanksgiving.  Only Black Friday or on the weekend http://theadvocate.com/sports/lsu/6835763-123/source-lsu-to-visit-am

Thursdays
9/3: South Carolina vs. North Carolina (at Charlotte), UTSA at Arizona & Michigan at Utah
10/8: Washington at USC
10/15: Auburn at Kentucky & UCLA at Stanford
10/22: California at UCLA
10/29: West Virginia at TCU & Oregon at Arizona St.
11/5: Mississippi St. at Missouri & Baylor at Kansas St.
11/26: Texas Tech at Texas

Friday
9/25: Stanford at Oregon St.
11/13: USC at Colorado
11/27: Baylor at TCU, Oregon St. at Oregon & Washington St. at Washington