Looking Forward to the 2018-19 Collegiate Athletic Year

I rounded up a few items that I felt would be worth keeping an eye on coming into the 2018-19 college athletics year with respect to television & scheduling.  I did note a handful of items with respect to early season selections and I'll do more in-depth items on those later in the winter.

Here we go:

FOX Sports RSNs moving to Disney

For the 2018 season, I don't think you're going to see a dramatic shift in operations at least right away as the timetable for the sale of assets from 21st Century FOX to Disney appears to be at least 12-18 months, which should take the sale's completion well past the end of the season.  It could have more of a potential impact in the area of college basketball.

With that said, FOX Sports might look to seed a few more college football & basketball games on FS2 instead of FSN where they can, potentially preparing for a RSN-less future.

Conference USA back to the negotiating table

Conference USA is heading back to the market with most of their rights as their deals with ESPN, CBS Sports Network and Stadium all expire in the spring of 2018.

John Ourand of Sports Business Daily, in his predictions for 2018, noted that the Mountain West might be the first to jump more towards streaming, but I could certainly see C-USA beating them to the punch.  The conference will have 18 men's basketball games on Facebook out of 33 games that Stadium is producing.

More breathing room on CBS Sports Network?

At the moment, Navy's home football games have reverted back to the inventory the American provides to ESPN, with the exception of the "home" game vs. Notre Dame that CBS retained an option to carry in 2018, which if CBS were to carry is virtually certain to be a night game unless they were allowed to carry the game on CBS Sports Network due to the game's location in 2018 (San Diego) and the fact that the game is the same day as Georgia vs. Florida (10/27/18), which CBS is more likely than not to carry & must be played in the afternoon.

Getting back to Navy, ESPN now holds the rights to those games, but at this moment, the sublicense of American games to CBS Sports Network has not increased in the number of games (up to 15 games per season), so CBSSN could end up doing any of the following:

1. Increase the number of American games they sublicense from ESPN
2. Take a few of the Mountain West games that typically air at 10pm or 10:30pm ET and move them to earlier time slots where appropriate
3. Offer some of those slots to Conference USA during rights negotiations
4. Use more of the sublicensed MAC games from ESPN on Saturdays instead of weeknights, though that is dependent on the MAC schedule composition.

Another place to keep an eye on at CBS & CBS Sports Network: Big East scheduling.  Their agreement with FOX Sports for the Big East ends after the 2018-19 athletic year.  The reconstruction of FOX Sports under a few less outlets could put a focus on this agreement and whether FOX will keep more of these games for their outlets (FOX, FS1, FS2) or move more games to CBS Sports Network as scheduling permits as today's agreement allows for up to 30 games total to CBS & CBSSN (up to five games on CBS).

Final season of Raycom Sports' ACC Network

Raycom's ACC sublicense ends after the 2018-19 athletic year, with most of their content expected to populate the ESPN operated ACC Network.  With the agreement with Altice for carriage of the ACC Network, look for some initial ramp-up in terms of awareness towards consumers that this content is moving elsewhere and that you'll need a new channel in 2019 to see it.

To be honest, I don't have any sense of what Raycom could invest in or stay involved with as a primary producer of college sports.  I believe they own a fair amount of production equipment and could stay involved in providing production support to regional entities and the ACC Network as needed.  Frankly, ESPN could make use of that support once they take in the FOX Sports RSNs.

Random stuff

* Oklahoma is unique out of all the Big 12 schools in that their member retained game ends up on pay-per-view.  I do wonder if either FOX Sports or ESPN will want the opener vs. FAU for their national packages while having to designate the game as member retained (I don't see this happening for the UCLA game).

FAU at Oklahoma also happens to be the only Big 12 controlled game in Week One that involves two FBS schools.

* I think ESPN will figure out how to keep all of those SEC neutral site games during Week One.  They've already moved LSU vs. Miami (FL) to Sunday.  I think they could air two each on ABC & ESPN.  With that said upfront, I think it would leave CBS without a sublicensed SEC game for this particular week and they'd end up taking one of those selections later in the season, similar to what they did in 2017.

If ESPN were to determine that they can't air one of those games, in my opinion, the Chick-Fil-A game in Atlanta, which has previously been sublicensed to CBS, or the Tennessee vs. West Virginia game in Charlotte would be targets to move.  ESPN Events has a stake in both the Advocare Texas Kickoff in Houston & the Camping World Kickoff in Orlando.  Because of those stakes, I think those are less likely to air outside of ABC or ESPN Networks.

* Both Arizona & Arizona St. are at home on 9/1, hosting BYU & UTSA, respectively.  If neither FOX nor ESPN is interested in either of those games, look for one of them to move their game to Thursday or Friday evening.  Both schools strongly prefer night games in September and the Pac-12 Networks do not have the space to provide them to be played concurrently.

* For a pair of items that rotate on a yearly basis, ESPN has the Big 12 Championship and, I believe, the top priority pick in the Pac-12, where FOX has the Pac-12 Championship and the top choice of which week they want to select first in the Big 12.

I think FOX will use the top Big 12 choice on the week of the Red River Rivalry and maybe attempt to pair it with a NLDS game like they tried in 2016 (the MLB game ended up be rained out), but I look at picking 2nd on 9/15 (either USC at Texas or Ohio St. vs. TCU from Jerry's World) as valuable too.  As for the Pac-12, Notre Dame at USC looks like the most valuable non-conference game, so after that your guess is as good as any.  USC at Arizona (9/29, Khalil Tate vs. defending Pac-12 champs) & UCLA at Oregon (11/3, Chip Kelly's return to Eugene) seem like they'll have good storylines attached to them

* I'm also interested to see if ESPN is working to move one of their conference championship games to Friday night.  Will the MAC move back to Friday?  I expect the Big 12 Championship on ABC, so that would in theory leave the American on ESPN, unless a tripleheader was attempted and any tripleheader would mean a game opposite the SEC Championship on CBS.

The Sun Belt adding a championship game to the mix isn't as big of a deal though as they've had games on Championship Saturday on ESPN2 the last two seasons, so they can be worked into the mix.

And all of this math assumes a place for the C-USA Championship on ESPN or ESPN2 which I suppose isn't guaranteed.

* For games scheduled for weeknights outside of Labor Day weekend, there's a lot to be announced and those will come out as schedules appear for 2018 from the ACC, American and Mountain West.  My initial impression is that ESPN will have Texas Tech at TCU on Thursday 10/11, Arizona at Utah on Friday 10/12 & Stanford at Arizona St. on Thursday 10/18 due to FS1's MLB postseason commitments.  While FS1 could conceivable not have MLB those days, I don't think they can count on it, nor count on the possibility of weather related issues changing dates/times.

* The two new FBS independents, Liberty and New Mexico St., both have a wealth of experience when it comes to being able to produce their own telecasts in football.  Liberty has had their Liberty Flames Sports Network and New Mexico St.'s AggieVision has been around since their time in the WAC and through one independent season before they moved to the Sun Belt.  Both productions regularly made it to ESPN3 along with RSNs.  I'd expect that to continue.

Some Thoughts on FSN Content Promotion & A Reversal Of Sorts

While driving towards my holiday destination yesterday, I elected to listen to the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast, because my drive was close to the length of the podcast (intelligent speed on the Podcast Addict app cut down some of the time).

And either Kyle Costner or Andrew Bucholtz (sorry, don't remember which one) made an extremely valid point regarding the sale of the FOX Sports Regional Networks to Disney.  Paraphrasing, one of them mentioned that FOX really wasn't very good at integrating them into the national business of FS1 and FOX broadcast network.

And if it wasn't foggy, I would have clapped it out for that point but I needed to hang onto the wheel.

To be clear, my frame of reference on this particular topic is from about 2004 forward, so I can't say how the national MLB package was promoted before that time, but when it came to national programming investments for FSN, I personally never felt it got the proper, or any, promotion from the big brothers.  From my own recollections, which get worse every day, the only time I can recall ever seeing any type of FSN promotion on "Big FOX" was a men's basketball tripleheader they carried where three of the top five ranked teams in the nation (#5 Duke, #2 North Carolina & #1 UCLA) would be playing on Sunday, New Year's Eve in 2006 on FSN.

That's it, and this is a network chain that had a pair of highly coveted pro tennis events for a two year stretch (Indian Wells & Miami).  Those events couldn't wait to get away from FSN fast enough and paid for time on ESPN instead.

So when it came to promoting anything on FSN, I can see where it was a bit tough for FOX to do it and four things came to mind:

• Not every RSN affiliated with FOX Sports Net was actually owned by FOX or carried the FOX Sports Net branding.  
• It isn't realistic to promote something that could conceivably not air on the RSN in your area where something could preempt the programming.  Regional pro sports typically trumped the college sports FSN carried.  In a few cases with Comcast SportsNets, they often aired their nightly news program & would join whatever live event FSN was airing in progress
• The FOX Sports branding itself didn't appear on a lot of the national programming
• ACC Sunday Night Hoops didn't always use the FSN logo on the score bar or bug and the mic flags often carried the conference's logo, which continues to this day, albeit the arrangement that FOX receives its ACC content from is a bit different
• There was a five or six year stretch where the FSN branding disappeared from content like the national college football they carried, where they went with the branding of "College Football Saturday" and "(Insert Conference Name Here) Hoops".  That branding ended right around the time Comcast RSNs elected to stop carrying FSN programming and the return of on-air FOX Sports branding.
• After Comcast RSNs stopped carrying FSN programming, the network really ceased to be national.  Arrangements have been made to carry FOX Sports Networks programming in non-FSN markets as needed (football briefly aired on local stations in San Francisco,  Boston & Washington, DC and has a few working arrangements for Big East basketball), but there was no point to try to promote what wasn't going to be available outside of FSN affiliated areas on FOX College Sports, a local station or through online means.

Now here comes a reversal of what I believed earlier when it comes to content from the Big East & Big 12 "national" contracts that they showed on FSN: While they don't own those regional networks anymore, they might find it easier to distribute that content.  They might have to go back to being a bit nameless or faceless when it comes to the branding (ie. "Big 12 Football", or something similar to the RSNs airing WCC basketball), but it could be easier to be a distributor of those games to AT&T, ESPN, Comcast & other independent RSNs, if they don't want to keep them for themselves to add to FS1 or FS2.  They can put those games out for bid if they want.  They aren't having to make a deal with Comcast for backdrop programming on the NBC Sports RSNs, they're just selling a two hour window for a college basketball game or a three hour, 30 minute window for a football game, which they do now for Big East basketball as mentioned above.  Work out the digital distribution to keep it within FOX Sports Go and figure something out if an RSN group wants to stream it (they probably will).

And the promotion of these events on RSNs, which FOX wasn't really good at, isn't something they need to worry about.  They just need to distribute as widely as possible.

Any thoughts on this?  I'd be curious to hear what you think.  Happy Holidays!

Implications on College Sports Content if FOX Were to Sell Their RSNs

If you've not heard, 21st Century FOX is working on a sale of assets to Disney.  Some of those assets include portions of FOX Sports, specifically their regional sports network group.  A few things that came up with respect to college sports content that airs there.

* Some content is contracted directly to the individual regional sports networks.  Think of things like Saint Louis men's basketball on FOX Sports Midwest & Big West sports on the group of RSNs in southern California.  Assuming the RSNs are sold, I would think that those contracts would be included in the sale.

One place where this affects FOX Sports' national college sports portfolio is the Big 12.  Five schools have contracts with FOX Sports RSNs to air at least one football game per season and other content that the school elects to produce for television:

FOX Sports Southwest or Oklahoma
Baylor
Oklahoma
Oklahoma St.
TCU
Texas Tech

FOX Sports gets to define the member retained football game for all ten schools each year, which is a bit interesting because they're defining the game that would currently air on RSNs.  If they don't own those contracts (at that point, FOX Sports would not own 3rd tier rights to any Big 12 schools while ESPN could own those five plus Texas through Longhorn Network⁺), would FOX Sports be able to call the shots on what games were defined as 3rd tier?

⁺Kansas St. & Kansas also have existing working arrangements with ESPN3, with some content airing locally on linear TV through partnerships with other networks and outside the defined local area on ESPN3.

* The ACC maintains a big presence on FOX RSNs through a sublicense from Raycom, as Raycom own rights to both a regional cable package & over the air syndication package, but that content will move to the ESPN-owned ACC Network in the late summer of 2019.

* Some content on FOX Sports RSNs are tied to national TV contracts with FOX Sports.  Most likely this content would not move with these RSNs to ESPN, unless ESPN were to come to an agreement to have FOX provide this content to them.  This content is as follows:

• Big 12 women's basketball
• Some Big 12 women's basketball airing on RSNs comes from the 3rd tier school packages.
• A package of "Olympic" / non-revenue sports from the Big 12, including championships in baseball, softball, etc.
• Big East sports, particularly men's basketball

Where would this content go to is anyone's guess, assuming it doesn't follow the RSNs.  It could end up on FS1 or FS2.  Maybe there's a push for this content to move exclusively to FOX Sports Go.  CBS Sports has a sublicense for Big East basketball that calls for 20-30 games.  So far, the number has been at 20 each year.

* Where does BTN fall in this equation?  I believe it is managed separately from the FOX Sports RSNs.  FOX Sports Media Group defines BTN as its own entity, separate from the RSNs, FS1, FS2, etc..  Doesn't mean it couldn't be part of the sale though.

* FOX College Sports is listed under the FOX Sports umbrella, but if they sold the RSNs & the underlying content to ESPN, there would be very little for that suite of channels to air.

TV Facts & Figures For The 2017 College Football Season

2017 was a bit of a mess, particularly early in the year where scheduled TV appearances were set aside or cancelled altogether as schedules were readjusted for weather issues, along with the annual weather delays that slotted games that were scheduled for a specific network and ended up elsewhere.  If you look over 2017 and feel that these numbers were slightly skewed, I won't argue the point.  I didn't see any conference's contractual numbers that were missed because of these problems.

ACC
* Florida St. ended up with two ACC controlled games on ABC, the lowest number of ACC appearances on the network since 2009 when the Seminoles had a single appearance on ABC.  Likewise, Louisville had only one ACC appearance on ABC.
* Miami led with five ACC appearances on ABC.  Clemson was second with four appearances.
* Raycom had its first nighttime window that I can recall for ACC football.  UL-Monroe at Florida St. was scheduled for evening but the window was cancelled due to the game's postponement.  They were granted a makeup with Duke at Virginia Tech on 10/28.  It was explained to me that Florida St. had requested the nighttime window to stay out of hot daytime weather the first few weeks of the season.

American
* A breakdown of regular season games by network:

• ABC: 3
• One was split national where others saw it on ESPN2
• ESPN: 7
• ESPN2: 6
• ESPNU: 15
• ESPNEWS: 7
• CBS Sports Network: 15
• An additional five aired on CBS Sports Network as part of Navy's expiring TV deal
• ESPN3 or local/regional TV: 17

* East Carolina never appeared on ESPN or ESPN2.  Tulane appeared once on ESPN2.

* The Pirates appeared in seven of the fifteen CBSSN sublicenes.

* USF made the most appearances across the primary TV networks (ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU) with eight games.  Memphis & Temple each had seven and UCF had six.  Note that UCF's lost game vs. Georgia Tech was scheduled for ESPNEWS.

* The American had several alterations to their schedule, to their credit, to make sure the entire conference schedule could be played.  If you'd like to see how the schedule was originally set, take a look.

Big 12
* Just twelve games on broadcast television, the lowest number for the Big 12 since I started tracking in 2005.
* Three of the five games on ABC were part of reverse mirror / split national presentations.
* 39 games aired on ABC (full or split national with ESPN2), ESPN, ESPN2, FOX or FS1.
* Texas played twice on broadcast television and had only one game involving them announced as part of the in-season selection process (Red River Rivalry), and that game could have been selected by ESPN before the season started & not announced.
* Oklahoma led the way with five appearances on broadcast television as part of the Big 12 TV deals.  Oklahoma St. appeared four times and Iowa St., Texas Tech and TCU each appeared three times.
* Three games aired on FS2, the first time games were scheduled or intended for scheduling on FS2.

Big Ten
* Thirty regular season games aired on broadcast television between ABC & FOX with an even split of fifteen games.
* In terms of cable networks, the breakdown is as follows:

• BTN: 41
• Aired over 32 telecast windows
• ESPN: 5
• ESPN2: 6
• ESPNU: 1
• Per contractual rules, only non-conference games can air here.
• FS1: 12

* Regular season primetime games per entity, including weeknight games.  Anything after a 6pm ET start:

• ABC: 4
• BTN: 9
• ESPN: 1
• ESPN2: 1
• FOX: 3
• FS1: 5

* Some fun facts re: the Big Ten appearances:

• Courtesy Sean Kelly, Nebraska never appear on an ESPN platform in a Big Ten controlled game.  Rutgers also never appeared on an ESPN platform.
• Michigan never appeared on the four primary packages' cable networks (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU or FS1).
• Rutgers led with ten games on BTN.
• All of Michigan St.'s appearances on FOX Sports platforms were on FOX broadcast network.
• All of Penn St.'s appearances on ESPN platforms were on ABC.

BYU

* BYU didn't appear on ESPNU this season.  There was a requirement/guideline/suggestion that at least one game per season appear on ESPNU.  They did have four games on ABC, ESPN or ESPN2 so maybe that washes away the need for a game on ESPNU.

* For the third consecutive season, BYUtv aired a pair of games.  Only one game per season is required to air here, but ESPN can defer picking up a game if they desire and other contractual obligations are met.

I don't want to leave Conference USA out.  Most of their television & internet schedule was set before the season started, so I don't really have anything to add.  Feel free to view their conference controlled TV schedule which still had a lot of local telecasts, plus the addition of Stadium-produced Facebook offerings.

MAC

* Ten games aired on ESPNU, the most on the network since they aired the same number in 2007.  To be fair, two of those games (Kansas at Ohio on 9/16 & Western Michigan at Buffalo on 10/7) were added to the schedule due to weather related schedule adjustments.

* Northern Illinois appeared six times across ESPN's linear television platforms and the CBS Sports Network sublicense package, the most of any MAC school.

Mountain West
* In terms of the breakdown of ESPN platform games, the games on each network is as follows:

• ESPN: 1
• ESPN2: 12
• ESPNU: 6
• ESPN3: 5
• VMI at Air Force & Fresno St. at San Jose St. were selected by ESPN after their original 22 selections.

* ESPNU carried three Mountain West games outside of where ESPN platforms have typically carried them, which was either Saturday afternoon or early evening.

Pac-12

* USC lead all Pac-12 schools with six appearances on broadcast television.

* The fourteen regular season games on broadcast television beat the number that ABC & FOX aired each of the last two seasons, excluding the conference championship game.

* Nine of the 12 schools played at least once on broadcast television.  Arizona, Arizona St. and Oregon St. did not.

* The five ABC games is the most that network carried since 2014 when they showed six Pac-12 games.

* Utah appeared the most times on ESPN or FOX pay TV platforms with seven appearances.

* Arizona St. had the least number of appearances among the two primary TV partners with 3 games.  Consequently, their eight appearances on Pac-12 Networks lead all schools with Oregon St. second with seven appearances.

* Oregon's sole appearance as part of ESPN's portion of Pac-12 games was the Civil War vs. Oregon St., which was selected by ESPN before the season started.

* USC never appeared on FS1.

SEC

* Georgia was the only SEC schools to hit the maximum number of five CBS appearances.  All of Georgia's appearances were at 3:30pm ET.

* In the "no one wants to play at 12pm ET" department, Ole Miss had four 11am local starts on SEC Network.

* Alabama, Texas A&M & LSU each had six total appearances on ESPN or ESPN2.  One could make the argument that LSU's appearance vs. BYU was not part of the SEC's television contract.  

* Texas A&M made two additional SEC appearances on ESPNU.

* Kentucky never appeared on ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU.  They had ten appearances on SEC Network and one on CBS.

* Mississppi St. never appeared on ESPN2 or ESPNU.  All their games were on CBS, ESPN or SEC Network.  Their 11/18 game on CBS may have been from a sublicensed TV window from ESPN too.

Similar to Conference USA, the Sun Belt had only one linear national TV appearance set during the season (12/2, Troy at Arkansas St.).  Feel free to view their information.

CFB TV Confirmations for 2017 Week 13 (11/21/17 - 11/25/17)

This post will be updated as announcements come out for start times for 11/21 - 11/25 from the twelve day selection process that most TV networks adhere to (well, under twelve days for the MAC but you get the picture).  Please understand that games can be held until next Sunday if a broadcaster wants to wait on the results of the Week Twelve games.  Most conferences have the possibility of having all or part of their games held for a six day hold of the start time.

The list of available TV windows are based on media websites, TV listings and press releases.  There were a fair number of alterations to this particular week on the way in and they can change based on the needs of the broadcaster or the conference.

Here's what I guessed based on the available openings (they'll be wrong & most people don't give me grief over that) and here is the current schedule for the week as several FBS games do have their time & television/webcast assignments already accounted for.

This is the final 12 day post for the season.  If there's enough games held for six day holds, I'll probably do one for those too, but I hope that as many start times are set for the games as possible.  Its a bit of an inconvenience to have a bunch of games held for start times when some fans & students could be travelling, but TV pays the schools' bills.

All times Eastern

Tuesday 11/21
7pm ESPNU:

Friday 11/24

11:30am ESPNU: 

12pm ABC: Miami (FL) at Pittsburgh

12pm ESPN: Navy at Houston

12pm CBSSN: 

3:30pm ABC: USF at UCF
4pm ESPN3: Texas St. at Troy

8pm ESPN: Virginia Tech at Virginia

Saturday 11/25
Six day holds:
ACC - Georgia at Georgia Tech (12pm or 8pm on ABC)
Big 12 - West Virginia at Oklahoma (ABC at 12pm, 3:30pm or 8pm or ESPN at 3:45pm), Kansas at Oklahoma St. (12pm FS1 or 3:30pm ESPN2/ESPNU), Iowa St. at Kansas St. (12pm FS1 or 3:30pm ESPN2/ESPNU)
Big Ten - Wisconsin at Minnesota & Penn St. at Maryland (3:30pm ABC, 3:30pm BTN or 3:45pm ESPN)
Pac-12 - Notre Dame at Stanford & Washington St. at Washington (3:30pm ABC, 3:45pm ESPN, 8pm FOX or ABC)

12pm ESPN: Florida St. at Florida

12pm ESPN2: Indiana at Purdue
12pm ESPNU: East Carolina at Memphis

12pm ESPNEWS: Connecticut at Cincinnati

12pm SEC: Louisville at Kentucky

12pm CBSSN: Tulane at SMU

12:20pm ACC Network: Boston College at Syracuse

12:30pm ACC RSN: Duke at Wake Forest
2pm ESPN3: Appalachian St. at Georgia St.
3pm ESPN3: Arkansas St. at UL-Monroe

3:30pm CBS: Alabama at Auburn

3:30pm ESPN2/ESPNU: North Carolina at NC State

4pm FOX: Michigan St. at Rutgers

4pm FS1: Northwestern at Illinois
4pm ESPNEWS: Temple at Tulsa

4pm SEC: Vanderbilt at Tennessee
4pm ESPN3: Idaho at New Mexico St.

4:30pm Pac-12: Arizona at Arizona St.
5pm ESPN3: Wyoming at San Jose St.

5pm ESPN3: Georgia Southern at UL-Lafayette

7pm ESPN2: Oregon St. at Oregon

7:30pm ESPN: Clemson at South Carolina

7:30pmpm ESPNU: UTSA at Louisiana Tech

7:30pm SEC: Texas A&M at LSU

10pm FS1: Colorado at Utah

10:15pm ESPN2: Utah St. at Air Force

CFB TV Guesses for 2017 Weeks 13 & 14

Threw in Championship Saturday as a freebie at the bottom.  No sense in wasting a post on it.  Here are the games already set for television and/or webcast for weeks 13 & 14.  Here are the known available telecast windows.

* Per Jon Wilner of Bay Area News Group, the Pac-12 order is as follows: ESPN/ABC (3:30pm or 8pm), FOX (8pm), Pac-12 Nets (4:30pm ET), FS1 (10pm).  Wilner also says that Oregon St. at Oregon, selected in the spring by ESPN when it was moved from Friday to Saturday due to the PK80 men's basketball event, will be at 3:30pm or 7pm on ESPN2.  I'd personally rather place the Civil War on ESPNU, but Jon's been pretty solid with the TV information.
* Based on 11/18 six day selections and contractual maximums, the following conferences should have this number of 12 day selections by rightsholder:

• Big Ten (maximum of 27 for both FOX & ESPN)
• ESPN: 2
• FOX Sports: 2
• BTN: 1
• Big 12 (maximum of 23 for ESPN)
• ESPN: 2

* BTN does not list a 12pm window at this time.  3:30pm is listed.  There will not be a nighttime window on the network.

* The ACC, American, Big 12, Big Ten and Pac-12 all have six day holds to use.  I don't think the SEC does, but I didn't think the SEC had a 3rd six day hold possible either, so maybe I'm wrong about that too.

* If Ohio beats Akron on 11/14, the Bobcats would wrap up the MAC East and make their Black Friday game meaningless.  Look for all the MAC times & TV to be finalized after 11/15.

* Since the Apple Cup could decide the Pac-12 North and ESPN has the Pac-12 Championship on Friday 12/1, I felt they'd be better served taking the Apple Cup instead of Notre Dame at Stanford.

* ESPNEWS has a second window added at 4pm in addition to the 12pm window that has been out there for a while.

* ESPN2 instead of ESPN now has the late evening window and a late evening window on ESPNU has been removed.  I went with Wyoming at San Jose St. instead of Utah St. at Air Force since Wyoming has a remote shot at the Mountain Division title if Boise St. were to drop its final two games vs. Air Force & Fresno St.

All times Eastern

Tuesday 11/21
7pm ESPNU: Kent St. at Akron
TBA ESPN3: Bowling Green at Eastern Michigan
TBA ESPN3: Miami (OH) at Ball St.

Friday 11/24

11:30am ESPNU: Western Michigan at Toledo

12pm ABC: USF at UCF

12pm ESPN: Navy at Houston

12pm CBSSN: Northern Illinois at Central Michigan

3:30pm ABC: Miami (FL) at Pittsburgh

8pm ESPN: Virginia Tech at Virginia

TBA ESPN3: Ohio at Buffalo
TBA ESPN3: Texas St. at Troy

Saturday 11/25

12pm ABC: West Virginia at Oklahoma

12pm ESPN: North Carolina at NC State

12pm ESPN2: Northwestern at Illinois
12pm FS1: Kansas at Oklahoma St.

12pm ESPNU: Tulane at SMU

12pm ESPNEWS: Connecticut at Cincinnati

12pm SEC: Louisville at Kentucky

12pm CBSSN: Temple at Tulsa

12:20pm ACC Network: Duke at Wake Forest

12:30pm ACC RSN: Boston College at Syracuse

3:30pm ABC: Washington St. at Washington

3:30pm CBS: Alabama at Auburn

3:30pm ESPN: Penn St. at Maryland

3:30pm ESPN2: Oregon St. at Oregon

3:30pm ESPNU: East Carolina at Memphis
3:30pm BTN: Indiana at Purdue

4pm FOX: Wisconsin at Minnesota

4pm FS1: Michigan St. at Rutgers
4pm ESPNEWS: UTSA at Louisiana Tech

4pm SEC: Vanderbilt at Tennessee

4:30pm Pac-12: Arizona St. at Arizona

7pm ESPN: Clemson at South Carolina

7pm ESPN2: Iowa St. at Kansas St.

7pm ESPNU: Florida St. at Florida

7:30pm SEC: Texas A&M at LSU

8pm ABC: Georgia at Georgia Tech

8pm FOX: Notre Dame at Stanford

10pm FS1: Colorado at Utah

10:15pm ESPN2: Wyoming at San Jose St.

TBA ESPN3: Appalachian St. at Georgia St.
TBA ESPN3: Georgia Southern at UL-Lafayette
TBA ESPN3: Arkansas St. at UL-Monroe
TBA ESPN3: Idaho at New Mexico St.
TBA ESPN3: Utah St. at Air Force

Saturday 12/2

12pm ABC: American Athletic Championship

12pm ESPN: MAC Championship

12pm ESPN2: Conference USA Championship
12pm ACC Network Extra: UL-Monroe at Florida St.

7:30pm ESPN2: Best available Sun Belt game (let's say Troy at Arkansas St.)

7:45pm ESPN: Mountain West Championship

8pm ABC: ACC Championship

CFB Six Day Guesses For 11/18

Stanford beating Washington last night shakes up a few things. 

1. It elevates the Big Game's relevance in the Pac-12 as it puts Stanford in reach of a Pac-12 North championship.
2. It does NOT give them control of their own destiny though.  That currently belongs to Washington St. by virtue of beating Stanford.
3. Washington needs a loss by Stanford in the Big Game to have any shot at using the Apple Cup to win the Pac-12 North.

Pac-12 selection order is known for their six day holds (ESPN, FOX Sports, ESPN, Pac-12 Networks).  On the Rich Eisen Show, Joel Klatt brought up that he will be at Michigan at Wisconsin, which seems to imply FOX has the top choice.  This makes sense as I originally had ESPN with this choice, but it would leave FOX with, in my mind, only six top choices after including Ohio St. at Michigan on 11/25.

(Side note:  If Klatt knows where he'll be, it makes you wonder why they held off at least picking the game, but I can understand why they didn't set a time.)

I put the top Big 12 choice with ESPN too.  Dropped the open ESPNEWS window since it won't be used by any of the remaining conferences involved.  There's nothing saying that the Pac-12 can't have dueling night games on ABC & FOX with 9/26/15 being the most recent example either, but I left Cal-Stanford in the earlier afternoon slot.

Here we go:

12pm ABC: Virginia at Miami (FL)

12pm CBS: Texas A&M at Ole Miss

12pm FOX: Nebraska at Penn St.

12pm ESPN: Maryland at Michigan St.

12pm FS1: Kansas St. at Oklahoma St.

12pm FSN: Iowa St. at Baylor

12pm BTN: Purdue at Iowa

12pm BTN: Rutgers at Indiana

3:30pm ABC: Illinois at Ohio St.

3:30pm ESPN: Oklahoma at Kansas

3:30pm ESPN2: Texas at West Virginia

3:30pm ESPNU: Syracuse at Louisville

3:30pm BTN: Minnesota at Northwestern

4pm FOX: Michigan at Wisconsin

4pm FS1: California at Stanford

7pm ESPN: Mississippi St. at Arkansas

7pm ESPN2: LSU at Tennessee

7pm Pac-12: Utah at Washington

8pm ABC: UCLA at USC

8pm FOX: TCU at Texas Tech

10:45pm ESPN: Arizona at Oregon

MBK Schedule "Ground Rules"

To be honest, every time I felt I should write something regarding the MBK schedules as they were announced, I never felt there was any earth shattering items. Compared to prior seasons not much is different with respect to the college basketball schedule I list from prior years, but wanted to touch on a few items:

* For now, I'm still not listing paid streams from places like Ivy League Network, FloHoops, BTN Plus (which you can now get through FloHoops) and CUSA.TV, along with individual schools who charge to stream their games.  Please understand that I'm not excluding them because of this practice and I do reserve the right to add them into the schedule later this year as I'm still gathering data as to how many games fall into this bucket and whether its just easier to add them or add them with a distinction of a ($), which I'd need to code for.

* I don't list the streaming services of every network when there's a concurrent telecast.  I'm pretty sure you know which networks correspond to watching a game on WatchESPN, FOX Sports Go, CBSSN online or NBCSports.com.  Check often with the conference if its one that is televising locally & you don't see it listed.

* If you see the ESPN College Extra icon on a game, that means its on ESPN3 too.  For brevity, I try to cut down the images loading on the page with the number of games increasing.

* I try to go through the schedules again around 7-10 days in advance of a week starting because I flub on start times, RSN listings and schools don't announce everything they post or change on their website.  It happens. Bear with me and say something if it's wrong or missing.

* Hate scrolling through an entire week?  Use the daily schedule.  It flips to the next day at 5am ET every day.

* Like the text only pages?  Great.  I've heard over the past few years of intermittent printing issues that I've never been able to track down.  Because of that, please hit up the directions at the top about printing to PDF, then printing the PDF document.

* There are a couple loose ends to tie up with a few schools & conferences.  Awaiting for an official breakout of the games that Stadium will air on TV vs. what is expected to appear on Facebook or syndication.

CFB TV Confirmations for 2017 Week 12 (11/14/17 - 11/18/17)

This post will be updated as announcements come out for start times for 11/14 - 11/18 from the twelve day selection process that most TV networks adhere to (well, under twelve days for the MAC but you get the picture).  Please understand that games can be held until next Sunday if a broadcaster wants to wait on the results of the Week Eleven games.  Most conferences have the possibility of having all or part of their games held for a six day hold of the start time.

Six day picks used coming into Week Twelve's selections: ACC (3 of 4), American (1 of 2), Big 12 (2 of 4), Big Ten (1 of 4 ???), SEC (2 of 2), Pac-12 (2 of 4, ESPN and FOX each have one left to use).  I don't know how many six day holds the Big Ten has as part of their new TV deal.  Per LandOf10, night games must be picked on a 12 day basis, and at this point in the year both schools must agree to have a night game.

The list of available TV windows are based on media websites, TV listings and press releases.  They can change based on the needs of the broadcaster or the conference.

Here's what I guessed based on the available openings (they'll prove to be incorrect) and here is the current schedule for the week as several FBS games do have their time & television/webcast assignments already accounted for.

Six Day Holds
Big 12: All five games
Big Ten: All seven games
Pac-12: Arizona at Oregon, Utah at Washington, UCLA at USC & California at Stanford
SEC: Mississippi St. at Arkansas & Texas A&M at Ole Miss.  Options are either ESPN/ESPN2 at 7pm or CBS at 12pm ET.

Tuesday 11/14

7pm ESPN2: 

7pm ESPNU: 

Wednesday 11/15

7pm ESPN2: 

7pm CBSSN: 

8pm ESPNU:

Thursday 11/16
7pm CST: Nicholls at Southeastern Louisiana
8pm Eleven Sports: Prairie View A&M at Incarnate Word
7pm ESPN3: Tennessee St. at Jacksonville St.

Saturday 11/18

12pm ABC or ESPN: Virginia at Miami (FL)
12pm ESPN2: UL-Monroe at Auburn
12pm ESPNU: UCF at Temple
12pm ESPNEWS: SMU at Memphis
12pm SEC: Mercer at Alabama
12pm ACC RSNs: Delaware St. at Florida St.
12pm CBSSN: Cincinnati at East Carolina
12:20pm ACC Network: Pittsburgh at Virginia Tech
12:20pm ACC Network: The Citadel at Clemson
2pm ESPN3: Houston Baptist at Sam Houston St.
3pm Pac-12: Arizona St. at Oregon St.
3pm ESPN3: Texas St. at Arkansas St.
3pm ESPN3: South Alabama at Georgia Southern
3pm ACC Network Extra: Western Carolina at North Carolina
3:30pm CBS: Kentucky at Georgia
3:30pm ESPN2/ESPNU: Syracuse at Louisville

3:30pm ACC RSNs: Georgia Tech at Duke

4pm ESPNEWS: Houston at Tulane
4pm SEC: UAB at Florida
4pm SEC Alternate: Wofford at South Carolina
4pm ESPN3: Abilene Christian at Central Arkansas
5pm SWX: Coastal Carolina at Idaho
5pm ESPN3: New Mexico St. at UL-Lafayette
7pm ESPN/ESPN2: LSU at Tennessee

7:30pm ESPNU: Wake Forest at NC State
7:30pm SEC: Missouri at Vanderbilt
8pm Eleven Sports: McNeese at Lamar

10:15pm ESPN2: Air Force at Boise St.

CFB TV Guesses for 2017 Week Twelve (11/14/17 - 11/18/17)

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

* ESPNEWS has been brought in for a full day's worth of windows.
* ACC RSNs will have a doubleheader available to them at 12pm & 3:30pm.
* With a Big East basketball game at 12pm, the Big 12's FSN window has moved to 2:30pm ET.
* SEC Network has two windows scheduled on their alternate channel at 12pm & 7:30pm.
* Both MAC games on 11/14 were moved to 7pm.  This adjustment was made in October.  Only noticed it today.  Same with the 11/15 ESPN2 game which had a time of 8pm at one point.
* CBS has another 12pm & 3:30pm SEC doubleheader.  3:30pm is the first pick.  I am treating the 12pm game as if its being sublicensed from ESPN.  ESPN sublicensed TCU at Arkansas to CBS earlier in the year and had a 2nd game to sublicense.  I'm slotting CBS with the fourth pick this particular week.
* Jon Wilner of Bay Area News Group says that ESPN will have the top pick for 11/18 and will have two selections.  FOX Sports will have the 2nd selection and the Pac-12 Networks has the final two.
* For the purposes of this exercise, I believe ESPN will have top choice for the Big Ten and FOX has it for the Big 12.
* I could see ESPN asking for Michigan at Wisconsin to be played at night.  Might be the best game available to them. If moved to primetime, it would require both schools to sign off on the move.
* I can see six day holds being used on the ACC, Big 12 & Pac-12.  Plenty of ambiguity with respect to the best available game.
* If there was to be a split regional ACC Network window, look for Delaware St. at North Carolina to be added on.  I'm unsure that there will be though.

Six day picks used: ACC (3 of 4), American (1 of 2), Big 12 (2 of 4), Big Ten (1 of 4 ???), SEC (2 of 2), Pac-12 (2 of 4, ESPN and FOX each have one left to use)

Who picked first so far (COMPLETE SPECULATION) and selection counts
Big 12: 

• ESPN: 9/9, 9/16, 9/23, 10/14, 10/28 
• Had top choice of weeks to select first.
• 18 games scheduled out of a maximum of 23.
• FOX Sports: 9/2, 9/30, 10/7, 10/21, 11/4, 11/11

Big Ten: 

• ESPN: 9/2, 9/9, 9/30, 10/7, 10/21, 11/4
• 24 selections used out of 27.
• FOX Sports: 9/16, 9/23, 10/14, 10/28, 11/11
• FOX has overall first choice of weeks, which should be for Ohio St. at Michigan on 11/25.
• 22 selections used out of 27. Count excludes conference championship game.

Pac-12:

• ESPN: 9/23, 9/30, 10/14, 10/21, 10/28, 11/4, 11/18
• 19 selections used out of 22. Count excludes conference championship game.
• FOX Sports: 9/2, 9/9, 9/16, 10/7, 11/11
• FOX Sports had top choice of games to reserve in advance.  It is unknown what that game is.
• 19 selections used out of 22.

Tuesday 11/14

7pm ESPN2: Ohio at Akron

7pm ESPNU: Central Michigan at Kent St.

Wednesday 11/15

7pm ESPN2: Toledo at Bowling Green

7pm CBSSN: Eastern Michigan at Miami (OH)

8pm ESPNU: Western Michigan at Northern Illinois

Saturday 11/18

12pm ABC: Kansas St. at Oklahoma St.
12pm FOX: Illinois at Ohio St.
12pm CBS: Texas A&M at Ole Miss
12pm ESPN: Pittsburgh at Virginia Tech
12pm ESPN2: Minnesota at Northwestern
12pm FS1: Oklahoma at Kansas
12pm ESPNU: Texas at West Virginia
12pm ESPNEWS: Delaware St. at Florida St.
12pm SEC: Wofford at South Carolina
12pm SEC: UAB at Florida
12pm ACC RSNs: Duke at Georgia Tech
12pm BTN: Maryland at Michigan St.
12pm CBSSN: Cincinnati at East Carolina
12:20pm ACC Network: Syracuse at Louisville
2:30pm FSN: Iowa St. at Baylor
3:30pm ABC: Michigan at Wisconsin
3:30pm CBS: Kentucky at Georgia
3:30pm ESPN: UCLA at USC

3:30pm ESPN2: TCU at Texas Tech

3:30pm ESPNU: NC State at Wake Forest
3:30pm ACC RSNs: The Citadel at Clemson
3:30pm BTN: Rutgers at Indiana
4pm FOX: Nebraska at Penn St.
4pm FS1: Purdue at Iowa
4pm ESPNEWS: SMU at Memphis
4pm SEC: Mercer at Alabama
4pm Pac-12: California at Stanford
7pm ESPN2: LSU at Tennessee

7pm ESPNU: UCF at Temple
7:15pm ESPN: Mississippi St. at Arkansas

7:30pm SEC: Missouri at Vanderbilt
7:30pm SEC: UL-Monroe at Auburn

8pm ABC: Virginia at Miami (FL)

8pm FOX: Utah at Washington
8pm ESPNEWS: Houston at Tulane
9pm Pac-12: Arizona St. at Oregon St.

10:15pm ESPN2: Air Force at Boise St.

10:45pm ESPN: Arizona at Oregon

ESPN3
Western Carolina at North Carolina
Texas St. at Arkansas St.
New Mexico St. at UL-Lafayette
South Alabama at Georgia Southern
Coastal Carolina at Idaho

CFB TV Confirmations for 2017 Week 11 (11/7/17 - 11/11/17)

This post will be updated as announcements come out for start times for 11/7 - 11/11 from the twelve day selection process that most TV networks adhere to (well, under twelve days for the MAC but you get the picture).  Please understand that games can be held until next Sunday if a broadcaster wants to wait on the results of the Week Ten games.  Most conferences have the possibility of having all or part of their games held for a six day hold of the start time.

Six day picks used coming into Week Eleven's selections: ACC (2 of 4), American (1 of 2), Big 12 (1 of 4), Big Ten (1 of 4 ???), SEC (1 of 2), Pac-12 (2 of 4, ESPN and FOX each have one left to use).  I don't know how many six day holds the Big Ten has as part of their new TV deal.  Per LandOf10, night games must be picked on a 12 day basis.

The list of available TV windows are based on media websites, TV listings and press releases.  They can change based on the needs of the broadcaster or the conference.

Here's what I guessed based on the available openings (they'll prove to be incorrect) and here is the current schedule for the week as several FBS games do have their time & television/webcast assignments already accounted for.

Tuesday 11/7
7:30pm ESPN2: Akron at Miami (OH)
7:30pm ESPNU: Bowling Green at Buffalo

Wednesday 11/8
7pm ESPN2: Toledo at Ohio
7pm CBSSN: Kent St. at Western Michigan
8pm ESPNU: Eastern Michigan at Central Michigan

Six day holds for 11/11 for mutlitple TV windows
Iowa St. at Oklahoma St.
TCU at Oklahoma
All ACC controlled games (six)
Georgia at Auburn
Alabama at Mississippi St.

One Big 12 game will end up on FOX at 8pm ET.  The other stays with ESPN.

One SEC game will air on CBS at 3:30pm ET and the other goes to ESPN at 7pm ET.

Saturday 11/11
12pm CBS: Florida at South Carolina
12pm FOX: Michigan St. at Ohio St.
12pm FS1: Nebraska at Minnesota
12pm ESPN: Arkansas at LSU
12pm ESPNU: Connecticut at UCF
12pm FSN: Texas Tech vs. Baylor
12pm SEC: UL-Lafayette at Ole Miss
12pm BTN: Rutgers at Penn St.
12pm BTN: Indiana at Illinois
3:30pm ABC or ESPN: Iowa at Wisconsin
3:30pm ABC/ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNU: West Virginia at Kansas St.
3:30pm BTN: Michigan at Maryland
4pm FOX: USC at Colorado
4pm SEC: Kentucky at Vanderbilt
4pm ESPN3: San Jose St. at Nevada
4pm ESPN3: Georgia St. at Texas St.
4pm ESPN3: Nicholls at Stephen F. Austin
4:30pm ESPN3: Troy at Coastal Carolina
5pm ESPN3: Arkansas St. at South Alabama
5:30pm Pac-12: Washington St. at Utah
7pm ESPN2: Northwestern at Purdue
7pm ESPNU: New Mexico at Texas A&M
7pm CST: Northwestern St. at McNeese
7pm ESPN3: Sam Houston St. at Abilene Christian
7:30pm SEC: Tennessee at Missouri
9:30pm Pac-12: Arizona St. at UCLA
10pm ESPN2: Oregon St. at Arizona
10:15pm ESPNU: Wyoming at Air Force

CFB TV Guesses for 2017 Week Eleven (11/7/17 - 11/11/17)

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

* Final Big Ten homecoming game with Rutgers at Penn St. locked to 12pm ET.
* CBS has a 12pm & 3:30pm doubleheader, which means they do not have the top two selections, but the 1st selection (3:30pm) & 4th selection (12pm) with ESPN in between.  CBS's 12pm selection is not an exclusive timeslot either and ESPN can televise SEC games on ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU at the same time.
* I'm assuming Washington at Stanford (Friday on FS1) was the top Pac-12 choice.  I have the Big 12's top choice with ESPN and the top Big Ten choice with FOX Sports.
* ESPN has a Top Rank Boxing card in the late evening.
* This is the point of the season when Big Ten schools can veto the possibility of a night game, per LandOf10.com.  Because of this, I believe FOX has Michigan St. at Ohio St. on their "be ready" list to be a night game.
* Connecticut at UCF automatically belongs to ESPN Networks.  Tulane at East Carolina was selected for CBS Sports Network ahead of the 12 day selection process with only two American games available for selection on Saturday.
* I doubled up on the ACC Network 12:20pm window as I ran out of windows for Connecticut at UCF.  Didn't realize it for about four hours, which is kinda embarrassing.
* It would not surprise me to see a ESPNEWS window opened or the use of ESPN3 for Wyoming at Air Force instead of playing it at night.  Also wouldn't surprise me to see San Jose St. at Nevada on ESPN3 and both ESPN2 and ESPNU late evening windows revert to alternate programming.

Six day picks used: ACC (2 of 4), American (1 of 2), Big 12 (1 of 4), Big Ten (1 of 4 ???), SEC (1 of 2), Pac-12 (2 of 4, ESPN and FOX each have one left to use)

Who picked first so far (COMPLETE SPECULATION) and selection counts
Big 12: 

• ESPN: 9/9, 9/16, 9/23, 10/14, 10/28
• Had top choice of weeks to select first.
• 16 games scheduled out of a maximum of 23.
• FOX Sports: 9/2, 9/30, 10/7, 10/21, 11/4

Big Ten: 

• ESPN: 9/2, 9/9, 9/30, 10/7, 10/21, 11/4
• I believe ESPN selected Ohio St. at Iowa first over Penn St. at Michigan St. on 11/4.
• 22 selections used out of 27.
• FOX Sports: 9/16, 9/23, 10/14, 10/28
• FOX has overall first choice of weeks, which should be for Ohio St. at Michigan on 11/25.
• 20 selections used out of 27. Count excludes conference championship game.

Pac-12:

• ESPN: 9/23, 9/30, 10/14, 10/21, 10/28, 11/4
• 18 selections used out of 22. Count excludes conference championship game.
• FOX Sports: 9/2, 9/9, 9/16, 10/7
• FOX Sports had top choice of games to reserve in advance.  It is unknown what that game is.
• 18 selections used out of 22.

Tuesday 11/7
7:30pm ESPN2: Akron at Miami (OH)
7:30pm ESPNU: Bowling Green at Buffalo

Wednesday 11/8
7pm CBSSN: Kent St. at Western Michigan
8pm ESPN2: Toledo at Ohio
8pm ESPNU: Eastern Michigan at Central Michigan

Saturday 11/11
12pm ABC: Oklahoma St. at Iowa St.
12pm CBS: Florida at South Carolina
12pm FOX: Iowa at Wisconsin
12pm FS1: Michigan at Maryland
12pm ESPN: Virginia Tech at Georgia Tech
12pm ESPN2: Rutgers at Penn St.
12pm ESPNU: Connecticut at UCF
12pm FSN: Texas Tech vs. Baylor
12pm SEC: Tennessee at Missouri
12pm BTN: Indiana at Illinois
12:20pm ACC Net: NC State at Boston College
12:20pm ACC Net: Virginia at Louisville
3pm ACC RSNs: Wake Forest at Syracuse
3:30pm ABC: TCU at Oklahoma
3:30pm CBS: Georgia at Auburn
3:30pm ESPN: USC at Colorado
3:30pm ESPN2: Florida St. at Clemson
3:30pm ESPNU: West Virginia at Kansas St.
3:30pm SEC: UL-Lafayette at Ole Miss
3:30pm BTN: Nebraska at Minnesota
3:30pm BTN: Purdue at Northwestern
4pm FOX: Washington St. at Utah
4pm Pac-12: Oregon St. at Arizona
7pm ESPN: Alabama at Mississippi St.
7pm ESPN2: Arkansas at LSU
7pm ESPNU: New Mexico at Texas A&M
7:30pm SEC: Kentucky at Vanderbilt
8pm ABC: Notre Dame at Miami (FL)
8pm FOX: Michigan St. at Ohio St.
9pm Pac-12: Arizona St. at UCLA
10:15pm ESPN2: Wyoming at Air Force
10:30pm ESPNU: San Jose St. at Nevada

Bedlam Start Time & Network

I think a convergence of events may have contributed to placing Bedlam on FS1 in mid afternoon on November 4th.

1) I warned after guesses post for Week Ten that any night game that ESPN or FOX wants from the Big Ten after 11/4 comes with the potential for the schools to veto the night game request (warning was in a tweet, see from LandOf10.com).  With no evening window on FS1 due to UFC commitments, the only place to fulfill this request was in the evening on FOX.

2) LSU vs. Alabama draws well and it was a forgone conclusion to air in the evening.  Courtesy SportsMediaWatch, the game's rating since 2012:

2012: 6.3
2013: 6.9
2014: 5.3
2015: 6.4
2016: 5.8

Its a reasonably safe bet to draw somewhere around a 6.0.  A couple years ago, Florida St. vs. Clemson was played at 3:30pm to stay out of the way of this one to draw a 4.7.  Ohio St. vs. Michigan St. did the best against it in 2014 with a 3.9.

3) So why not FOX in mid afternoon or, gulp, a pre-noon local Bedlam?  Its a reasonable question to ask.  I think there's a couple things at play:

* FS1 really hasn't had a tentpole college football game this season like it had with Oklahoma vs. Texas last year, which it used as a lead-in to a NLDS game that ended up being postponed due to rain.  This was their tentpole Big 12 game & I believe its their highest rated college football game to date.  The highest rated game they've had this year was Ohio St. at Nebraska on 10/14.

I also believe they're attempting to trade off of the high of a lot of people watching ALCS Game 7 too.

* In a weird way, whichever Big Ten game FOX ends up with at 12pm, either Penn St. at Michigan St. or Ohio St. at Iowa, I would assume (a terrible thing to do, I know) that game will push Bedlam like no one's business, even over the Pac-12 game airing after it.

Side note: For 11/4, with the first two windows on FOX being six day picks, they really can't promote anything before Bedlam right now.

* FOX only had five Pac-12 games on their broadcast network out of their required eight.  Going into 11/11, they have four Pac-12 selections left.  One is earmarked for FS1 at 11/25 at 10pm ET with UCLA vs. California selected already for Black Friday, so they may have no other selections that day.  One is likely to be used on 11/11 on the broadcast network with only a 12pm FS1 window, leaving two for 11/18.

So with the desire to move a Big Ten game to the evening with little resistance, plus requirements around the number of Pac-12 games they need to show, they might have backed themselves into a corner.  But its a corner they may OK with.

CFB TV Confirmations for 2017 Week 10 (10/31/17 - 11/4/17)

This post will be updated as announcements come out for start times for 10/31 - 11/4 from the twelve day selection process that most TV networks adhere to.  Please understand that games can be held until next Sunday if a broadcaster wants to wait on the results of the Week Nine games.  Most conferences have the possibility of having all or part of their games held for a six day hold of the start time.

The list of available TV windows are based on media websites, TV listings and press releases.  They can change based on the needs of the broadcaster or the conference.

Here's what I guessed based on the available openings (they'll prove to be incorrect) and here is the current schedule for the week as several FBS games do have their time & television/webcast assignments already accounted for.

Tuesday 10/31
8pm ESPN2: Miami (OH) at Ohio
8pm ESPNU: Bowling Green at Kent St.

Thursday 11/2
6pm ESPNU: Northern Illinois at Toledo
6pm CBSSN: Ball St. at Eastern Michigan

Six day holds for 11/4
ACC: Virginia Tech at Miami & Clemson at NC State (3:30pm or between 7:15pm & 8pm, ABC or ESPN)
American: USF at Connecticut & UCF at SMU (ABC/ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNU at 3:30pm, ESPN2 at 7:15pm or between 7:15pm & 8pm ABC)
Big Ten: Ohio St. at Iowa & Penn St. at Michigan St. (12pm FOX or 3:30pm ABC/ESPN/ESPN2) Pac-12: Arizona at USC, Oregon at Washington & Stanford at Washington St. (3:30pm FOX ,10pm FS1 or 10:45pm ESPN)

Saturday 11/4
12pm ABC: Wisconsin at Indiana
12pm ESPN: Auburn at Texas A&M
12pm ESPN2: Florida at Missouri
12pm FS1: Kansas St. at Texas Tech
12pm ESPNU: Western Kentucky at Vanderbilt
12pm SEC: Massachusetts at Mississippi St.
12pm FSN: Baylor at Kansas
12pm BTN: Illinois at Purdue
12pm CBSSN: East Carolina at Houston
12:20pm ACC Network: Syracuse at Florida St.
2pm ESPN3: Incarnate Word at Sam Houston St.
2:30pm ESPN3: Austin Peay at Tennessee Tech
3pm ACC RSNs: Georgia Tech at Virginia
3pm ESPN3: Appalachian St. at UL-Monroe
3pm ESPN3: Georgia St. at Georgia Southern
3pm ESPN3: New Mexico St. at Texas St.
3:30pm CBS: South Carolina at Georgia
3:30pm ESPN2/ESPNU: Iowa St. at West Virginia
3:30pm BTN: Maryland at Rutgers
3:30pm BTN: Northwestern at Nebraska
4pm FS1: Oklahoma at Oklahoma St.
4pm SEC: Ole Miss at Kentucky
4pm SEC Alternate: Coastal Carolina at Arkansas
4pm ESPN3: Cincinnati at Tulane
4pm ESPN3: UL-Lafayette at South Alabama
4:30pm Eleven Sports: Houston Baptist at Nicholls
5pm Pac-12: Oregon St. at California
7pm ESPNU: Nevada at Boise St.
7pm CST: Southeastern Louisiana at McNeese
7pm ESPN3: Central Arkansas at Lamar
7:15pm ESPN: Texas at TCU
7:30pm FOX: Minnesota at Michigan
7:30pm SEC: Southern Miss at Tennessee
8pm CBS: LSU at Alabama
9pm Pac-12: Colorado at Arizona St.

10:30pm ESPNU: San Diego St. at San Jose St.
10:45pm ESPN2: BYU at Fresno St.

CFB TV Guesses for 2017 Week Ten (10/31/17 - 11/4/17)

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

A quick selection count for conferences where it matters
American: 27 on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU.  28 game minimum across those four channels.
Big 12: ESPN with 14 picks out of a maximum of 23. Three games so far on ESPNU out of a soft maximum of 4 to 5 games.
Big Ten: 20 selections by ESPN. 18 by FOX Sports.  Both entities with a maximum of 27.
Pac-12: 17 selections by ESPN. 16 by FOX Sports.  Both entities with a maximum of 22.

Six day picks used: ACC (1 of 4), Big 12 (1 of 4), SEC (1 of 2), Pac-12 (1 of 4, ESPN has two to use, FOX has one)

* 11/4 appears to be ABC's final 7:30pm Big Ten game for 2017.  I believe this is the top Big Ten choice.
* CBS has their yearly SEC 3:30pm & 8pm doubleheader where they get the top two choices from the SEC.  With the primetime doubleheader, ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU are not allowed to televise SEC games concurrently during either CBS window, but SEC Network can.
* Per Gary Danielson during the Tennessee-Alabama game, LSU at Alabama will be the primetime CBS game.  It would not surprise me to see CBS use their other six day hold on the 3:30pm game.
* Speaking of the SEC Network, it appears that they will show two games at 4pm ET per ESPN Mediazone
* Oklahoma at Oklahoma St. was pre-selected by FOX Sports and should be considered the top Big 12 choice.  I considered it for the primetime slot but was also concerned that it would get overshadowed by both LSU at Alabama & Penn St. at Michigan St., so I ended up with Ohio St. at Iowa on FOX in the evening with Buckeyes being a bit more ratings-proof.
* The single ACC RSN window has moved to 3pm ET.
* BTN again lists the 12pm & 3:30pm windows, and then goes to TBA programming at 6:30pm.  I'll assume there's a night game in there.

Tuesday 10/31
7:30pm ESPNU: Bowling Green at Kent St.
8pm ESPN2: Miami (OH) at Ohio

Thursday 11/2
6pm ESPNU: Northern Illinois at Toledo
6pm CBSSN: Central Michigan at Western Michigan

Saturday 11/4
12pm ABC: Clemson at NC State
12pm FOX: Wisconsin at Indiana
12pm ESPN: Auburn at Texas A&M
12pm ESPN2: Ole Miss at Kentucky
12pm FS1: Minnesota at Michigan
12pm ESPNU: Western Kentucky at Vanderbilt
12pm ESPNEWS: Cincinnati at Tulane
12pm SEC: Southern Miss at Tennessee
12pm FSN: Baylor at Kansas
12pm BTN: Illinois at Purdue
12pm CBSSN: East Carolina at Houston
12:20pm ACC Network: Syracuse at Florida St.
3pm ACC RSNs: Georgia Tech at Virginia
3:30pm CBS: South Carolina at Georgia
3:30pm ABC: Virginia Tech at Miami (FL)
3:30pm ESPN: Stanford at Washington St.
3:30pm ESPN2: Iowa St. at West Virginia
3:30pm FS1: Kansas St. at Texas Tech
3:30pm ESPNU: UCF at SMU
3:30pm BTN: Northwestern at Nebraska
4pm FOX: Oklahoma at Oklahoma St.
4pm SEC: Coastal Carolina at Arkansas
4pm SEC: Massachusetts at Mississippi St.
4pm Pac-12: Oregon St. at California
7pm ESPN: Texas at TCU
7pm ESPN2: USF at Connecticut
7pm ESPNU: BYU at Fresno St.
7:30pm ABC: Penn St. at Michigan St.
7:30pm FOX: Ohio St. at Iowa
7:30pm SEC: Florida at Missouri
7:30pm BTN: Maryland at Rutgers
8pm CBS: LSU at Alabama
9pm Pac-12: Oregon at Washington

10pm FS1: Arizona at USC

10:15pm ESPN2: San Diego St. at San Jose St.

10:30pm ESPN: Colorado at Arizona St.

10:30pm ESPNU: Nevada at Boise St.

CFB TV Confirmations for 2017 Week 9 (10/26/17 - 10/28/17)

This post will be updated as announcements come out for start times for 10/26 - 10/28 from the twelve day selection process that most TV networks adhere to.  Please understand that games can be held until next Sunday if a broadcaster wants to wait on the results of the Week Eight games.  Most conferences have the possibility of having all or part of their games held for a six day hold of the start time.

The list of available TV windows are based on media websites, TV listings and press releases.  They can change based on the needs of the broadcaster or the conference.

Here's what I guessed based on the available openings (they'll prove to be incorrect) and here is the current schedule for the week as several FBS games do have their time & television/webcast assignments already accounted for.

Thursday 10/26
7:30pm CBSSN: Eastern Michigan at Northern Illinois
7:30pm ESPN3: Toledo at Ball St.

Saturday 10/28
12pm ABC/ESPN/ESPN2: Wisconsin at Illinois
12pm ABC/ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNU: Texas at Baylor
12pm ABC/ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNU: Miami (FL) at North Carolina
12pm ABC/ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNU: Oklahoma St. at West Virginia
12pm SEC: Arkansas at Ole Miss
12pm BTN: Rutgers at Michigan
12:20pm ACC Network: Louisville at Wake Forest
12:30pm ACC RSN: Virginia at Pittsburgh
2pm Pac-12: California at Colorado
3pm FS1: Kansas St. at Kansas
3pm BYUtv & ESPN3: San Jose St. at BYU
3:30pm ABC/ESPN/ESPN2: Michigan St. at Northwestern
3:30pm ABC/ESPN/ESPN2: TCU at Iowa St.
3:30pm ABC/ESPN/ESPN2: UCLA at Washington
3:30pm BTN: Indiana at Maryland
3:30pm ESPN3: Georgia Southern at Troy
3:45pm ESPNU: Houston at USF
4pm SEC: Vanderbilt at South Carolina
5pm ESPN3: UL-Monroe at Idaho
5pm ESPN3: Austin Peay at UCF
5:45pm Pac-12: Utah at Oregon
6pm ESPN3: Texas St. at Coastal Carolina
6:30pm FS1: Minnesota at Iowa
6:30pm CBSSN: Missouri at Connecticut
7pm ACC Network: Duke at Virginia Tech
7:15pm ESPN: Mississippi St. at Texas A&M
7:30pm ESPNU: New Mexico at Wyoming
7:30pm BTN: Nebraska at Purdue
7:30pm SEC: Tennessee at Kentucky
8pm ABC or ESPN2: Georgia Tech at Clemson
8pm ABC or ESPN2: Texas Tech at Oklahoma
9:30pm Pac-12: Washington St. at Arizona
10:45pm ESPN: USC at Arizona St.
11:15pm ESPN2: San Diego St. at Hawai'i

CFB TV Guesses for 2017 Week Eight (10/26/17 - 10/28/17)

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

A request that you read over this CFB TV Facts & Figures post as it does have bearing over today's post.  

* With Florida vs. Georgia pre-selected by CBS, ESPN is the only SEC TV partner with any selections this week.
* FOX Sports has no selections for FOX broadcast network either.  Penn St. at Ohio St. was selected before the season started.  It is their only broadcast network window with the World Series in the evening.
* Rutgers at Michigan and Wisconsin at Illinois are locked to 12pm and Indiana at Maryland is locked to either 3:30pm or 4pm.  Note that FOX Sports doesn't have windows at any of these times on FOX or FS1.
* Michigan St. at Northwestern was preselected by ESPN/ESPN2.
* I have heard that Raycom has been promised a makeup window this week for the lost window from when UL-Monroe at Florida St. was canceled.  Will see if that holds up.
* BTN has 12pm & 3:30pm windows confirmed.  A potential 7:30pm ET window is listed with TBA programming, so it could be football or something else.  I'm assuming three BTN windows.
* Because of FOX Sports' limited windows (no nighttime broadcast network window due to the World Series, FS1 windows with NASCAR & UFC as bookends), I gave all five Big 12 selections to ESPN as they've only selected 10 of their maximum 23 games.  If you look back two weeks, you'll see that FOX Sports had all available games on 10/7, so this isn't unusual.  This would also give ESPN eight selections to use over the final four weeks of the season.
* With three selections, I gave the Pac-12 Networks the top Pac-12 choice (USC at Arizona St.).  FOX presumably has it for the Big Ten by selecting Penn St. at Ohio St. before the season started.
* BYU needs to appear once on ESPNU per contractual parameters.  With no other BYU home games available, this would appear to be that game.
* With the extra Raycom window, plus the use of three BTN windows, I dropped the 12pm ESPNEWS window.

All times Eastern

Thursday 10/26
7:30pm CBSSN: Toledo at Ball St.
7:30pm ESPN3: Eastern Michigan at Northern Illinois

Saturday 10/28
12pm ABC: Oklahoma St. at West Virginia
12pm ESPN: Miami (FL) at North Carolina
12pm ESPN2: Wisconsin at Illinois
12pm ESPNU: Kansas St. at Kansas
12pm SEC: Vanderbilt at South Carolina
12pm BTN: Rutgers at Michigan
12:20pm ACC Network: Duke at Virginia Tech
12:30pm ACC RSN: Virginia at Pittsburgh
2pm Pac-12: California at Colorado
3pm FS1: Minnesota at Iowa
3:30pm ABC: Georgia Tech at Clemson
3:30pm ESPN: Michigan St. at Northwestern
3:30pm ESPN2: Texas at Baylor
3:30pm ESPNU: San Jose St. at BYU
3:30pm SEC: Arkansas at Ole Miss
3:30pm BTN: Indiana at Maryland
5:30pm Pac-12: USC at Arizona St.
6:30pm FS1: UCLA at Washington
6:30pm CBSSN: Missouri at Connecticut
7pm ESPN: TCU at Iowa St.
7pm ESPN2: Mississippi St. at Texas A&M
7pm ESPNU: Houston at USF
7pm ACC Network: Louisville at Wake Forest
7:15pm SEC: Tennessee at Kentucky
7:30pm BTN: Nebraska at Purdue
8pm ABC: Texas Tech at Oklahoma
10:15pm ESPN2: San Diego St. at Hawai'i
10:15pm ESPNU: New Mexico at Wyoming
10:30pm ESPN: Utah at Oregon

10:30pm Pac-12: Washington St. at Arizona

2017 CFB TV Facts & Figures Through 10/21 TV Selections

First, I'll give you an idea of where I think they'll slot the remaining 10/21 games:

12pm ABC: Oklahoma St. at Texas
12pm ESPN: Iowa at Northwestern
12pm ESPN2: Louisville at Florida St.
3:30pm ABC: Syracuse at Miami (FL)
3:30pm ESPN: Indiana at Michigan St.
3:30pm ESPN2: North Carolina at Virginia Tech
3:30pm FS1: Kansas at TCU
4pm FOX: Arizona St. at Utah
7:15pm ESPN: Auburn at Arkansas
7pm ESPN2: USF at Tulane
7:30pm ESPNU: Wake Forest at Georgia Tech
7:30pm SEC: LSU at Ole Miss
8pm FOX: Oklahoma at Kansas St.

Now to some facts & figures about the conference selections through 10/21.

ACC
* One six day hold has been used.  Three remain.  As far as I know, the shifting of games on 9/16 did not trigger the use of a six day hold, though it would not surprise me if it was a condition of moving Clemson-Louisville and Notre Dame-Boston College to later in the day.
* Have heard that Raycom will be allowed to have an extra window, possibly on 10/28, for the ACC Network.  This would be due to the loss of the UL-Monroe at Florida St. game earlier in the season.

American
* 26 games have been scheduled for primary TV networks ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU with two additional games expected to be added on Black Friday, including the conference championship game.  28 games are the minimum with at least three of those games on ABC.
* 15 games have been scheduled for ESPN3 or local/regional TV, putting them right on the minimum end of 81% of conference controlled games on national TV.
* No six day holds have been used.  I think the hold on USF-Tulane is allowed due to only a 30 minute time difference and no change in the TV rightsholder.  Two are available.

Big 12
* Halfway through the season (weeks 1-7) and no Big 12 game has appeared on ABC.  All of the conference's broadcast network games (five) have aired on FOX.  EDIT: ABC will have a 12pm game on 10/21.
* With at least one game on FOX on 10/21 (the 8pm ET slot is guaranteed), FOX will have met their minimum requirement of Big 12 games on broadcast television.  They have already met their minimum on the national cable side with ten games on FS1.
* ESPN has selected 10 of their 23 Big 12 selections for the season.  Look for them to catch up on 10/28 with FOX Sports only showing three games across all their platforms and one window already accounted for.
* ESPNU has shown three of the ten ESPN selections.  ESPNU has a soft maximum of 4-5 games per season.
* Overall, 21 games have been selected to air on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, FOX and FS1.  The Big 12 requires 25 games per season to be shown nationally on those outlets and should easily eclipse that.
* One six day hold has been used.  Three more remain.
* Complete Speculation: In terms of top selections, I believe each TV partner has had them on the following dates:

ESPN Networks: 9/9, 9/16, 9/23, 10/14
FOX Sports: 9/2, 9/30, 10/7, 10/21

Also, note that FOX Sports preselected Oklahoma St.-Oklahoma on 11/4, so it seems safe to assume that they picked first for that particular week.

Big Ten
* ESPN has selected 19 of their 27 selections across the season, including future weeks.  They'll have eight to use over the final five weeks.
* FOX Sports has used 17 of their 27 selections, including future weeks and excluding the conference championship game.  Ten more selections to use over the final five weeks.
* Both ESPN and FOX has each aired six games in primetime, either on weeknights or Saturdays.  Both TV partners could air up to three more games each in primetime.
* Michigan, Maryland and Northwestern each require one more appearance on BTN.  Each school has a non-conference appearance on the network already.
* No six day holds have been used.
* Complete Speculation: In terms of top selections, I believe each TV partner has had them on the following dates:

ESPN Networks: 9/2, 9/9, 9/30, 10/7, 10/21
FOX Sports: 9/16, 9/23, 10/14

Also, FOX Sports selected Penn St.-Ohio St. (10/28) and Ohio St.-Michigan (11/25) in advance, so its fair to say they have the top choices those weeks.

Pac-12
* ESPN has used 15 of their 22 selections, including a pre-selection of Oregon at Oregon St. on 11/25.  Seven more Saturday selections across the remaining five weeks, excluding the conference championship game.
* ABC has aired their minimum two Pac-12 games with one of the two in primetime.
* ESPN has two six day holds to use.
* FOX Sports has used 16 of their 22 selections.  Six more Saturday selections.
* FOX broadcast network has aired five Pac-12 games out of a minimum number of eight.  Four of those games must air in primetime and, when including the Sunday night game of Texas A&M at UCLA, they've aired four in primetime.
* FOX has used one of their two six day holds.  Similar to USF-Tulane & Wake Forest-Georgia Tech on 10/28 for ESPN, I don't believe a 30 minute time difference across two different FOX platforms triggers a six day hold.
* Utah (EDIT: and Washington St.) must appear once more on Pac-12 Networks based on the number of games available to Pac-12 TV partners.  A school cannot appear more than nine times total between ESPN Networks and FOX Sports.  All other Pac-12 schools are free to appear on any Pac-12 TV partner's platform.
* Complete Speculation: In terms of top selections, I believe each TV partner has had them on the following dates:

ESPN Networks:  9/23, 9/30, 10/14, 10/21
FOX Sports: 9/2, 9/9, 9/16, 10/7
Pac-12 Networks: None yet

SEC
* Tennessee & Florida have each been scheduled to appear three times on CBS out of a maximum five appearances, including Florida vs. Georgia on 10/28.
* One six day hold has been used by CBS and they have one remaining.
* There is one more ESPN sublicense window, I believe on 11/18, where the appearances in CBS's 12pm game will not be counted towards anyone's appearance maximums.

CFB TV Confirmations for 2017 Week 8 (10/21/17)

This post will be updated as announcements come out for start times for 10/21 from the twelve day selection process that most TV networks adhere to.  Please understand that games can be held until next Sunday if a broadcaster wants to wait on the results of the Week Seven games.  Most conferences have the possibility of having all or part of their games held for a six day hold of the start time.

The list of available TV windows are based on media websites, TV listings and press releases.  They can change based on the needs of the broadcaster or the conference.

Here's what I guessed based on the available openings (they'll prove to be incorrect) and here is the current schedule for the week as several FBS games do have their time & television/webcast assignments already accounted for. 

(EDIT: This was filled out well after 10/21 selections were made, mostly for me so I could remember who was set aside for a six day hold.)

All times Eastern

Six day hold for the Big 12

Oklahoma St. at Texas, Oklahoma at Kansas St. & Kansas at TCU - one at 12pm ET on ABC/ESPN/ESPN2, one at either 3:30pm ET on FS1 or 4pm ET on FOX, and one at 8pm ET on FOX.

Arizona St. at Utah will air on either FS1 at 3:30pm ET or 4pm on FOX.

Wake Forest at Georgia Tech & USF at Tulane will be slotted into either 7pm ESPN2 or 7:30pm ESPNU.

Auburn at Arkansas and LSU at Ole Miss will be slotted into 7:15pm ESPN or 7:30pm SEC

12pm FOX: Maryland at Wisconsin

12pm ABC/ESPN/ESPN2: Louisville at Florida St.

12pm ABC/ESPN/ESPN2: Iowa at Northwestern

12pm FS1: Iowa St. at Texas Tech
12pm ESPNU: Tulsa at Connecticut
12pm SEC: Idaho at Missouri
12pm BTN: Purdue at Rutgers
12:20pm ACC Network: Pittsburgh at Duke
12:30pm ACC RSNs: Boston College at Virginia
3:30pm CBS: Tennessee at Alabama
3:30pm ABC/ESPN/ESPN2: Indiana at Michigan St.
3:30pm ABC/ESPN/ESPN2: Syracuse at Miami (FL)
3:30pm ABC/ESPN/ESPN2: North Carolina at Virginia Tech
3:30pm BTN: Illinois at Minnesota
4pm ESPNU: SMU at Cincinnati
4pm SEC: Kentucky at Mississipppi St.
4pm Pac-12: Oregon at UCLA
7pm CBSSN: BYU at East Carolina
7:30pm ABC: Michigan at Penn St.
8pm FS2: West Virginia at Baylor
8pm Pac-12: Arizona at California
10:15pm ESPN2: Wyoming at Boise St.

10:45pm ESPN: Colorado at Washington St.

CFB TV Guesses for 2017 Week Eight (10/21/17)

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

* ABC is scheduled to carry a 7:30pm primetime game, so I placed a Big Ten game here.
* FS1's primetime window is tentative because of the possibility of the game airing on FS2 if ALCS Game 7 is needed.  Look for the last Big 12 selection to end up here.
* ESPN is not scheduled to have a late evening window.
* BTN is scheduled to carry women's volleyball in the evening.  Just the 12pm & 3:30pm timeslots are available.
* Maryland at Wisconsin and Purdue at Rutgers are locked to 12pm.  Illinois at Minnesota and Indiana at Michigan St. will be at either 3:30pm or 4pm.  All four are homecoming games.
* I could see a six day pick used to determine the networks and times airing Oklahoma St. at Texas & Oklahoma at Kansas St., waiting on the result of Oklahoma vs. Texas.

All times Eastern

12pm ABC: Syracuse at Miami (FL)
12pm FOX: Iowa at Northwestern
12pm ESPN: Maryland at Wisconsin
12pm ESPN2: USF at Tulane
12pm FS1: Kansas at TCU
12pm ESPNU: Louisville at Florida St.
12pm ESPNEWS: Tulsa at Connecticut
12pm SEC: Idaho at Missouri
12pm BTN: Purdue at Rutgers
12:20pm ACC Network: Wake Forest at Georgia Tech
12:30pm ACC RSNs: Boston College at Virginia
3:30pm ABC: Oklahoma at Kansas St.
3:30pm CBS: Tennessee at Alabama
3:30pm ESPN: Oregon at UCLA
3:30pm ESPN2: Iowa St. at Texas Tech
3:30pm ESPNU: Pittsburgh at Duke
3:30pm FS1: Indiana at Michigan St.
3:30pm BTN: Illinois at Minnesota
4pm FOX: Colorado at Washington St.
4pm SEC: LSU at Ole Miss
4pm Pac-12: Arizona St. at Utah
7pm ESPN: Auburn at Arkansas
7pm ESPN2: North Carolina at Virginia Tech
7pm ESPNU: SMU at Cincinnati
7pm CBSSN: BYU at East Carolina
7:30pm ABC: Michigan at Penn St.
7:30pm SEC: Kentucky at Mississippi St.
8pm FOX: Oklahoma St. at Texas
8pm FS1 or FS2: West Virginia at Baylor
9pm Pac-12: Arizona at California
10:15pm ESPN2: Wyoming at Boise St.

ESPN3
Coastal Carolina at Appalachian St.
Troy at Georgia St.
UL Monroe at South Alabama
Northern Illinois at Bowling Green
Central Michigan at Ball St.
Western Michigan at Eastern Michigan
Buffalo at Miami (OH)
Kent St. at Ohio
Akron at Toledo

CFB TV Confirmations for 2017 Week 7 (10/14/17)

This post will be updated as announcements come out for start times for 10/14 from the twelve day selection process that most TV networks adhere to.  Please understand that games can be held until next Sunday if a broadcaster wants to wait on the results of the Week Six games.  Most conferences have the possibility of having all or part of their games held for a six day hold of the start time.

The list of available TV windows are based on media websites, TV listings and press releases.  They can change based on the needs of the broadcaster or the conference.

Here's what I guessed based on the available openings (they'll prove to be incorrect) and here is the current schedule for the week as several FBS games do have their time & television/webcast assignments already accounted for.  

All times Eastern.

Six Day Holds for ACC
Florida St. at Duke & Georgia Tech at Miami (FL).  Options: 12pm on ABC, ESPN or ESPN2 and 3:30pm on ABC or ESPN.

Six Day Holds for SEC
Arkansas at Alabama, Auburn at LSU & Texas A&M at Florida. Options: 3:30pm CBS, 7pm ESPN2 or 7:15pm ESPN

12pm ABC or ESPN: Michigan at Indiana
12pm ESPN or ESPN2: South Carolina at Tennessee
12pm FS1: TCU at Kansas St.
12pm ESPNU: Texas Tech at West Virginia
12pm ESPNEWS: Connecticut at Temple
12pm FSN: Kansas at Iowa St.
12pm SEC: BYU at Mississippi St.
12pm BTN: Rutgers at Illinois
12pm ACC RSNs: NC State at Pittsburgh
12:20pm ACC Network: Boston College at Louisville
3:30pm ABC or ESPN: Oklahoma vs. Texas
3:30pm ESPN2: Northwestern at Maryland
3:30pm FS1: Baylor at Oklahoma St.
3:30pm SEC: Vanderbilt at Ole Miss
3:30pm CBSSN: Akron at Western Michigan
3:30pm BTN: Purdue at Wisconsin
3:30pm ACC RSNs: Virginia at North Carolina
3:30pm ESPN3: Toledo at Central Michigan
3:30pm ESPN3: Northern Illinois at Buffalo
3:30pm ESPN3: Miami (OH) at Kent St.
3:30pm ESPN3: Ohio at Bowling Green
3:45pm ESPNU: Navy at Memphis
4pm ESPNEWS: Houston at Tulsa
4pm Pac-12: Colorado at Oregon St.
5pm ESPN3: Appalachian St. at Idaho

5pm ESPN3: Georgia St. at UL-Monroe

6pm ESPN3: New Mexico St. at Georgia Southern

7pm CBSSN: East Carolina at UCF
7pm ESPN3: Coastal Carolina at Arkansas St.
7:30pm FS1: Ohio St. at Nebraska
7:30pm ESPNU: Cincinnati at USF
7:30pm SEC: Missouri at Georgia
8pm ABC: Utah at USC
8pm BTN: Michigan St. at Minnesota
9pm Pac-12: UCLA at Arizona
10:15pm ESPN2: Nevada at Colorado St.
10:45pm ESPN: Washington at Arizona St.

11pm FS1: Oregon at Stanford