2010 FB Scheduling: Where are we at

The Big 12, PAC-10, SEC (minus Kentucky), Big Ten and independent schedules are set. So what are we waiting on:

1. The ACC = The conference generally gets their schedule set up in early Febuary. The conference usually has four Thursday night games to schedule and has a Labor Day game as part of its contract if it so desires. Because of the number or weeknight games, the conference often has some OOC games that are still waiting to have a date put to them.
2. The Big East = Usually after the ACC is the Big East, which has both Thursday and Friday night games set in place. The conference has a fair amount of its schedule dictated by ESPN and that it has to schedule over fourteen or fifteen weeks, so again there are some OOC games that are not set.
3. The MWC = The one non-AQ conference that is not contracted to ESPN, its schedule will often come out in mid-March or early April and will have all of its TV schedule set at that time.
4. The other four non-AQs = Because the majority of these conferences have scheduling that includes weeknight TV appearances, ESPN often has a major hand in the scheduling. These tend to come out after the Big East's schedule is announced.

There are a couple high profile games that may be moved around or officially announced (Boise St.-Virginia Tech at FedEx Field, the rumored Oregon St.-TCU game at Cowboys Stadium). I'll probably do a post once Week One's schedule gets more set and try to place games & television assignments at that time.

Scheduling tidbits

• Notre Dame announced its 2010 kickoff times. The 1st four telecasts will air at 3:30pm, the next three at 2:30pm and the Army game at Yankee Stadium will again be NBC's primetime telecast with a 7pm kickoff.
• Marshall's road game at Ohio St. will be moved to Thursday, September 2nd. My expectation is that this will be a Big Ten Network game and this could be a regular staple of the Big Ten schedule. Indiana played their opener on Thursday night last year.
• The SEC's 2nd Thursday night game has been announced as Auburn will host Mississippi St. on September 9th on ESPN. The following games comprise the Thursday night schedule with other games TBA:

  9/2 Southern Miss at South Carolina
  9/2 USC at Hawai'i
  9/9 Auburn at Mississippi St.
  10/21 UCLA at Oregon
  12/2 Arizona St. at Arizona
  

Texas A&M at Texas is expected to occupy this list on 11/25. ACC, Big East and other
possible Big 12 games should be announced over the next six weeks.

PAC-10 FB sked changes for 2010

The PAC-10 released a "tentative" (but most likely final) version of their 2010 football schedule, with two games moved to Thursday and two more moved to the Friday after Thanksgiving. These changes along with others were done for television purposes.

Thursday 9/2 USC at Hawai'i ESPN (part of WAC contract)
Saturday 9/11 Stanford at UCLA ESPN/ESPN2
Saturday 9/25 UCLA at Texas ABC 8pm (part of Big 12 contract)
Thursday 10/21 UCLA at Oregon ESPN 9pm
Friday 11/26 Arizona at Oregon TBA (available to all TV partners)
Friday 11/26 UCLA at Arizona St. TBA (available to all TV partners)
Thursday 12/2 Arizona St. at Arizona ESPN 8pm

Also, all five rivalry games will be played on the final week of the season. Consequently, only one game will be played on 11/20: California at Washington St. and it could be a week where all national TV partners pass on televising the PAC-10. Oregon St. is also waiting to announce its 12th game, though preliminary reports listed Eastern Washington as the opponent.

For the UCLA-Texas game, that game was moved from 9/18 to 9/25 when Texas at Texas Tech was moved to 9/18. Florida Atlantic's trip to Austin was then moved from 9/25 to 11/20.

EDIT: Two games will be played on 11/20 as USC-Oregon St. was also moved to that date.

Random Thoughts

Haven't posted a blog entry in almost a month, so I owe one.

• The SEC's new TV contract has been a resounding success so far for out-of-market coverage of the conference. So many more markets received the SEC Network football games and the games available on FSN and CSS were available to many markets outside of the southeastern US. Every game in HD was the cherry on top, minus the ESPN Classic games. Now that basketball season has started, we've seen many of the FSN games get that extra coverage too. Have to see what happens with the SEC Network games.
• The ACC and C-USA rights negotiations should be heating up soon. A report on Bleacher Report says that FOX has been involved, and that doesn't surprise me. I've heard of a joint FOX/Comcast bid could be in the cards, but we'll have to wait and see what the ACC decides.
• NBC and Comcast appear to be heading towards a merger. Will be interesting to see what sports NBC and Comcast and leverage. Versus and Golf Channel have NHL and PGA rights that can be worked into NBC Sports existing coverage of these two properties. The Olympics or Notre Dame football on Versus? Could they also bid on the upcoming pay TV rights for the ACC, Big 12 or PAC-10?
• ESPN and ESPN2 have done a great job getting a ton of early season college basketball in HD. Same with ESPNU, though I wouldn't know that DirecTV is still dragging its feet on offering ESPNU in HD.
• Speaking of DirecTV, they are now in the regional sports network business, now as the owners of three FSN affiliates (Pittsburgh, Rocky Mountain/Utah and Northwest). Question becomes whether these will end back in FOX Cable Networks hands once again, be sold off to someone like Comcast who has large cable clusters in these areas or stay in-house.
• DirecTV & Comcast, part II: Versus is still off DirecTV but the two sides have been in negotiations according to Sports Business Journal. Meanwhile, two Comcast RSNs have been on DirecTV without contract for a few months and another two will expire at the end of the year. There haven't been rumblings about removing these stations from DirecTV, but they could be part of a larger deal between the two entities. And no, don't expect CSN Philadelphia to be part of that deal.
• Finally, the Big Ten announced that they are going to collectively begin considering expansion. Couple schools came out with statements that they were happy with their existing status (Notre Dame & Rutgers), while Missouri's statement was definitely non-committal towards the Big 12 and that they would listen if offered. I'm not convinced that the Big Ten will expand and their statement notes that they may decide not to consider any schools. At least they appear to be doing things above board and more transparent than the ACC was when they offered membership to Miami (FL), Virginia Tech and later Boston College.
  
  
  

Bowl Predictions

Since we have one full regular season week left, plus the conference championship weekend, lets make the following assumptions:

• Cincinnati, Oregon, Texas, Georgia Tech and Florida win their respective conferences
• Army does not make a bowl, leaving the EagleBank to use a C-USA rep
  
• Notre Dame loses to Stanford, leaving them at 6-6
• Wyoming and UConn get to 6 wins
  
• Kansas loses to Missouri, is not bowl eligible
  
• TCU, Oklahoma St., Alabama and Boise St. are the BCS at-large
  

Here's my crack at the bowl lineup

New Mexico: Wyoming vs. Nevada
St. Petersburg: UConn vs. UCF
New Orleans: East Carolina vs. Troy
Las Vegas: Utah vs. Oregon St.
Poinsettia: BYU vs. California
Hawai'i: SMU vs. Fresno St.
Little Caesar's: Michigan St. vs. Temple
Meineke: North Carolina vs. Rutgers
Emerald: Boston College vs. Stanford
Music City: Georgia vs. Florida St.
Independence: Kentucky vs. Iowa St.
EagleBank: Marshall vs. Ohio
Champs Sports: Miami (FL) vs. Northwestern
Humanitarian: Idaho vs. Bowling Green
Holiday: Missouri vs. USC
Armed Forces: Southern Miss vs. Air Force
Sun: Oklahoma vs. Arizona
Texas: Navy vs. UCLA
Insight: Texas A&M vs. Minnesota
Chick-Fil-A: Clemson vs. Auburn
Outback: Penn St. vs. Tennessee
Capital One: Iowa vs. Ole Miss
Gator: Pittsburgh vs. Virginia Tech
Cotton: Nebraska vs. LSU
International: West Virginia vs. Northern Illinois
PapaJohns.com: South Carolina vs. USF
Liberty: Arkansas vs. Houston
Alamo: Texas Tech vs. Wisconsin
GMAC: Central Michigan vs. Middle Tennessee

Rose: Ohio St. vs. Oregon
Sugar: Alabama vs. Cincinnati
Orange: Georgia Tech vs. Boise St.
Fiesta: TCU vs. Oklahoma St.
BCS: Florida vs. Texas

Why is Notre Dame, at 6-6, not in any bowl? I had the following bowls as at-large

EagleBank (one slot filled with C-USA backup)
Humanitarian
Texas

The GMAC was a fourth, but they have an agreement with the Sun Belt to provide a team if they have one at 7-5 or better. Middle Tennessee fills that spot. Ohio at 7+ wins would then fill another slot, likely the EagleBank.

So that leaves Humanitarian or Texas. Since Texas has Navy preslotted, the Irish are not interested in a rematch and that leaves the Humanitarian vs. Idaho and the Irish simply say "no thanks".

Final Weekend TV Selections Announced

The Big East and ESPN announced the game times and telecasts of their three games and it also sets the C-USA Championship game time.

12pm ABC: Cincinnati at Pitt
12pm ESPN/ESPN2: West Virginia at Rutgers
12pm ESPN/ESPN2: C-USA Championship Game
8pm ESPN2: USF at Connecticut

Week 13 TV Guesses & Selections

Decided to combine the thread since the Big Ten is finished for the year and the Big 12 and PAC-10 finished their selections. Will mark a selection as confirmed when known

All selections are now confirmed.

CBS
Florida St. at Florida, 3:30pm

ABC
Friday 12pm: Illinois at Cincinnati
Friday 3:30pm: Nebraska at Colorado
Saturday: Missouri vs. Kansas, Arizona at Arizona St. and Miami (FL) at USF, 3:30pm
Saturday: Notre Dame at Stanford and Georgia at Georgia Tech, 8pm

Notre Dame-Stanford and Georgia-Georgia Tech will be reverse mirrored to ESPN2. Whichever game you see on ABC, the other game will be on ESPN2.

ESPN
12pm: Clemson at South Carolina
3:30pm: Virginia Tech at Virginia
7pm: Arkansas at LSU

ESPN2
Friday 11am: Rutgers at Louisville
Friday 7pm: Pittsburgh at West Virginia
Friday 10:15pm: Nevada at Boise St.
Saturday 12pm: North Carolina at NC State

FSN (all Saturday)
Oklahoma St. at Oklahoma, 12:30pm
Texas Tech vs. Baylor, 6pm
USC at UCLA, 10pm

ESPNU
Friday 11am: Temple at Ohio
Saturday 12pm: NCAA Playoff Game
Saturday 3:30pm: Boston College at Maryland
Saturday 7pm: Tennessee at Kentucky

CBS College Sports
Southern Miss at East Carolina, 1:30pm

Others
Friday: Northern Illinois at Central, 1pm ESPN360
Saturday: Ole Miss at Mississippi St., 12pm SEC Network
Saturday: Wake Forest at Duke, 12pm Raycom
Saturday: Connecticut at Syracuse, 12pm Big East
Saturday: Washington at Washington St., 6:30pm FSN Northwest