We’ve made it! Kind of. The Week 1 College Football TV Schedule.

The time is finally here!  And without a true Week Zero (at least for FBS teams) this means it is the real start of the college football season!  I will say it was nice to see college football last week and it did not disappoint.  Huge play on the first snap, sloppy football for about 55 minutes (including two horrible snaps to the punter for Austin Peay), and then 5 minutes of awesome action.  It was almost cathartic, right?

So enough of this yappin’…let’s get to why you’re all here.  Now this will look very different this year.  Especially since Week 1 will still feel a bit like a Week Zero with the amount of games being played.  But Saturday will have football all day so let’s rejoice for that.  Alright, let’s get to it!

Thursday

		US	Canada
South Alabama at Southern Miss	9:00 PM

It’s not the big start we’ve had in the past but it’s still something at least.  This is the first game of the season featuring two FBS teams.  I will watch because it’s college football and I have been waiting for this for months.  Being off work all this time has made things that much worse so I will enjoy every minute of this.

Saturday Early

		US	Canada
Eastern Kentucky at Marshall	1:00 PM
Middle Tennessee at Army	1:30 PM

Yep, only two games.  Nothing that important but it’s two more than many thought we’d have in this timeslot.  I can’t see the EKU-Marshall game being close but the MTSU-Army game could become interesting.  Also, note the odd start times for these games.  It looks like CBS Sports Network will be adopting these start times for quite a few weeks of the season, meaning they will usually only show two games on Saturdays.  That’s part of the new reality of college football in the Fall of 2020.

Saturday Afternoon

		US	Canada
SMU at Texas State	4:30 PM

Yeah this is not the Week 1 we are used to.  At all.  Look expect more teams that you’ve never seen on major networks appearing on major networks.  Like here.  Texas State?  On ESPN?  And TSN?  2020 continues to be on-brand with their wackiness.

Saturday Primetime

		US	Canada
Arkansas State at Memphis	8:00 PM

OK this is a little bit better but not by much.  Both teams slightly better than their conference counterparts from the previous game but that’s about it.  But it is college football in primetime and should get a ton of viewers, depending on what’s happening with the NBA and NHL playoffs.

Monday

		US	Canada
BYU at Navy	8:00 PM

Hey here we go.  Now this is a really nice matchup.  This was made to happen because of BYU’s schedule being decimated due to the Mountain West and Pac-12 opting out of the season.

As for the game itself, we have two teams who have far-flung fanbases so this should also get a lot of viewers.  They have to hope that NBA and NHL don’t have important playoff games and if they don’t, this could set Labour Day records for amount of viewers for a college football game.

Games to set your eyeballs on

OK this section is a moot point this week since you can honestly set your eyeballs to all the games.  Won’t be that hard.  I am going to discuss what we will probably be looking at this season when it comes to college football on TV.

To start, the late night window will rarely exist.  Other than BYU, there are no teams in either the Mountain or Pacific timezones playing in the Fall so we won’t get those games that last past 2 in the morning.  Part of me will miss them but part of me will wonder what the hell to do with the extra time.  Maybe sleep?  Nah, that’s crazy.

Also, I mentioned the CBS Sports Network windows.  They are going with 1:30 and 6:00 windows for much of the season, a stark change from their usual 4 timeslot setup.  The ESPN networks will be doing those sometimes as well.  Hell, even CBS is doing it later on in the season since the Masters was moved to November.  They will do a 6:00 start to their game that week to coincide with the end of the third round of play in Augusta.

So yeah, quite a few changes to this season and there could be more in the offing, especially if the Big Ten decides to return in October.

Some gambling fun and games

Will not do this either this week since it’s pretty straight forward, other than perhaps the MTSU-Army game.  I’ll go with the Cadets in that one.

So it’s not the normal five straight days of college football we have become accustomed to over the past few years.  That’s OK though.  At least it’s something.  And not to say that the conferences not playing are making the wrong choice.  What I am saying is that if this group of conferences gets through their whole 2020 season it will not be good for those other conferences, especially the Big Ten which is looking bad in all of this.  Poor Kevin Warren has been put in an awful spot.  He really does have to get the Big Ten’s presidents, athletic directors, and head football coaches together to hash this out since otherwise he is going to take the blame for something that isn’t his fault.

Anyway, I will be on the ol’ Twitter machine for the games this weekend.  My Twitter handle is @TheBauceman.  I change my name all the time so don’t look for Bossman because you might find something different that is not college football at all.

Soon enough we will get back into the same old rotation of college recap-college schedule-NFL schedule.  Some sense of normality is returning, albeit slightly altered.  Alright have a great time watching all this college football…..all 6 games of it.  It’s a start.  Just keep telling yourself that.  That’s what I’m doing.  Have a great day!