Man, oh man, were there some overreactions this week…oh and the Week 2 College Football TV Schedule

Posted on September 7, 2023 by guelphbossman

Look, did Colorado surprise a lot of people this past weekend? Absolutely. No doubt about it. Deion Sanders is proving, whether you like him or not, that he can flat-out coach. And overhauling the roster like he did was not a bad idea at all. It does suck for the players that had to transfer out but unfortunately it’s football and the name of the game is winning.

Saying that………the amount of people I saw on Twitter that said Colorado will win 10 or 11 games this season was way too much. It should have been zero. Colorado may be better than advertised but they aren’t all of a sudden a New Year’s Six possibility. But hey, that’s the reactions from Week 1 of college football. Every. Single. Fucking. Year.

So let’s do it again on here! It’s overreaction time! Let’s look at some of the other overreactions you may (or may not) have heard after the Week 1 games were complete:

Ohio State is just an average team. Do we expect more from the Buckeyes against a team like Indiana? Sure. But they are bringing in a new quarterback and their best receiver was not 100%. The defense was amazing. Now the offense does have to be ready since in about a week and a half they get Notre Dame and that could get ugly if they don’t produce more points.
Colorado will have not one, but TWO Heisman finalists. What in the fuck? Who are the morons saying this? They are out there for sure. I saw them. Sure, they did great in their opening week win over TCU but calm the fuck down. TCU isn’t the TCU of last season for one and it’s only WEEK ONE. Anyway, moving on…
Gene Chizik has finally got the defense cooking in Chapel Hill. Again, it’s one game. Do the Heels look improved? Sure. But it’s not like South Carolina played well at all because, for the most part they didn’t. That, and the chain gang wouldn’t eat their hot dogs fast enough. Let’s see how UNC does when a top-notch offense is staring them in the face.
Jalen Milroe is already looking like another Alabama Jalen…that being Hurts. My God where do these people come up with this shit? Milroe looked OK but it was Middle Tennessee and he’s playing for Ala-frickin-Bama. We will see how he handles SEC competition before crowning him anything.
Washington has the best offense in the country. Could that end up being the case? Possibly. Michael Penix Jr. has already started his Heisman campaign in style. But let’s slow our roll here. There are at least four teams who looked better on offense (Colorado, Florida State, Oklahoma, Oregon) during Week 1. And I wouldn’t even say any of those teams will be the best offense in the country so why go ahead and put the Huskies at #1?
Book the Sooners for the Big XII Championship NOW! As I said, their offense was on fire but they were playing Arkansas State. We are all waiting to see if Brent Venables can have a Venables-type defense in Norman. If that happens, this could very well happen. But for now, I wouldn’t book any tickets yet if I were a Sooners fan.
Miami is BACK. Ho boy. Pump the damn brakes.

Let’s just put Week 1 behind us, shall we? Let’s move on to Week 2 which…oh my. Well, it’s better than Week 1. That’s really all I can say. But you know what that usually means. That’s right…chaos!

Thursday

Yep, that’s a new logo you see. TSN+ will be showing college football games this year. It kind of mimics the specialty pack but there are a few differences. But if you want to get TSN+ rather than the specialty pack for your college football fix, you are getting close to the same. Not a bad alternative and a good move by TSN to copy ESPN for the 10,000th time.

Friday

		US	Canada
Indiana State at Indiana	7:00
Illinois at Kansas	7:30

It kind of feels like this could be a relatively important game when the Illini travel to Lawrence to face the Jayhawks. Imagine saying that even two years ago. You’d be laughed out of whatever building you were in.

Saturday Early

Is the quality there? Eh, not really. But there’s choice. A lot of it. Can’t ask for much else. Also…MORNING FOOTBAW! The ACC Network’s weird annual Week 2 quadrupleheader hits again with the odd three hour-and-fifteen-minute windows. This will be a lot easier to do next year when Stanford and California join as you know one of them will host the ACC After Dark Week 2 matchup, guaranteed.

Saturday Afternoon

Is the afternoon slate better than the Noon slate? Sure. Not by much though. Some intriguing matchups though. As per the rules, one of Texas A&M or Miami must win their game against each other. Ties were outlawed almost three decades ago. Will CyHawk feature more than 30 points? Can App State and UNC put up ridiculous numbers like last year? And this will be Tulane’s opportunity to get a huge leg up in the Group of Five. A win over Ole Miss would be massive.

Saturday Primetime

		US	Canada
Ohio at FAU	6:00
Cincinnati at Pittsburgh	6:30
#11 Texas at #3 Alabama	7:00
#13 Oregon at Texas Tech	7:00
Houston at Rice	7:00
#19 Wisconsin at Washington State	7:30
Eastern Michigan at Minnesota	7:30
Temple at Rutgers	7:30
UCLA at San Diego State	7:30
Grambling at #14 LSU	7:30
McNeese State at Florida	7:30
Charlotte at Maryland	7:30
Arizona at Mississippi State	7:30
Air Force vs. Sam Houston (in NRG Stadium)	8:00
Southern Miss at #4 Florida State	8:30

FIFTEEN GAMES! Holy shit! I think this has to be the most in one timeslot ever on this blog. I don’t feel like checking so let’s just say we have a new record! Plenty of games but most people will be watching one game in particular, that being the Longhorns and the Crimson Tide. If Texas can somehow do what they were robbed of last season and upset Bama, this season turns on its head. This game is so big that they are also showing it on ESPN2 in the US and on TSN+ and the specialty packs. But it’s not the same broadcast. It’s the Pat McAfee Show alternate broadcast. So if you like that kind of thing, have at it.

Also, you will notice we have a new network showing college football. That’s right, the CW, with such hits as 7th Heaven, Gilmore Girls, Smallville and LIV Golf (well it was a hit with the golfers who got fucking PAID with that Saudi blood money) will be showing ACC football (and later on, ACC basketball) this year. This replaces Bally which, for all intents and purposes, is flat broke. There will be games most weeks and, it looks like, at odd times. 6:30? Weird.

Saturday Late Night

		US	Canada
UC-Davis at #16 Oregon State	9:00
Auburn at California	10:30
Stanford at #6 USC	10:30

FOX quadrupleheader? Don’t mind if I do. TSN2 quadrupleheader? Yes, please. A good week if you are a Canadian as I don’t remember seeing this much college football being shown up here in a while. Maybe things are turning around. Looks like TSN finally gives a shit about things that aren’t the CFL, NFL, and NHL (which they don’t even have the national broadcasting rights to).

Hey, Watch This!

Texas at Alabama (7:00, TSN2/TSN+/specialty pack) – Unequivocally the game of the week and there’s nothing else close. That also means there will be some wild and wacky finishes that might overshadow this game. That is, unless, this is a close one and the Longhorns pull off the upset. Then it will be THE story in college football no matter what else happens.

Ole Miss at Tulane (3:30, TSN+/specialty pack) – As I mentioned above, if the Green Wave pull off a win here in front of what should be a raucous crowd in hot and humid New Orleans, there’s not a whole lot that will prevent them from a perfect regular season and another New Year’s Six spot. Normally I would say this is a lose-lose situation for any Power Five team in this situation but when the Group of Five team is ranked it can count as a big win (as long as that team doesn’t totally shit the bed the rest of the way).

Texas A&M at Miami (3:30, ABC/TSN2) – I made the joke above that one of these teams has to win, as per the rules of college football. We may actually see which one of these teams is back (for the most part) and which team still has some work to do. Now watch it be a 13-10 almost-unwatchable slog.

Nebraska at Colorado (Noon, FOX) – Alright, I’ll bite. Let’s see if the hype matches what ends up happening. Some might have put this higher but that’s crazy. It makes this list because of the talk, not because of the teams involved. And Colorado can’t just win this game by a little. That would prove nothing. If they beat the brakes off the Huskers, then we all have to take notice and maybe think the Buffs could be for real.

Sickos Game of the Week

Temple at Rutgers (7:30, specialty pack) – Look, Rutgers is probably going to start 2-0 which really doesn’t mean a whole lot considering their schedule but still, that’s something right? With everything on at this time, you would have to be a complete psychopath to watch this game. I will make sure to tune in and watch at least a few plays. I feel like I owe it to everyone and myself.

Hubba Bubba Blowout of the Week

Ball State at Georgia (Noon, TSN+/specialty pack) – Time to bring back the blowout of the week segment. And this could be the dictionary definition of blowout. I could see UGA putting up 60 on the poor Cardinals.

Wanna Bet?

Nebraska was actually a good bet. That game ended up exactly how I thought it would (for the most part). Florida, however….well the less said about that one the better. Time for my gambling picks for the second week of the college football season. Use them at your own peril.

Indiana (-30.5) over Indiana State

Purdue (+3) over Virginia Tech (and the outright win)

Ohio State (-41.5) over Youngstown State

Utah (-8) over Baylor

Nebraska (+2.5) over Colorado (and the upset win…definitely going out on a limb with this one)

Michigan (-37.5) over UNLV

Tulane (+7.5) over Ole Miss (but the Rebs will hold on for a close victory)

Texas A&M (-4) over Miami

Alabama (-7) over Texas

Washington State (+6) over Wisconsin (with the Badgers winning a tight affair)

Minnesota (-20.5) over Eastern Michigan

Mississippi State (-9) over Arizona

Stanford (+29.5) over USC (I feel a backdoor cover in this one)

I will be on the Twitter/X machine again this weekend. Even without Tweetdeck I am figuring out how to navigate fairly well. We shall see if I can make it two Saturdays in a row making it all the way to the end. Enjoy the games everyone!

ALL. THE. SCHEDULES!!!!

Posted on July 9, 2023 by guelphbossman

OK not all the schedules but quite a few. I mean there’s some I may not even take a guess at.

Just like last year I am going to put all my schedule predictions in one long-ass post. So wait until you have to take an absolute monster of a shit before taking this one into the bathroom to read. Let’s go!

This is a crazy transition year for CBS. Out with the old (SEC) and in with the new (Big Ten). A few sprinkles (Mountain West) and you have a brand new college football sundae. Sorry fans, Gary Danielson, as far as I can tell, is still around. Worst part is we have heard him be one of the best analysts in the business. More often than not, though, he goes off on some stupid tangent that ends up with him declaring he has a college football boner for Bama.

As is the norm, I will let you know which games are confirmed. The ones that are not…well, some of them will be right because it makes sense and the rest will be not right because one or both of the teams I predicted to play at that time or not nearly as good as I thought they would be and/or I’m an idiot. So let’s start this bizarrely stupid puzzle and follow it with some It Just Means More Sweet Tea Analysis (which may or may not contain grits):

It Just Means More (Games other than the SEC on CBS) Analysis:

I feel like I shouldn’t have to remind you but in all these tables, a game in bold means it has been confirmed. Not bold? Bossman used his dumb brain to try and figure it out.
The appearance list will look a bit different this time as it will have a few conferences involved so let’s start with the SEC appearances:
- 5 times – Alabama, Georgia
- 3 times – Ole Miss, LSU
- 2 times – Kentucky, Arkansas, Auburn, Tennessee
- 1 time – South Carolina, Mississippi State, Florida, Missouri
- No times – Vanderbilt, Texas A&M
Wait, WHAT? No TAMU on CBS? Wow, I honestly didn’t notice until now when I started breaking out the different schedules. Crazy. I guess they will have to prove it this season to maybe get on late in the year.
Now we have the Big Ten appearance list:
- 3 times – Iowa
- 2 times – Ohio State, Rutgers, Penn State, Nebraska
- 1 time – Indiana, Northwestern, Michigan, Purdue, Maryland, Minnesota
- No times – Michigan State, Wisconsin, Illinois
I look at these numbers and can glean….well, nothing from it. Wisconsin is good and appears no times and Rutgers appears twice. However, tOSU also appears twice and Michigan State doesn’t appear at all. Seems all very random. Which could very well be the case at least for this first season.
I’m not going to get into the Mountain West game count since there aren’t enough games to see any trends.
The Army-Navy game heads to New England for the first time ever. Foxborough gets the game this year and I like this idea. Not saying they have to move it around all over the place but every two or three years to take it out of Philly is a smart move.

What is ABC going to do for this one season without the Big Ten and with the SEC showing up in 2024? They will have to lean heavily on the other three Power Five conferences to carry the load, especially when it comes to the primetime schedule. Don’t worry though: there are enough good teams in these conferences to fill most of these spots where it looks like the network won’t have missed a beat. Then next year, might as well pencil (or pen…or Sharpie) the SEC in for the majority of those primetime games.

But hey we haven’t hit 2024 yet. It’s still 2023 so let’s get to the ESPN on ABC regular season college football schedule for the FBS for this season. I will follow it up with some Power(ful) Two Thoughts:

Power(ful) Two Thoughts

Once again, ABC puts on a mega-matchup on the night before Labour Day. LSU-FSU, if it is anything like last year’s game, should be a massive ratings success. Oh and also a game that could shape the entire college football season.
With the Big Ten saying adios to ESPN/ABC, the primetime slots really opened up. I expect the ACC to pick up most of those times the Big Ten has left behind with the Big XII and Pac-12 coming in just behind. Right now I have 6 ACC primetime games, 5 Pac-12, and 4 Big XII. Even if I’m wrong with which games go where I see this being pretty equitable.
I am not doing a TSN schedule because there is no point right now. TSN struggles to get anything that’s not the CFL scheduled out more than a couple of weeks. Right now I have 23 ABC games that would be simulcast on TSN. That seems high but I am going off of last year’s numbers and it was actually very close to that. So we shall see.
I am calling for three games to be on Black Friday on ABC. Miami-BC at Noon and TTU-UT at 7:30 are set. I think they select an American conference game in the middle so that there isn’t a gap in the middle of the day with nothing to show AND to fulfill the American’s contract. Now watch it not happen at all that way.
First few weeks are confirmed but that’s pretty much it. The rest is a bit of a crapshoot. Also, if you couldn’t tell Week 2 was a pretty bad week, look at the ABC schedule. Woof. Wisky-Wazzu as the primetime game? Ouch. It’s been a while since there has been that poor a game for the ABC Saturday Night game.
Finally it’s time for the conference breakdown. Remember I am doing things slightly differently. Every time a team appears, they get counted as an appearance. So Miami-Boston College, for example, counts as two appearances for the ACC. Here we go:
- ACC – 37 (including conference championship)
- Big XII – 29 (including conference championship)
- Pac-12 – 12 (including conference championship)
- AAC – 5 (including conference championship)
- SEC – 5
- Notre Dame – 4
- FCS – 2
- Mountain West – 1
- Big Ten – 1
The ACC is really picking up the slack here. The Big XII is not all that far behind and, ho boy, is the Pac-12 lagging here. Problem is other than their top five teams I don’t feel right putting the rest of the teams in any of the ABC timeslots and that includes Colorado. Also, I have not included bowl tie-ins here because we know that bowls break them all the time.
Speaking of bowl games, ABC has SEVEN this time! That’s great! A step in the right direction. I still think the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl should move back to ABC as well but that’s just my opinion (and the opinion of a lot of other people).

For quite a long time it felt like there was quite a drop-off in play-by-play prowess after GUS JOHNSON. But now with Jason Benetti cemented as the number two man, you know you have two solidly called games every week on FOX. Tim Brando is the #3 guy and is pretty good although I still think it would be great to hear him back in the studio.

OK so the Big Ten is a bit more in with FOX meaning the Big XII and Pac-12 might suffer because of that. Let’s find out! Here’s the predicted 2023 FOX college football broadcast schedule followed by some Johnsonian rhetoric.

SOME JOHNSONIAN RHETORIC…..WOAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

So FOX has abandoned putting a game on Labour Day for putting a game on the Thursday before it. Interesting. Not a bad strategy as they can try and get a jump start on the season. Sure Florida-Utah could get more eyeballs but starting with a Big Ten conference game? That will get their fair share of looks for sure.
With the Big Ten leaving ESPN/ABC, it means most of their big games will land on FOX. That is a huge coup for the network. Couple that with the few huge games out of the Big XII and Pac-12 and you can finally, honestly, put their Big Noon Saturday schedule up against ABC’s Saturday Primetime schedule. Of course that may all change next year when ESPN/ABC gets the SEC. But for one year, let’s savour this.
FOX only going with two Black Friday games again this season and they are both confirmed. And it is two huge games (or could be). TCU-OU could be for a spot in the Big XII Championship. Same with the Civil War game between Oregon State and Oregon. I guess they will be moving WWE Smackdown to FS1 for this night which I’m sure won’t upset wrestling fans in the least.
Conference breakdown time! Remember, a conference game I am counting as two appearances for that conference:
- Big XII – 32
- Big Ten – 30 (including conference championship)
- Pac-12 – 17
Shockingly, the Big XII has moved to the top of the list. Now, this has more to do with the Big Ten moving some games to NBC and CBS than anything but still, it proves that the Big XII carries a bit more weight than the Pac-12 these days.
I have no Mountain West games on the main FOX network. They have quite a few on FOX Sports One, though. I don’t know if FOX’s strategy is to eventually put more than the MWC conference championship on the main network or if they just stay the way they are. I suspect starting next year we will see at least a couple of Mountain West games on the main network, especially when there’s a quadrupleheader.
And speaking of quadrupleheaders, I have a feeling we will see two of them just like last season. One is confirmed for Week 2 and I believe the other will land, just like last year, during Week 11. I love the quadrupleheader idea, especially if you only do it twice since it feels special.
FOX has only one bowl game and it is the only bowl game, at this time, without a confirmed date. The Holiday Bowl, I believe, will end up on December 27th but that is definitely subject to change.
I honestly don’t know what will happen come October with the MLB playoffs. I know during the early rounds, FOX tends not to be used nearly as much as FS1 for their baseball games. Come World Series time though, expect FOX to scale back on college football broadcasting windows.

Alright let’s get to the Notre Dame on NBC sched…WAIT JUST A MINUTE! THAT’S THE BIG TEN’S MUSIC!!!!

For the first time in a loooooooooooong time, Notre Dame will share NBC’s college football coverage with other teams under other contracts. The Big Ten will have games almost every week on the network and usually in primetime going forward. So yeah, this will be the longest NBC schedule I will ever predict unless the network really goes all-in with college football and invites another party (COUGH*Pac-12*COUGH) in to the pool. Let’s get to it!

Touchdown Jesus, Meet Purdue Pete

Look, it’s not like the Irish haven’t seen Big Ten teams before. They play at least one every year and probably will until the Earth explodes. But sharing the entire network with them? I have a feeling this may impact Notre Dame’s next contract talks with NBC which will start soon with the contract ending at the conclusion of the 2025 season.
Only two primetime Notre Dame games this season but they add a game during Week Zero against Navy over in Ireland. I have the Big Ten moving their game to Noon when the Irish are on in primetime.
As for the Big Ten, let’s look at the breakdown:
- 4 times – Penn State, Purdue, Michigan State
- 3 times – Michigan
- 2 times – Maryland, Ohio State
- 1 time – Northwestern, Illinois, Iowa, Rutgers, Indiana, Wisconsin, Northwestern
- No times – Nebraska
I think more so than the CBS breakdown for the Big Ten, the better teams, for the most part, will appear on NBC more often. I believe that will be the case going forward as well.

Let’s be honest here: nothing much will change for this network. It’s not like they will all of a sudden be showing Michigan-Ohio State. Saying that, it’s one of the channels you almost need to complete your college football viewing experience. I don’t want to speak for anyone else but I love watching close finishes, regardless of the game, so if Rutgers and Northwestern are going down to the wire, I want to watch that shit. Alright let’s get to my projected schedule:

September 2nd	Fresno State at Purdue	Noon
September 2nd	Towson at Maryland	3:30 PM
September 2nd	Toledo at Illinois	7:30 PM
September 8th	Indiana State at Indiana	7:00 PM
September 9th	Youngstown State at Ohio State	Noon
September 9th	UTEP at Northwestern	3:30 PM
September 9th	Richmond at Michigan State	3:30 PM
September 9th	Eastern Michigan at Minnesota	7:30 PM
September 9th	Temple at Rutgers	7:30 PM
September 16th	Louisville vs. Indiana (in Indianapolis)	Noon
September 16th	Georgia Southern at Wisconsin	Noon
September 16th	Western Michigan at Iowa	3:30 PM
September 16th	Virginia Tech at Rutgers	3:30 PM
September 16th	Bowling Green at Michigan	7:30 PM
September 21st	Louisiana Tech at Nebraska	7:30 PM
September 23rd	Akron at Indiana	Noon
September 23rd	Maryland at Michigan State	3:30 PM
September 23rd	Florida Atlantic at Illinois	7:30 PM
September 30th	Louisiana at Minnesota	Noon
September 30th	Wagner at Rutgers	3:30 PM
September 30th	Indiana at Maryland	7:30 PM
October 7th	Howard at Northwestern	3:00 PM
October 14th	Iowa at Wisconsin	Noon
October 14th	UMass at Penn State	3:30 PM
October 14th	Indiana at Michigan	7:30 PM
October 21st	Rutgers at Indiana	Noon
October 21st	Wisconsin at Illinois	3:30 PM
October 28th	Maryland at Northwestern	2:30 PM
November 4th	Ohio State at Rutgers	Noon
November 4th	Iowa vs. Northwestern (in Chicago)	3:30 PM
November 4th	Nebraska at Michigan State	7:30 PM
November 11th	Northwestern at Wisconsin	Noon
November 11th	Minnesota at Purdue	3:30 PM
November 18th	Michigan State at Indiana	Noon
November 18th	Purdue at Northwestern	3:30 PM
November 18th	Rutgers at Penn State	7:30 PM
November 24th	Indiana at Purdue	3:00 PM
November 25th	Maryland at Rutgers	Noon
November 25th	Northwestern at Illinois	3:30 PM

B1G Country Notes (no, not Bryant Reeves)

The first three weeks are completely booked. After that…nothing. Well, that’s not entirely true. There are a few homecoming games that are almost guaranteed to hit BTN but I won’t call them confirmed until, well, they are actually confirmed.
Let’s get right to the appearance list (with the conference and non-conference split) and then some explanations on the numbers:
- 8 times – Indiana (3 non-con, 5 conference)
- 7 times – Northwestern (2 NC, 5 C), Rutgers (3 NC, 4 C)
- 5 times – Maryland (1 NC, 4 C)
- 4 times – Purdue (1 NC, 3 C), Illinois (2 NC, 2 C), Michigan State (1 NC, 3 C), Wisconsin (1 NC, 3 C)
- 3 times – Minnesota (2 NC, 1 C), Iowa (1 NC, 2 C), Penn State (1 NC, 2 C)
- 2 times – Ohio State (1 NC, 1 C), Michigan (1 NC, 1 C), Nebraska (1 NC, 1 C)
Every school must make at least 2 BTN appearances. Plus, one of those appearances has to be a conference game. My predictions satisfy that criteria and I think the amount of appearances will be failry close to what actually happens. I was a bit surprised to see what I had done with Nebraska. Maybe I am drinking a tiny bit of Husker Kool-Aid.

Alright now we have what could be the longest schedule of the bunch. Surprisingly though, it has the most confirmed games, easily. I guess when you have a good portion of the Group of Five stationed here, you will have a lot of games. And if you don’t watch college football on CBSSN? Shame on you. There are some great games on there and you get to see teams you wouldn’t normally see. Time for the huge-ass schedule followed by a few G5 musings:

Gee-Five Musings

Really, CBS Sports Network doesn’t have to lock in over 80% of the games. Nice to see that they do though. Honestly, over the past few years, CBSSN has had their fair share of exciting games so waiting to see what ESPN doesn’t take really doesn’t make sense for them. It won’t change the amount of viewers they get (for the most part). Just scoreboard watch like I do.
CBSSN lands a couple of Black Friday games this season, which seems to be the norm now. One is confirmed and the other is a MAC game. Which leads us to…
The non-confirmed games. Most of them are MAC-controlled games. They will be 12-day selections during the season. The others might not end up happening as those timeslots may be used for something else.
Conference breakdown time!
- Mountain West – 49
- Conference USA – 33
- MAC – 21
- Army – 7
- AAC (other than Navy) – 6
- UConn – 5
- FCS – 5
- Navy – 4
- ACC – 3
- Sun Belt – 3
- Pac-12 – 2
- SEC – 1
- Big XII – 1
- UMass – 1
OK so it was more than conferences but it gives you an idea of what is happening this year versus previous years. During October, Conference USA will have all their conference games on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. A crazy idea but hey, that’s how MACtion was born. It also means we will go nearly two months with football almost every day! What’s wrong with that?

We made it! Schedule Journey 2023 is over! Christ, that was long. And no, I will not do a TSN schedule. That would be a complete guess. Up next are the season predictions. Expect that post (which will also be a stupidly long one) some time in late July.

Have a fantastic rest of your Sunday and let’s hope for nice weather this coming week…for people who aren’t stuck working in an office. For those people, I am sure you are fine if it rains all week.

Nebraska Cornhuskers Football is a Dumpster Fire (oh, and the Week 3 College Football TV Schedule)

Posted on September 16, 2022 by guelphbossman

Alright, a little background info on your faithful blogger: I am an accountant and I also have a background in mathematics. Just figured I’d mention that at the start so when I say I am completely perplexed by the absolute stupidity of Trev Alberts and the Nebraska athletic department you know I come from a place of at least a bit of experience. When Trev decided to shitcan Scott Frost a few days ago rather than wait until October 1st, it cost the school an extra $7.5 million. Yes, I know, buyout clauses of that magnitude are stupid but that’s a conversation for another day. It’s just a waste of money, though. Like why bother? The season is shot. Let him coach three more games and then fire him during the postgame interview. Then hire whoever you want. But no, do it the dumb way. Maybe they can convince Bo Pelini and his dreadful four-loss seasons to return to Lincoln.

Enough of that nonsense. Let’s just get to the damn schedule while I wonder if anyone at Nebraska understands that more money is better than less.

Friday

		US	Canada
Florida State at Louisville	7:30 PM
Air Force at Wyoming	8:00 PM

Two games tonight with one being slightly more important than the other. Florida State has a chance to go to 3-0 and put Scott Satterfield back on the hot seat which is actually a fireplace.

Saturday Early

Look there are no big games in this timeslot, I’ll be honest. But I will say I am a bit intrigued with the OU-NU game. Will this be an asskicking for the ages or will the Huskers come out fired up as they try to look good for whoever their new coach will be *COUGH*Urban Meyer*COUGH*. How UConn ends up in an ABC game every year stuns me but I can tell this week that there weren’t exactly a ton of options so I will give ABC a break; however, TSN does not get a break. This game is on TSN1 AND TSN4? What in the fuck? Put another game on TSN4, idiots.

Finally, you will notice we have MORNING COLLEJ FOOTBAW! The ACC Network is doing their annual four games in one day thing so they have to start early since I am sure no team would volunteer to start a game at 10PM local time. Although I could be wrong there.

Saturday Afternoon

Cougs-Ducks is easily the biggest game in this timeslot. A few years ago, PSU-AU could have been but the Tigers aren’t exactly the Tigers of old. Also, this is Penn State’s first time on CBS in 22 years but it wasn’t even a national telecast. The last national telecast on CBS was a year earlier when they beat Miami in a great game.

Let’s see if Marcus Freeman can get his first win, if Kansas can stay undefeated and if ULM can stay within 50 of the Tide. Also, these three-hour windows. Not only is the ACC Network doing it but the Pac-12 Network is also doing it. Just stop. Start the games earlier if you have to, just enough of this nonsense. Unless you are Navy or Army or maybe Air Force you aren’t finishing a game in less than three hours.

Finally, Appalachian State basically stole the College Gameday host spot from Texas A&M with their upset win this past Saturday. I assume Gameday would have gone to College Station for the Aggies’ game against Miami but that was obviously not confirmed. Problem is, App State plays on ESPN+ this week. Couldn’t they have moved that game to ESPNU at least? Seems dumb to me.

Saturday Primetime

		US	Canada
Mississippi State at LSU	6:00 PM
Texas Tech at #16 NC State	7:00 PM
Toledo at #3 Ohio State	7:00 PM
#11 Michigan State at Washington	7:30 PM
Maine at Boston College	7:30 PM
Nevada at Iowa	7:30 PM
UCF at Florida Atlantic	7:30 PM
#23 Pittsburgh at Western Michigan	7:30 PM
SMU at Maryland	7:30 PM
USF at #18 Florida	7:30 PM
Louisiana Tech at #5 Clemson	8:00 PM
Montana State at Oregon State	8:00 PM

Oh my god, MORE three-hour windows? It’s like the networks are trying to torture me. Nothing big here although we all remember what Western Michigan somehow did to Pitt last year, at Pitt. This year it’s in Kalamazoo so things could get wacky. I have noticed that the games on Bally haven’t been showing up on the specialty packs. I will have to watch for this and see if it continues. I would say I could ask a Rogers or Bell rep but that would be futile.

UPDATE: Looks like Maine-BC is not on the specialty pack anywhere. Interesting that now that it’s Bally Sports and not FOX Sports Network, the games aren’t appearing. Instead, UTSA-Texas appears. Where is that game? The Longhorn Network. I don’t get it. But there you go. Probably a better game to watch to be honest.

Saturday Late Night

		US	Canada
#13 Miami at #24 Texas A&M	9:00 PM
San Diego State at #14 Utah	10:00 PM
Fresno State at #7 USC	10:30 PM
North Dakota State at Arizona	11:00 PM
Eastern Michigan at Arizona State	11:00 PM

You’re reading it correctly. FOX QUADRUPLEHEADER! This is such a glorious thing. I wish they did it more often but I understand networks’ need to go to local news at some point. I would say there is an Upset Alert in Tucson but would future Mountain West member NDSU beating Zona be a big upset?

Big Games O’ The Week

BYU at Oregon (3:30, FOX) – When is the last time BYU has been in the Game of the Week? Maybe when they scheduled a game with Coastal Carolina on a few minutes notice back in 20COVID. Oregon, and the Pac-12, could be in a heap of trouble here if they lose and there’s a good chance that could happen. The Cougs are looking to use this as a springboard to be ranked high enough to be picked for a New Year’s Six bowl, which won’t be easy this year.

Miami at Texas A&M (9:00, specialty pack) – Once the Aggies lost, they lost Gameday and the GOTW spot on this blog. The latter is definitely more important than the former. Miami feels like a team that, all of a sudden, not many people are talking about. You could see them make some real waves in the ACC and a win here would give their NY6 chances a boost and really hamper the Aggies’ chances.

Penn State at Auburn (3:30, CBS) – Penn State will soon be a regular on CBS but this is a rarity at this point. Auburn could put a massive dent into the Nittany Lions’ potential New Year’s Six hopes. An Auburn loss might make Bryan Harsin’s hot seat a little hotter for sure as this experiment hasn’t exactly worked out as planned.

Michigan State at Washington (7:30, ABC) – The Huskies are having a much better start than last year although that “effort” against Montana to start the 2021 season couldn’t have been worse. This could end up being an underrated game as I see Sparty maybe having some problems with the noise at Husky Stadium. And have you seen how steep the stands are there? Gives me memories of The Aud in Buffalo and the insanely steep upper deck they had.

Psycho Game of the Week

Vanderbilt at Northern Illinois (3:30, CBS Sports Network) – I mean I guess you could be kind of interested in the Dores potentially going to 3-1 which is something probably very few people predicted. But yeah, unless it’s close, hard pass.

Hubba Bubba Blowout of the Week

UConn at Michigan (Noon, ABC/TSN1/TSN4) – I’ll say it again: TSN putting this game on two channels is moronic. I get it’s Michigan but this could be an epic blowout. I hope it is to be honest. Stupid TSN.

The Degenerate Portion of Our Show

Let’s see how I did last week. First pick was…..OK let’s skip this part. No, don’t go back and look at them. Let’s just move on. This week’s picks (against the spread)!

Cincinnati (-20.5) over Miami-OH

Oklahoma (-11.5)….-11.5? ELEVEN-AND-A-HALF? Alright then. Oklahoma (-11.5) over Nebraska

Western Kentucky (+6.5) over Indiana (but the Hoosiers to win)

Old Dominion (+10) over Virginia (Cavs will pull out the close win though)

Notre Dame (-10.5) over California

BYU (+3.5) over Oregon (Ducks win by a field goal)

Ole Miss (-16) over Georgia Tech

Houston (-10) over Kansas

Washington State (-16.5) over Colorado State

LSU (+2) over Mississippi State (and the outright win!)

NC State (-10.5) over Texas Tech

Michigan State (+3.5) over Washington (and an outright win)

Texas A&M (-5.5) over Miami

I am looking forward to another great weekend of college football. I’ll be on the Twitter machine for a good portion of the day. I’m trying to be healthier though so I can’t eat like I used to eat on these days. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it was some good food but I can’t eat as much of it. Enjoy the games everyone and enjoy your weekend!

It’s OVERREACTION time! Oh, and the Week 2 College Football TV Schedule.

Posted on September 10, 2021 by guelphbossman

Isn’t this almost the worst tradition in college football? When college football media and fans go to ridiculous extremes after one week of college football (shut up, Week Zero). So let’s get right to those reactions that are probably overreactions (at least at this point):

“UCLA is gonna win the Pac-12!” Look it’s quite a good start for the team in sissy blue. But they still have their entire conference schedule to go through. Could they be better than I thought (which was .500)? Absolutely. But to say they will win 9 or 10 games. Let’s just pump the brakes a bit.
“The ACC is terrible!” Yeah, no. They aren’t. Yes, the conference as a whole had a bad first week. But North Carolina lost to what looks like could be a really good Virginia Tech team and Clemson lost to national title contender Georgia. Not much else of note but give them some time. Now if the highest ranked team in the ACC is at like #18 going into October then yes, they should start to panic.
“Cincinnati or UCF is the Group of Five team to go to the New Year’s Six!” Don’t book it just quite yet. Yes, UCF’s victory over Boise State was impressive and Gus Malzahn may have brought something to the program that they slightly lost the past couple years. And Cincy is Cincy. But there are still a bunch of teams that have opportunities and you never know what surprise Group of Five team will be out there.
“Oklahoma has no shot now.” Wait, what? First off, they won. Yes, it was closer than it should have been and it was Tulane but they still won. I can see their defense needs work but if they can figure it out, they have the offense to beat every team on their schedule.
“Well, Indiana sucks again.” One game against what looks like a seriously good Iowa team shouldn’t mar the Hoosiers’ season. Let’s see how they do the rest of the month before saying they are coming back down to Earth a bit (yeah, like Tom Allen is going to allow that to happen).
“Spencer Rattler and Sam Howell aren’t Heisman contenders at all.” Howell has fallen farther than Rattler in many people’s minds but they are still near the top of the Heisman contender list. Remember, some players really have won the Heisman in November so let’s chill here.
“Randy Edsall is going to get shitcanned.” HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. So silly. He quit instead.

Another tradition seems to be a quite bad Week 2 schedule (on paper) that somehow gets one really good Game of the Year candidate. Unfortunately, this is not an overreaction. It happens damn near every year. Oh well, if it sets us up for better weeks, then fine.

Friday

		US	Canada
Kansas at #17 Coastal Carolina	7:30 PM
North Carolina A&T at Duke	8:00 PM
North Dakota at Utah State	9:00 PM

UNDEFEATED KANSAS! UNDEFEATED COASTAL CAROLINA! Irresistible force, immovable object, and all that jazz. If it’s anything like last year’s Chants game against BYU, the crowd will be rocking which is amazing since there aren’t many seats in their stadium. There are also two other games you can watch but really, we all know what you’ll be watching.

Saturday Early

		US	Canada
Illinois at Virginia	11:00 AM
Western Kentucky at Army	11:30 AM
Youngstown State at Michigan State	Noon
Indiana State at Northwestern	Noon
Pittsburgh at Tennessee	Noon
South Carolina at East Carolina	Noon
Miami-OH at Minnesota	Noon
#12 Oregon at #3 Ohio State	Noon
Kennesaw State at Georgia Tech	Noon
Alabama State at #25 Auburn	Noon
#13 Florida at USF	1:00 PM
Rutgers at Syracuse	2:00 PM

Jesus Christ that is a lot of games in the Noon timeslot. And oh man, morning football! It’s funny: I like morning college football but early morning NFL games in London? Not so much. Probably because I am up until like 2 or 3 into Sunday morning and getting up like six hours or so later to watch NFL football is actually too much for me. And yes, there is a weird start time for the game on ABC. If you have been living under several rocks, you might not have realized that this Saturday is the 20th anniversary of 9/11. So there will be a lot of shows on in the morning about it, which makes a lot of sense considering when that tragedy occurred. ABC is running a special until 1:00 meaning college football is waiting a little bit to start on there. No big deal really and to many Americans it’s a huge thing this day so we can all wait an other for a game featuring…USF? Yeah definitely not a big deal then.

Saturday Afternoon

		US	Canada
Purdue at UConn	3:00 PM
Buffalo at Nebraska	3:30 PM
Air Force at Navy	3:30 PM
UAB at #2 Georgia	3:30 PM
California at TCU	3:30 PM
#5 Texas A&M vs. Colorado (in Denver)	3:30 PM
Mercer at #1 Alabama	4:00 PM
#10 Iowa at #9 Iowa State	4:30 PM
South Carolina State at #6 Clemson	5:00 PM

Here is our Game of the Year candidate, funny enough (well the second one after Oregon-tOSU earlier). Would you ever have thought that CyHawk could be Game of the Anything? It’s such a huge game this year that College Gameday is there as well. You will notice that the Notre Dame home game against Toledo is not on NBC. That’s because it’s on Peacock, the streaming app for NBC. Meaning, I am pretty sure none of us will be able to watch it. Slowly, these streaming platforms are getting into the sports game. Soon enough there will be multiple big games every week on like Hulu and will be shit out of luck if you don’t have Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Peacock, and whatever else is out there. Two final things here: yes, TSN2 is showing a game featuring the Mercer Bears. And yes, the ACC Network is doing their three-hour broadcast window thing. Stupid, but they can’t have games starting at 10:00 pm locally so they do what they feel like they have to do.

Saturday Primetime

		US	Canada
Houston at Rice	6:30 PM
#15 Texas at Arkansas	7:00 PM
Appalachian State at #22 Miami	7:00 PM
NC State at Mississippi State	7:00 PM
Howard at Maryland	7:30 PM
Idaho at Indiana	7:30 PM
Georgia State at North Carolina	7:30 PM
Missouri at Kentucky	7:30 PM
Washington at Michigan	8:00 PM
Jacksonville State at Florida State	8:00 PM

Yeah there really isn’t much here in terms of hugely important games. But see? The ABC started at 1pm “issue” worked itself out and we get the normal-for-about-a-decade 8:00 start in Ann Arbor where Washington might be the underdog? No TSN games in this timeslot which kind of sucks but it’s not like they are going to grab any ratings hits here. Texas-Arkansas might be the most interesting game here although there could actually be a fair amount riding on Mizzou-UK as the winner could actually contend in the SEC East (as long as Georgia falters at least once inside the conference).

Saturday Late Night

		US	Canada
Vanderbilt at Colorado State	10:00 PM
#21 Utah at BYU	10:15 PM
UNLV at #23 Arizona State	10:30 PM
Stanford at #14 USC	10:30 PM

FOX Pac-12 After Dark? FOX Pac-12 After Dark!!! It’s too bad that Gus Johnson will be calling the Big Noon Saturday game because Gus After Dark would have been tons of fun. It’s unfortunate Stanford looked like shit on opening weekend but, hey, remember what I said about overreactions? Now watch the Trojans blow them out by like 40. Also, we have the Holy War between Utah and the soon-to-be-in-the-Big XII BYU Cougars. TSN is smart to pick up this once since it should be a raucous crowd in Provo.

Games to set your eyeballs on

Oregon at Ohio State (Noon, FOX) – One of, surprisingly, two Game of the Year candidates. And both teams looked, well, a bit off during Week 1. The Ducks struggled with Fresno State and needed a late score to win and the Buckeyes took quite a long time to finally shake off Minnesota and get the victory. This should be good and should be close. This game has been hyped since last year when people were already looking forward to this season. Let’s hope it matches the hype.

Iowa at Iowa State (4:30, ABC) – This has quickly become a massive game and could actually be a big part of the College Football Playoff story. The winner here may vault into the Top 5 depending on what else happens. The loser isn’t out of anything though and could still be in a good spot to get to a New Year’s Six bowl. This is easily the biggest and most important version of CyHawk ever.

Utah at BYU (10:15, TSN2) – OK so it doesn’t drop off too much after the first two. The Holy War is always a hotly contested matchup. College football is always good when rivalries have two good teams playing. Like if Alabama and Auburn are both good or if Michigan and Ohio State are both good. This one is no different. Utes are in the Top 25 and the Cougs are just outside it. This game is in Provo which has arguably the craziest crowd in the Mountain or Pacific time zones except for the one in Salt Lake City. As I said above, TSN was smart to pick up this one and it should be the gem of the late night window.

UAB at Georgia (3:30, specialty pack) – OK now it falls off a cliff. Don’t me wrong. UGA is a fantastic team and UAB has been a great story since reviving their team a few years back. But this probably won’t be close and as the fourth-best game of the week it doesn’t really scream quality to be honest with you.

Kansas at Coastal Carolina (Friday, 7:30, TSN2) – Aw fuck it why not? Kansas is in the Games of the Week list, BAYBEE! Let’s be honest: the Chants will probably mop the floor with the Jayhawks. But what if Kansas keeps it close through three quarters? Man, that would be quite the interesting final segment and bring in a lot of viewers…way more than Kansas football is used to.

Honourable mention: Texas at Arkansas (7:00, specialty pack), Stanford at USC (10:30, FOX), Appalachian State at Miami (7:00, specialty pack).

You wanna bet?

Only the most degenerate of gamblers will bet on these Week 2 games. I mean if it was NFL I’d for sure be doing it but not college. I’ve told you all my reasons, I won’t rehash them here again. Here are the picks!

Oregon over Ohio State

Iowa State over Iowa

Miami over Appalachian State

Coastal Carolina over Kansas

USC over Stanford

BYU over Utah

Texas over Arkansas

Georgia over UAB

Rice over Houston (big upset!)

Nebraska over Buffalo (Upset? Ahahahahahahahahahahaha…no wait….really…….Upset?)

Navy over Air Force (kind of an upset)

From what I can tell, everything is up on the specialty pack. Only thing I haven’t seen anywhere is the second BTN games at Noon and 7:30 but I’m sure that will be sorted out. As for the Pac-12 Network, no it is not on DAZN. Frustrating. So I won’t be listing those games on the schedules since there is no real point to doing so. Hopefully they scrap the current setup and then be smart and pair up with FOX or CBS and set up a proper conference network like the ACC, Big Ten and SEC have. It would be the best thing for that conference for sure and bring in some more money.

I assume by now you’ve heard the news: the Big XII is (finally) expanding. BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF are expected to be voted in to the conference today sometime after they all sent in their applications a couple days ago. The vote is a no-brainer. The question will be when will the teams join and what happens to the American Conference now. The last thing I have heard is that BYU is probably moving for next season. The three AAC teams would then move the following year. Whether Oklahoma and Texas will still be around by then is anybody’s guess although I’d be shocked if they weren’t in the SEC by 2023. As for the AAC, I expect that they will look to expand. They would be down to eight teams with not exactly a murderer’s row of football programs. The schools that have already been bandied about include Marshall, Appalachian State, UAB and even Boise State and San Diego State (although I am sure the Mountain West will do everything they can to hold on to their new spot at the top of the Group of Five). So yeah, realignment news isn’t going anywhere after those four teams officially join.

Once I get back home, hell yes I will be watching football the rest of the weekend (sometime near the end of the Noon timeslot). Will I be watching football past midnight? Does a bear shit in the woods? I’ll catch up on sleep maybe in February. Enjoy the games everyone!

For the first time in two years, it’s time for Grab-Bag Mania! Yeah it really doesn’t have much of a ring to it.

Posted on July 4, 2021 by guelphbossman

I’m sure I could have come up with something better. Give me some time and if I feel like it I will figure it out. Or not. Who knows. Anyway, if you’re looking for an ESPN+ schedule here, you probably don’t live in Canada or have one of those fancy VPNs (and maybe an American credit card for all I know) and even then…why you would care about the damn ESPN+ schedule?

Grab-BagCade? No that’s awful. Let’s start with what might be the longest schedule I do most seasons. Why do I not give it its own post? Be honest: would you go out of your way to read a post that’s only about college football games that will appear on CBS Sports Network? I mean I would but I’m not normal. Look, CBSSN always has a few amazing games each season, just not on paper. Remember when Old Dominion beat Virginia Tech three seasons ago? A crazy-good game with a massive upset. And you will see those kinds of games every season on this network which is the home of to three of the Group of Five conferences, most of Navy’s home games, most of UConn’s home games and all of Army’s home games. What they may not have in quality they definitely have in quantity. Let’s get going on this monster followed by some quality comments (games NOT confirmed will have an asterisk):

August 28th	UConn at Fresno State	2:00 PM
August 28th	Southern Utah at San Jose State	10:00 PM
September 3rd	Duke at Charlotte	7:00 PM
September 4th	Holy Cross at UConn	Noon
September 4th	Marshall at Navy	3:30 PM
September 4th	Syracuse at Ohio	7:00 PM
September 4th	New Mexico State at San Diego State	10:30 PM
September 10th	North Dakota at Utah State	9:00 PM
September 11th	Western Kentucky at Army	11:30 AM
September 11th	Purdue at UConn	3:00 PM
September 11th	Houston at Rice	6:30 PM
September 11th	Vanderbilt at Colorado State	10:00 PM
September 18th	UConn at Army	Noon
September 18th	SMU at Louisiana Tech	3:30 PM
September 18th	Utah at San Diego State	7:00 PM
September 18th	Iowa State at UNLV	10:30 PM
September 24th	Middle Tennessee at Charlotte	6:30 PM
September 24th	UNLV at Fresno State	10:00 PM
September 25th	Miami-OH at Army	Noon
September 25th	Wyoming at UConn	3:30 PM
September 25th	Indiana at Western Kentucky	8:00 PM
October 1st	BYU at Utah State	9:00 PM
October 2nd	Army at Ball State*	Noon
October 2nd	UCF at Navy	3:30 PM
October 2nd	Liberty at UAB	7:00 PM
October 2nd	Fresno State at Hawaii	11:00 PM
October 8th	Charlotte at FIU	7:00 PM
October 9th	Miami-OH at Eastern Michigan*	Noon
October 9th	SMU at Navy	3:30 PM
October 9th	Wyoming at Air Force	7:00 PM
October 9th	New Mexico State at Nevada	10:30 PM
October 15th	Marshall at North Texas	7:00 PM
October 15th	San Diego State at San Jose State	10:30 PM
October 16th	Yale at UConn	Noon
October 16th	Toledo at Central Michigan*	3:30 PM
October 16th	Utah State at UNLV	7:00 PM
October 16th	Hawaii at Nevada	10:30 PM
October 21st	Florida Atlantic at Charlotte	7:30 PM
October 22nd	Middle Tennessee at UConn	6:00 PM
October 22nd	Colorado State at Utah State	9:30 PM
October 23rd	Wake Forest at Army	Noon
October 23rd	Miami-OH at Ball State*	3:30 PM
October 23rd	San Diego State at Air Force	7:00 PM
October 23rd	San Jose State at UNLV	10:30 PM
October 29th	UNLV at Nevada	10:00 PM
October 30th	Bowling Green at Buffalo*	Noon
October 30th	Louisiana Tech at Old Dominion	3:30 PM
October 30th	Boise State at Colorado State	7:00 PM
October 30th	Fresno State at San Diego State	10:30 PM
November 2nd	Eastern Michigan at Toledo*	7:30 PM
November 6th	Louisiana Tech at UAB	Noon
November 6th	Colorado State at Wyoming	3:30 PM
November 6th	Boise State at Fresno State	7:00 PM
November 9th	Buffalo at Miami-OH*	7:00 PM
November 10th	Toledo at Bowling Green*	7:30 PM
November 13th	Bucknell at Army	Noon
November 13th	UAB at Marshall	3:30 PM
November 13th	Air Force at Colorado State	7:00 PM
November 13th	Nevada at San Diego State	10:30 PM
November 19th	Southern Miss at Louisiana Tech	8:00 PM
November 20th	UMass at Army	Noon
November 20th	East Carolina at Navy	3:30 PM
November 20th	Wyoming at Utah State	7:00 PM
November 20th	San Diego State at UNLV	10:30 PM
November 26th	Eastern Michigan at Central Michigan*	Noon
November 26th	UNLV at Air Force	3:30 PM
November 27th	Houston at UConn	Noon
November 27th	Western Kentucky at Marshall	3:30 PM
November 27th	Nevada at Colorado State	9:00 PM
December 4th	Conference USA Championship Game*	12:30 PM
December 30th	Arizona Bowl*	5:00 PM

Continue reading →

So now we have the Dirty Dozen

Posted on June 14, 2021 by guelphbossman

No the movie the Dirty Dozen has nothing to do with the news that the College Football Playoff will be expanding to 12 teams, probably to start for the 2023 season. But what else was I supposed to put: a carton of eggs?

So if you have been living under a rock that may or may not give you all the news you want but mutes everything college football-related, the College Football Playoff will be expanded to 12 teams. This announcement was made late this past week and was met with, well, mixed remarks. Some loved it, some loathed it, some were indifferent, some were harping on other issues in the game. We all know what they are trying to do. Capture the magic of March Madness or perhaps the NCAA baseball postseason or even the FCS playoffs. The problem is that parity really does not exist in college sports. At all. And never has. Yes teams rise and teams fall but parity is not a thing that has existed. Let’s take those FCS playoffs. North Dakota State has dominated like no team ever before by winning eight of the last ten championships. That’s not parity. Before that, Appalachian State went back-to-back-to-back in the mid 2000s, and back in the 90s, Georgia Southern, Youngstown State and Marshall reigned supreme almost every year. People want to compare opening up the possibilities to that when the possibilities weren’t there? Sure, ok. I get it. Other teams technically get their shot. They’re in the dance, so to speak. I can appreciate that. But to say that this will create parity in FBS football is laughable. It might give us an upset or two but that’s about it. That’s the reality.

So why was this really done? Come on, do I have to spell it out for you? C-A-S-H. Money. Scratch. Other terms for legal tender. That’s all it is. More money. The New Year’s Six will essentially become the playoffs. Here is how it looks like it will shape up (since I am sure more details will be forthcoming in the months ahead):

12 teams qualify for the playoffs.
The top 6 ranked conference champions, regardless of if they are Power Five or Group of Five conferences, qualify automatically.
6 at-large teams are selected from the rest. They might have won their conference championship and not have been in the top 6 conference champions.
The top 4 ranked conference champions will receive first round byes.
Notre Dame and BYU cannot be in the top 4 teams because they are not in a conference. The best they can do is be #5.
The other eight will play in first round games at on-campus sites.

That was really the only info given. So a lot is left to be stated. My guess is this is how the rest of it will look:

The first round will be #5 vs. #12, #6 vs. #11, #7 vs. #10, and #8 vs. #9. This has been implied but not actually stated.
The winner of the #5/#12 matchup would face the #4 team. #6/#11 winner would get the #3 team, #7/#10 winner would get the #2 team and the #8/#9 winner would go to meet the #1 team. This is done so people can kind of get travel plans set up and not have to wait for reseeding after the first round.
The quarter-finals would all be current New Year’s Six bowl games. Same with the semi-finals. I want to say that the Rose and Sugar would be the semi-finals but that is not a guarantee at this point.
The championship would still be at another neutral site.

Pluses

For those who really hate almost any kind of playoff and yearn for the “good old days” of college football, there are no pluses. For those who eventually want a 64-team playoff say it’s all pluses. Let me be somewhat realistic about the pluses to this:

The Group of Five is guaranteed a spot. With six conference champions guaranteed in, at least one G-5 team will get in, perhaps two. That is the biggest issue that has bothered the pro-playoff people, the lack of Group of Five teams. That worry is gone.
The New Year’s Six bowls that aren’t the semi-finals will now be very relevant. The NY6 bowls that weren’t the semi-final games in any given year meant as much as the other bowl games: not a whole lot. Fun for the players, great for the coaches, and relatively profitable to the communities and charities but other than a banner, a win there itself meant nothing. Now they will mean something because they will be quarter-final games.
Schools get another home game to make a ton of money. The 5 through 8 teams may make out the best here. They get another home game which should rack up a lot of dough for the program.
Upsets. Let’s be honest: one of the biggest reasons, other than gambling, why March Madness is so amazing is upsets. Well, now you might have relatively monumental upsets (i.e. a G-5 team beating a P-5 team). And that’s what The Committee wants.

Minuses

Now for the minuses. And there are some for sure.

The bigger regular season games aren’t as big anymore. This is undoubtedly true. The biggest games of the regular season won’t be nearly as important anymore. They can’t be. When 12 teams qualify, a game between the #1 and #5 team in the land is just for seeding purposes and byes. Not to miss the playoffs altogether.
A better chance for a bad conference champion to make the playoff. I will get to more of this later but the chances of a 7-5 team winning their conference championship and getting to the CFP is on the table. And sorry, as much as teams should have a chance to play their way in, a team with 4 or 5 losses shouldn’t be in. Period.
The other bowls mean even less. They were almost irrelevant as it is except for the communities and the charity work done there. Now these bowls will mean even less. And guaranteed at least a few of them will be eliminated (which will make the Too Many Bowls crowd happy at least).

A lot to digest for sure. I still have problems with moving to a 12-team playoff when there are other issues that have to be dealt with to set college football up to have a “proper playoff” so to speak. Eliminating divisions, having all conferences play the same amount of conference games, and eliminating preseason polls altogether are three issues that must be looked at or otherwise we could have a ton of problems with this new format. I mean some love it but they may not when there’s four SEC teams in the semi-finals and they made it there because the format allowed it, not because they “earned” it.

Alright let’s shift gears here. Many pundits are “re-doing” previous years with the new 12-team CFP structure. So I will select a few random years to see how it would set up and what we might see. Now remember, the rankings that year might not have been the rankings under this system because you have to be sure that The Committee might not see it the same way as it was back then. Also, I am going to assume the Rose and Sugar Bowls ARE the semi-finals in these exercises. Let’s begin!

1993

Let’s start with 1993. The year of the newest Game of the Century between Notre Dame and Florida State (and holy shit was it ever a great game). Florida State was able to recover from that loss to win the national championship. The Irish inexplicably fell to Boston College the following week to end their title hopes. Hell, the second spot in the championship probably should have gone to West Virginia instead of Florida State. So how would a 12-team playoff look during this season:

Byes: #1 Florida State (ACC champ), #2 Nebraska (Big 8 champ), #3 West Virginia (Big East champ), #7 Texas A&M (SWC champ)

#9 Wisconsin (Big 10 champ) at #8 Florida (SEC champ) (winner plays FSU in Orange Bowl)

#10 Miami at #6 Tennessee (SWC champ) (winner plays Nebraska in Cotton Bowl)

#11 Ohio State at #5 Auburn (winner plays West Virginia in Fiesta Bowl)

#12 North Carolina at #4 Notre Dame (winner plays Auburn in Citrus Bowl)

Interesting since Florida State being #1 means they could face Florida in the quarters at the Orange Bowl which would be a massive ratings success and could be a very tough game for the Noles. Other than if UNC beat the Irish, no other result would feel like an upset. I guess Nebraska and West Virginia (and maybe the Noles) not getting to the semis would kind of be considered an upset but really not. My guess is we would see two of the three I just mentioned in the championship game so not much would change.

2011

We leap to 2011. The year two SEC teams met in the national championship which basically was the final nail in the coffin for the BCS so we could say hello to the College Football Playoff. Also, if it hadn’t been for Iowa State upsetting Oklahoma State, the Cowboys of all teams would have found themselves facing the Tigers for the title. If the new setup was in place, that game really means nothing other than it was a cool upset to watch. Who knows if the BCS keeps going if that happens. Anyway, here we go:

Byes: #1 LSU (SEC champ), #3 Oklahoma State (Big XII champ), #5 Oregon (Pac-12 champ), #10 Wisconsin (Big Ten champ)

#8 Kansas State at #7 Boise State (winner plays LSU in Cotton Bowl)

#9 South Carolina at #6 Arkansas (winner plays Alabama in Orange Bowl)

#15 Clemson (ACC champ) at #4 Stanford (winner plays Oklahoma State in Capital One Bowl)

#18 TCU (MWC champ) at #2 Alabama (winner plays Oregon in Fiesta Bowl)

Here’s where things kind of go off the rails at the bottom of the bracket. Normally you would have had two of Virginia Tech, Michigan, or Oklahoma here. Bluebloods. Not so with the criteria. With only four conference champions in the top ten teams, Clemson and TCU get in as the next highest ranked conference champions. Houston would have been a shoo-in to go but their loss in the Conference USA championship leaves them on the outside looking in. Also, would they allow the Gamecocks to face Arkansas when they are in the same conference? I could see South Carolina ending up going to Boise (talk about your horrible weather game) and Arkansas getting Kansas State. Again, I can’t see any team outside the top three getting through this but you never know. Really, the biggest thing here would be if Boise handles Kansas State, can they somehow shock the world and beat LSU?

1987

This season ended up with Miami facing Oklahoma in a 1 vs. 2 matchup in the Orange Bowl for the national championship. Somewhat rare to have a bowl game get the top two teams back then. Syracuse was also a serious contender but ended up #4. Oh and SMU started the first year of their death penalty, something the NCAA will never give out again (and probably can’t at least in football).

Byes: #1 Oklahoma (Big 8 champ), #6 Auburn (SEC champ), #8 Michigan State (Big Ten champ), #10 UCLA (Pac-10 co-champ)

#7 LSU at #5 Nebraska (winner plays Oklahoma in Cotton Bowl)

#9 South Carolina at #4 Syracuse (winner plays Auburn in Orange Bowl)

#13 Texas A&M (SWC champ) at #3 Florida State (winner plays Michigan State in Citrus Bowl)

#14 Clemson (ACC champ) at #2 Miami (winner plays UCLA in Fiesta Bowl)

OK this DEFINITELY wouldn’t have worked back in ’87. Clemson again sneaks in because they need more conference champs. Same with Texas A&M this time around. Oklahoma State and Notre Dame miss out. Luckily back then there weren’t as many talking heads who would, you know, talk about it. But the conference champ in the top four thing can’t work back then with the amount of independents there were. This was before the Big East and before the ACC decided they needed Florida State. This means the Canes, Noles AND Orange would have to play in the first round. Brutal. This also means three of the four teams with first round byes would definitely be underdogs in the quarter-finals unless they were upsets. Crazy. Honestly, this could have been an interesting once since any one of the top 6 teams could have ended up in the final two considering this setup.

2007

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! The Committee would have been full-fledged alcoholics after this season. Things changed so often from week-to-week that they would have struggled to wrap their heads around the whole thing. Even Ohio State, easily the #1 team, looked horrible in a loss to Illinois (ILLINOIS!) during the season. And remember, the #2 team lost seven times in the final nine weeks, an unprecedented amount that will probably never be matched. Let’s see what this shitshow would have churned out:

Byes: #1 Ohio State (Big 10 champ), #2 LSU (SEC champ), #3 Oklahoma (Big XII champ), #5 Virginia Tech (ACC champ)

#9 Florida at #8 Kansas (winner plays Ohio State in Cotton Bowl)

#10 Hawaii (WAC champ) at #7 Missouri (winner plays LSU in Outback Bowl)

#11 West Virginia (Big East champ) at #6 USC (Pac-10 champ) (winner plays Oklahoma in Fiesta Bowl)

#12 Arizona State at #4 Georgia (winner plays Virginia Tech in Orange Bowl)

And after I saw it will be a shitshow, it ends up being clean. Absolutely clean. I mean the road to get here would have been filled with potholes but the end result was, while not perfect, quite nice. A few nicks, no outright cuts. And some of the quarter-final matchups…wow! Could Kansas somehow beat tOSU? Could Mizzou keep the magical season going against who ended up being the national champ, LSU? And either West Virginia or USC playing Oklahoma? Yes, please. If this happened we wouldn’t think that 2007 was as wacky as it actually was.

So there you go. Four random seasons with varying degrees of success, so to speak. In the end, though, the cream will rise to the top. With four rounds to the playoffs, it will be rare if a team can run the table from the first round. I would expect one of the teams with a bye will end up winning the national championship. It will be interesting to see if college football continues to thrive or if they may have gone a bit too far this time. In terms of money and viewers, the sport keeps growing. Even with attendance going down slightly every season, those are the metrics they need to see grow. The next set of TV contracts will be the barometer of if this has already started to work or not.

Have a great rest of the weekend!

Time for the Week Zero ReHOLY SHIT ANDREW LUCK RETIRED!

Posted on August 26, 2019 by guelphbossman

Talk about a bombshell. This was just all of a sudden dropped by Adam Schefter during the second half of the Florida-Miami game. The tweet was retweeted 15,000 times in four minutes by the way. That’s how quickly the news spread. Is it the most shocking retirement ever? You could argue that. I still say Barry Sanders’ retirement was more shocking considering Sanders didn’t have the injury history Luck has. But it is still crazy and basically turned sports media on its head for a few hours.

What amazes me even more is the backlash this decision got. Some Colts fans booed Luck as he left. Many on social media were angry that Luck retired (or quit as they would put it). Some, like Doug Gottlieb, painted Luck as some asshole millennial who doesn’t give a shit about anyone but himself. Most of these people are the same ones who have never put on a set of football pads in their life and never would. But hey, everyone is entitled to their opinion right?

Oh and there were Week Zero games this past Saturday. Let’s recap them.

Well that was technically a game. I get it. It’s Week Zero. There is some rust on everyone, coaches included. But good lord that was a sloppy football game Saturday night between Florida and Miami. It felt like neither team really wanted to win the thing. And this is just ammo for the people that say pre-season rankings should not be a thing. Florida looked like they would struggle against Arkansas and they are #8 going into the season? Yeesh.

So what do we think of these teams now? I don’t want to take Week Zero and make it the story of what these teams will be like all season. But I did say that Florida would win 9 and Miami would win 10. Will this still happen? I guess only time will tell but man, it doesn’t look good at this juncture.

Mahalo! Late-night college football is back people. And it started with Hawaii barely holding on against Arizona. Khalil Tate, hoping for a bounce-back year, scrambled for 30 yards on the final play of the game and came up one yard short from potentially tying the game. A great game that followed, honestly, a great finish in the primetime game. So not a bad start to the season I have to say.

Alright that’s it. There were two other games at the FCS level with Villanova beating Colgate and the Super Pelini Bros. coaching Youngstown State to a huge win over Samford. No biggie. But it was college football.

Coming up soon we will be in a five-stretch of college football every day! Yep, college football is back! I will be back later this week with the Week 1 schedule which will be a hell of a lot more extensive than the Week Zero schedule I promise. Enjoy the week everyone!

WE MADE IT! The Week Zero College Football Schedule

Posted on August 22, 2019 by guelphbossman

Our long national ordeal is over! OK more like the United States’ national ordeal is over. Alright more like the Dirty South’s ordeal is over. And my ordeal is over. Don’t forget that.

We have made it everyone! College football begins this Saturday. Yes I know it’s just Week Zero and the schedule is extremely short. But it’s college football so let us all cherish it. So here it is…the first college football schedule of the 2019 season:

Saturday (yep, that’s it)

		US	Canada
Villanova at Colgate	Noon
#8 Florida vs. Miami (in Orlando)	7:00 PM
Arizona at Hawaii	10:30 PM

Huge primetime game to start the season for the first time in, well, a long damn time. In the shadow of the Magic Kingdom (not really but imagine Brent Musburger or Keith Jackson saying that), Florida faces Miami in a match between teams that have quite a bit of hype coming into the season. And to top it off, TSN is showing this game so great news right off the bat for us Canadians. The season starts with Villanova facing Colgate in CBSSN’s only FCS game of the season. The annual Hawaii Week Zero game occurs as well as the Rainbow Warriors host Arizona in what could be a very interesting late-night affair. There is another FCS game on at 3:00 in the afternoon. It’s the annual FCS Kickoff game and it’s between Youngstown State and Samford down in Montgomery, Alabama. Considering what has happened every year (at least for the last few years), I fully expect the specialty packs not to show this game. I don’t really understand this thing of not showing Week Zero games and I don’t even want to get deep into it since it will all come down to either indifference or incompetence or both on the parts of Rogers and Bell and Eastlink.

I am not doing the games of the week because we know what the game of the week is. Plus they are spaced out that you can easily watch all of them. Not doing my gambling picks either since there are only really two games you could gamble on. I pick Florida and Arizona. There you go.

The NFL continues their preseason over the next few nights and the CFL is getting into its mid-season form. Football is back baby and I am so damn excited. I’m glad I lost like no weight over the past few months since I am sure I will pack on the pounds with all the bad food and lack of exercise over the next five months. I’m such a great role model. Anyway, enjoy the games everyone!

NFL Wild Card Round TV schedule and College Football National Championship Info (and a few other items)

Posted on January 5, 2017 by guelphbossman

We have finally made it to the NFL Playoffs and the College Football National Championship. It’s almost over for another season, folks! I am shedding a tear just thinking about it.

First up, the College Football National Championship. It will air on TSN1, 3, 4, and 5. On TSN5, the coverage starts mid-afternoon. College GameDay and a bunch of other shows will set you up for the game which starts at 8. On TSN3, the game will be joined in progress after the Winnipeg Jets game ends. That should be at about 10:30. So at least TSN is going all in for this game after a rough patch with the bowl games as a whole.

I guess I should include a pick here. I think Clemson will finally win their first championship in 35 years by beating Alabama in a close one. Going with a 31-27 score in this one. If this does happen I can see a LOT being made of the choice to send Lane Kiffin packing early and going with Steve Sarkisian for the final game of the season.

Then we have the NFL Wild Card Round. Here is the schedule for the upcoming weekend:

Saturday
4:30	Oakland at Houston	ABC/CTV
8:00	Detroit at Seattle	NBC/CTV
Sunday
1:00	Miami at Pittsburgh	CBS/CTV
4:30	NY Giants at Green Bay	FOX/TSN1/TSN3/TSN4/TSN5

The Saturday game between Oakland and Houston will bring a loss of approximately $75 million to ESPN/ABC. $75 MILLION! The other three networks have their Wild Card games as part of their entire NFL package but that isn’t what happens for ESPN. To be honest, they should consider dropping Monday Night Football. I know they won’t but good lord MNF is not what it used to be and ESPN is paying a premium for it. It’s a lose-lose all around.

I think the two NFC games will be light years better than the AFC games this time around. Unless it’s close, the Raiders-Texans matchup will be one of the worst in recent playoff history. It’s too bad because the Raiders with Derek Carr was a VERY dangerous team. Connor Cook better come up with the month of his life because they will need it.

Finally, the FCS Championship between Youngstown State and James Madison will appear on TSN5 on Saturday at Noon along with the U.S. Army High School All-American Bowl on NBC. I find it interesting that during every one of North Dakota State’s five championship runs, not one of the championship games was on a TSN channel. Yet now we get it this year when NDSU is eliminated in the semi-finals. I don’t get it either but hey, I won’t complain.

Enjoy the games everyone!

Hey it’s the first bowl recap of the season…OK don’t all clap at once

Posted on December 19, 2016 by guelphbossman

Bowl recap season. We have arrived. It doesn’t have the same feel as the regular season but it’s still college football and it feels really good when the game is competitive. So let’s begin!

First a quick note about the lower division games. The D-II and D-III finals were cool to watch, especially the D-II Championship in Kansas City that was in a severe snowstorm. Some serious FOOTBAW WEATHER!

FCS Semi-finals

The king is dead! Someone finally figured out future Mountain West member North Dakota State. James Madison kind of looked like the team that could give the Bison a run for their money in the previous two rounds with their gaudy offensive numbers. They played just well enough and weathered the noise of the Woodchipper to pull out the victory. NDSU’s streak of championships stops at five. An amazing feat. Alright, enough of this crap, send them up to the FBS pronto!

The other semi-final was in frigid Eastern Washington. It came down to the final play (almost). Kevin Rader’s catch in the endzone holding on to the ball around the back of the EWU defender is probably the catch of the year and It propelled the Youngstown State Fighting Pelinis to the FCS Championship. An amazing game.

Now on to the bowl games and it starts with the only non-FBS bowl of the year.

Celebration Bowl – Grambling 10 North Carolina Central 9

Not that great a game until later in the fourth. Then everything went nuts. NC Central scores what looks to be the tying touchdown. Then the receiver takes his helmet off in the end zone, drawing a penalty. The Eagles go on to miss the extra point, losing by one. My response is captured here: http://www.foxsports.com/college-football/gallery/celebration-bowl-penalty-excessive-celebration-grambling-state-north-carolina-central-121716. Yes you can’t make this up.

New Mexico Bowl – New Mexico 23 UTSA 20

It was somewhat of a home advantage for the Lobos but it wasn’t a packed house which is kind of disappointing. UTSA came oh-so-close in their first bowl game ever. Bob Davie has done an excellent job in Albuquerque which isn’t the easiest thing. Remember, this team has NEVER been ranked. Ever. That seems almost impossible but they have done it. Anyway, what I am trying to say is I am sure Notre Dame would take him back in a heartbeat.

Las Vegas Bowl – San Diego State 34 Houston 10

So Donnel Pumphrey broke Ron Dayne’s record for career rushing yards. Or did he? Leave it to the NCAA to fuck up something as simple as counting and adding. They can’t go back and retroactively add bowl game information that is readily available to everyone? So stupid. Not to take away what Pumphrey did. The kid is a smaller running back who thrashed defenses on the reg and is, at the very least, a good option as a change of pace back in the NFL. Also, Brent Musburger advocating for the Raiders to move to Vegas is so Brent. I’m surprised he hasn’t invited his bookie into the booth. Then again, he may have asked and been denied.

Camellia Bowl – Appalachian State 31 Toledo 28

I think we found our latest graduate of the Les Miles School of Clock Management. What was Jason Candle thinking? If Toledo hadn’t taken that delay of game penalty that field goal attempt probably ends up good and it may end up in the teams going to overtime. Instead, it is pushed right and the Rockets lose. Poor clock management. Even the best coaches seem to have issues with it.

Cure Bowl – Arkansas State 31 UCF 13

I don’t know what this bowl was supposed to cure. It was way too long (four hours) and wasn’t even that great a game. UCF was never in it, much to the chagrin of the home crowd in, ahem, “Bowlando” (God I feel disgusting even saying that). So it didn’t cure my boredom. Maybe insomnia perhaps?

New Orleans Bowl – Southern Miss 28 UL-Lafayette 21

This looked like it would be over quickly when the Golden Eagles went out in front 14-0 midway through the first. After that the Ragin’ Cajuns woke up, realized they were in a game and played Southern Miss tough the rest of the way. They came up a bit short but it was still an entertaining game to end the first day of bowl season.

In other news, both Leonard Fournette and Christian McCaffrey have opted out of their team’s respective bowl games. They are doing this to keep injury free and start preparing for the NFL Draft. I expect this to be a trend. What will this do? Well one thing for sure is it will, eventually, drive ticket sales down at certain bowls that need brand name power to prop them up. I mean the Sun Bowl has little they can do to promote the game. Missing star players will just make it worse.

The bowl games continue today with the Miami Beach Bowl on at the ridiculous time of 2:30. A college football game. In the afternoon. Pre-Christmas. During a weekday. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist/Master’s student/recent GED recipient to figure out the problem here. It’s on my PVR and unless it’s a close game I will watch maybe fifteen minutes of it. This shit has to stop. I have outlined this before and will be doing it again in the coming days as I revise my If I Ran the Bowl Games post. Also coming up will be the NFL recap tomorrow. Enjoy the bowl games and the Monday nighter tonight.

OK I’m not waiting any longer. Time for the bowl game TV schedule.

Posted on December 14, 2016 by guelphbossman

cookie-monster-waiting

I can’t wait any longer. Well I guess I could but the bowl games start in three days. What is TSN waiting for? They have the entire World Junior Hockey Championship schedule (for the most part) but can’t figure out a few bowl games to slot in between? Give me a break.

So here’s the bowl schedule as of right now. If you see an asterisk (*) it means the broadcast information isn’t set in stone. So almost everything post-Christmas is up in the air (somewhat). I did my best knowing what TSN already has going for them from Christmas past New Year’s with the WJHC. I am guessing I am pretty close with this but don’t be surprised if a game or two moves to the specialty pack or vice versa.

UPDATE #2: The schedule is fully updated.

Here’s the sked:

			US	Canada
December 17	Celebration Bowl (Grambling vs. NC Central)	12:00 PM	ABC	ABC
December 17	New Mexico Bowl (New Mexico vs. UTSA)	2:00 PM	ESPN	TSN1/TSN3
December 17	Las Vegas Bowl (Houston vs. San Diego State)	3:30 PM	ABC	ABC
December 17	Cure Bowl (Arkansas State vs. UCF)	5:30 PM	CBSSN	CBSSN
December 17	Camellia Bowl (Appalachian State vs. Toledo)	5:30 PM	ESPN	TSN2
December 17	New Orleans Bowl (Southern Miss vs. UL-Lafayette)	9:00 PM	ESPN	TSN2
December 19	Miami Beach Bowl (Central Michigan vs. Tulsa)	2:30 PM	ESPN	SP
December 20	Boca Raton Bowl (Memphis vs. Western Kentucky)	7:00 PM	ESPN	TSN1/TSN4
December 21	Poinsettia Bowl (BYU vs. Wyoming)	9:00 PM	ESPN	SP
December 22	Idaho Potato Bowl (Colorado State vs. Idaho)	7:00 PM	ESPN	SP
December 23	Bahamas Bowl (Eastern Michigan vs. Old Dominion)	1:00 PM	ESPN	SP
December 23	Armed Forces Bowl (Louisiana Tech vs. #25 Navy)	4:30 PM	ESPN	TSN1
December 23	Dollar General Bowl (Ohio vs. Troy)	8:00 PM	ESPN	SP
December 24	Hawaii Bowl (Hawaii vs. Middle Tennessee)	8:00 PM	ESPN	SP
December 26	St. Petersburg Bowl (Miami-OH vs. Mississippi State)	11:00 AM	ESPN	SP
December 26	Quick Lane Bowl (Boston College vs. Maryland)	2:30 PM	ESPN2	TSN2
December 26	Independence Bowl (NC State vs. Vanderbilt)	5:00 PM	ESPN	SP
December 27	Heart of Dallas Bowl (Army vs. North Texas)	12:00 PM	ESPN	SP
December 27	Military Bowl (#24 Temple vs. Wake Forest)	3:30 PM	ESPN	TSN2
December 27	Holiday Bowl (Minnesota vs. Washington State)	7:00 PM	ESPN	SP
December 27	Cactus Bowl (Baylor vs. Boise State)	10:15 PM	ESPN	SP
December 28	Pinstripe Bowl (Northwestern vs. #23 Pittsburgh)	2:00 PM	ESPN	SP
December 28	Russell Athletic Bowl (Miami vs. #16 West Virginia)	5:30 PM	ESPN	SP
December 28	Foster Farms Bowl (Indiana vs. #19 Utah)	8:30 PM	FOX	FOX
December 28	Texas Bowl (Kansas State vs. Texas A&M)	9:00 PM	ESPN	SP
December 29	Birmingham Bowl (South Carolina vs. USF)	2:00 PM	ESPN	SP
December 29	Belk Bowl (Arkansas vs. #22 Virginia Tech)	5:30 PM	ESPN	SP
December 29	Alamo Bowl (#10 Colorado vs. #12 Oklahoma State)	9:00 PM	ESPN	SP
December 30	Liberty Bowl (Georgia vs. TCU)	12:00 PM	ESPN	SP
December 30	Sun Bowl (North Carolina vs. #18 Stanford)	2:00 PM	CBS	CBS
December 30	Music City Bowl (Nebraska vs. #21 Tennessee)	3:30 PM	ESPN	SP
December 30	Arizona Bowl (Air Force vs. South Alabama)	5:30 PM	ASN	MyTV
December 30	Orange Bowl (#6 Michigan vs. #11 Florida State)	8:00 PM	ESPN	TSN2
December 31	Citrus Bowl (#13 Louisville vs. #20 LSU)	11:00 AM	ABC	ABC/TSN2
December 31	TaxSlayer Bowl (Georgia Tech vs. Kentucky)	11:00 AM	ESPN	SP
December 31	Peach Bowl (#1 Alabama vs. #4 Washington)	3:00 PM	ESPN	TSN2
December 31	Fiesta Bowl (#2 Clemson vs. #3 Ohio State)	7:00 PM	ESPN	TSN2
January 02	Outback Bowl (#17 Florida vs. Iowa)	1:00 PM	ABC	ABC
January 02	Cotton Bowl (#8 Wisconsin vs. #15 Western Michigan)	1:00 PM	ESPN	TSN2
January 02	Rose Bowl (#5 Penn State vs. #9 USC)	5:00 PM	ESPN	TSN2
January 02	Sugar Bowl (#7 Oklahoma vs. #14 Auburn)	8:30 PM	ESPN	TSN2
January 09	National Championship Game	8:30 PM	ESPN	TSN1/TSN3/TSN4/TSN5

UPDATE #5: As of right now (4:00 EST on Dec. 28th), the Texas Bowl isn’t showing anywhere in Canada. It was removed from TSN’s bowl schedule recently (I was notified of this on Twitter yesterday). I had checked on Christmas Eve and hadn’t seen it so it couldn’t have happened before that night. After talking with a Bell rep, I realized it was pointless to talk to a Bell rep about this. So it MAY show up on the specialty pack but there is no guarantee. If it doesn’t, it would be the first bowl game in a few years that has not been shown on Canadian television. I would not be happy since this feels like we are going backwards again with college football coverage in this country.

UPDATE #6: At least on Bell Fibe, the Texas Bowl is appearing on the specialty pack but only in SD.

UPDATE #7: OK was watching the Texas Bowl and it just went off the air. I don’t get it. Why stop broadcasting a game half an hour in?

OK maybe I should have put asterisks beside the games that were already set instead. Geez.

Alright, as of right now the breakdown looks like this on the American side:

33 games on ESPN (including the National Championship)
1 game on ESPN2
4 games on ABC (including the Celebration Bowl)
1 game on CBS
1 game on FOX
1 game on ASN/Campus Insiders
1 game on CBS Sports Network

UPDATE: A few games have been switched between TSN and the specialty packs.

UPDATE #3: The list below is updated and non-specialty pack people will not be pleased.

So for us Canadians it will look like this:

4 games on ABC (one shared with TSN)
1 game on CBS
1 game on FOX
1 game on MyTV
1 game on CBS Sports Network
16 games on TSN (one shared with ABC)
19 games on the specialty pack

More games than ever on the specialty pack (a third of them). UPDATE #4: Nope. Wrong. Almost half of the games on the specialty pack. Yikes. Regular subscribers will not be happy for sure. And of the games already set pre-Christmas, only 5 of 14 are on a TSN channel. This is when the schedule is pretty open without a ton of hockey on it. So it doesn’t look good right now but hopefully it all works out for non-specialty pack people.

I will keep updating this schedule as more information becomes available. Not impressed to say the least but nothing I can do at this point.

Also, there are a few lower-division games this coming Friday and Saturday if you’re into that type of thing.

			US	Canada
December 16	FCS Semifinal #1 (James Madison at North Dakota State)	7:00 PM	ESPN2	SP
December 16	Division III Championship (Mary Hardin-Baylor vs. UW-Oshkosh)	7:00 PM	ESPNU	SP
December 17	Division II Championship (North Alabama vs. NW Missouri State)	4:00 PM	ESPN2	SP
December 17	FCS Semifinal #2 (Youngstown State at Eastern Washington)	6:30 PM	ESPNU	SP

One note on this: the Fighting Pelinis of Youngstown State head to Eastern Washington Saturday night and it is expected to be ball-freezing cold. FOOTBAW WEATHER!!!!!!!!!!!

Tomorrow I should have the NFL schedule up and then on Friday the bowl rankings and predictions. Or vice versa. I don’t know yet. You’ll find out when I do.

August 26th	UTEP at Jacksonville State	5:30 PM
August 26th	FIU at Louisiana Tech	9:00 PM
August 31st	NC State at UConn	7:30 PM
September 1st	Stanford at Hawaii	11:00 PM
September 2nd	Bowling Green at Liberty	Noon
September 2nd	USF at WKU	3:30 PM
September 2nd	Washington State at Colorado State	7:00 PM
September 2nd	Idaho State at San Diego State	10:30 PM
September 9th	Delaware State at Army	Noon
September 9th	Wagner at Navy	3:30 PM
September 9th	Air Force vs. Sam Houston (in Houston)	8:00 PM
September 15th	Utah State at Air Force	8:00 PM
September 16th	Liberty at Buffalo	Noon
September 16th	FIU at UConn	3:30 PM
September 16th	Vanderbilt at UNLV	7:00 PM
September 16th	Kansas at Nevada	10:30 PM
September 22nd	Delaware State at Miami-OH	7:00 PM
September 22nd	Boise State at San Diego State	10:30 PM
September 23rd	Tulsa at Northern Illinois	Noon
September 23rd	Duke at UConn	3:30 PM
September 23rd	Appalachian State at Wyoming	7:00 PM
September 23rd	Kent State at Fresno State	10:30 PM
September 28th	Middle Tennessee at WKU	7:30 PM
September 29th	Louisiana Tech at UTEP	9:00 PM
September 30th	Utah State at UConn	Noon
September 30th	USF at Navy	3:30 PM
September 30th	San Diego State at Air Force	8:00 PM
October 4th	FIU at New Mexico State	9:00 PM
October 5th	Sam Houston at Liberty	7:00 PM
October 7th	Boston College at Army	Noon
October 7th	North Texas at Navy	3:30 PM
October 7th	San Jose State at Boise State	8:00 PM
October 10th	Louisiana Tech at Middle Tennessee	7:00 PM
October 11th	Sam Houston at New Mexico State	9:00 PM
October 13th	Fresno State at Utah State	8:00 PM
October 14th	Kent State at Eastern Michigan	Noon
October 14th	Troy at Army	3:30 PM
October 14th	Wyoming at Air Force	7:00 PM
October 14th	San Diego State at Hawaii	11:00 PM
October 17th	Middle Tennessee at Liberty	7:00 PM
October 18th	FIU at Sam Houston	7:00 PM
October 21st	Akron at Bowling Green	Noon
October 21st	USF at UConn	3:30 PM
October 21st	Utah State at San Jose State	7:00 PM
October 21st	Colorado State at UNLV	10:30 PM
October 24th	New Mexico State at Louisiana Tech	7:00 PM
October 25th	Jacksonville State at FIU	7:00 PM
October 28th	UMass at Army	Noon
October 28th	Miami-OH at Ohio	3:30 PM
October 28th	Air Force at Colorado State	7:00 PM
October 28th	New Mexico at Nevada	10:30 PM
November 3rd	Colorado State at Wyoming	8:00 PM
November 4th	Army vs. Air Force (in Denver)	2:30 PM
November 4th	Louisiana Tech at Liberty	6:00 PM
November 4th	Boise State at Fresno State	10:00 PM
November 7th	Central Michigan at Western Michigan	7:00 PM
November 8th	Akron at Miami-OH	7:00 PM
November 11th	Holy Cross at Army	Noon
November 11th	UAB at Navy	3:30 PM
November 11th	San Diego State at Colorado State	7:00 PM
November 11th	Fresno State at San Jose State	10:30 PM
November 14th	Akron at Eastern Michigan	7:00 PM
November 18th	Coastal Carolina at Army	Noon
November 18th	UNLV at Air Force	3:30 PM
November 18th	Boise State at Utah State	7:00 PM
November 18th	San Diego State at San Jose State	10:30 PM
November 24th	Ohio at Akron	Noon
November 24th	Utah State at New Mexico	3:30 PM
November 25th	Northern Illinois at Kent State	Noon
November 25th	Liberty at UTEP	3:30 PM
November 25th	Wyoming at Nevada	9:00 PM

Bossman's Blog

A lot of college football (and perhaps a bit of miscellaneous crap that I think warrants a post)

Tag Archives: Youngstown State

Nebraska Cornhuskers Football is a Dumpster Fire (oh, and the Week 3 College Football TV Schedule)

Friday

Saturday Early

Saturday Afternoon

Saturday Primetime

Saturday Late Night

Time for the Week Zero ReHOLY SHIT ANDREW LUCK RETIRED!

WE MADE IT! The Week Zero College Football Schedule

Saturday (yep, that’s it)

NFL Wild Card Round TV schedule and College Football National Championship Info (and a few other items)

Hey it’s the first bowl recap of the season…OK don’t all clap at once

OK I’m not waiting any longer. Time for the bowl game TV schedule.

Thursday

Friday

Saturday Early

Saturday Afternoon

Saturday Primetime

Saturday Late Night

Hey, Watch This!

Sickos Game of the Week

Hubba Bubba Blowout of the Week

Wanna Bet?

Friday

Saturday Early

Saturday Afternoon

Saturday Primetime

Saturday Late Night

Friday

Saturday Early

Saturday Afternoon​​

Saturday Primetime

Saturday Late Night

Saturday (yep, that’s it)

Saturday Afternoon