It was a real pain in the posterior last Saturday to watch all those 3:30 (Eastern time) games, imbued with considerable significance. Oh, I watched them, but I didn’t get to catch nearly as much of them as I wanted.
Thankfully, Oregon blew out USC and Ole Miss crushed LSU, thinning out the slate of games that had to be viewed at a given point in time. Even then, however, Northwestern-Wisconsin had to take a back seat compared to Michigan State-Ohio State and UCLA-Utah. Two games had division title implications, and Wildcats-Badgers did not. Traffic-jam time slots made it harder to see everything of value in the college football world last weekend.
On the heels of that experience, we now arrive at the last high-volume Saturday of the regular season, week 13. The following weekend is Conference Championship Weekend, with a thinner schedule and fewer time-slotting challenges. Therefore, this is the last time you’ll see this weekly column in 2015. We’ll have a bowl edition when the bowls are announced, but this is the last time we’ll size up a Saturday through the prism of time slots.
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In truth, Saturday of week 13 is not as crammed as a normal Saturday, even though it’s still going to involve a lot more games than Dec. 5. Thanksgiving Friday siphons off six power-conference games of note, plus featured matchups in the American Athletic Conference and Conference USA, in addition to a full boat of MACTION.
Friday is a relatively easy day to plan as a television viewer. Iowa-Nebraska and Washington State-Washington are the games of note in the 3:30 window. Missouri-Arkansas helpfully exists on a stagger at 2:30 on CBS. Baylor-TCU has the night window to itself.
The only issue with Friday’s schedule is that Miami-Pittsburgh, Western Kentucky-Marshall, and the big one — Navy-Houston — are all in the noon window. One of those games could have been moved to 11 a.m. Eastern, and no one would have gotten hurt. In fact ABC/ESPN could have set up their showcase tripleheader (Navy-Houston, Iowa-Nebraska, Baylor-TCU) at 1, 5 and 9 Eastern instead of the noon, 3:30 and 7 arrangement which currently exists.
That’s a small criticism, however. On to Saturday.
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Mom.
Apple pie.
The American flag.
Ohio State-Michigan at noon Eastern on a late-November Saturday.
We know this. We love this. It’s the way it’s supposed to be.
With UCLA-USC at 3:30 Eastern, it will feel like old times — this is how a college football TV schedule looked in the 1970s and 1980s and early 1990s. It’s great to see tradition make an appearance on the tube again.
Given the primacy and centrality of The Game in Ann Arbor, it would be great to see the various other rivalry games in the noon window move half an hour forward or backward, so that the endings wouldn’t coincide with Buckeyes-Wolverines. These are not high-quality games, but there sure is a traffic jam: Virginia Tech-Virginia; Georgia-Georgia Tech; Louisville-Kentucky; Indiana-Purdue; and an important Southern Mississippi-Louisiana Tech tilt all start at noon. Staggering would help here.
At 3:30, Michigan State, Alabama, and North Carolina step into the playoff spotlight. Staggers from the noon window would have been able to facilitate staggered times in this window as well, but you know what the deal is — we generally do not get staggers after September and very early October. Cookie-cutter windows clutter just about every remaining Saturday.
The night window is also alarmingly stuffed with games of importance, even more than the 3:30 window. Temple tries to wrap up the AAC East at 7 against Connecticut on ESPNU. The Egg Bowl (Ole Miss-Mississippi State) starts at 7:15 on ESPN2. Florida State-Florida airs at 7:30 on ESPN. Notre Dame-Stanford airs at 7:30 on FOX.
Notre Dame-Stanford and Oklahoma-Oklahoma State (8:07, ABC) are the featured College Football Playoff games of significance on Saturday night. Given that two monumental events deserve as much stand-alone visibility as possible, it’s a real shame that the Stanford game can’t start at 9:15 Eastern, enabling a nation of fans and bloggers and pundits to be able to see the endings of both games without too much overlap or competition.
It could very well be that Notre Dame-Stanford will feature a lot of running, which could lead to a shorter game. Bedlam, in contrast, could feature a lot of passes and become yet another four-hour Big 12 (regulation) game, providing something of a stagger in the end. Yet, with so many games piled together in the night window, it’s going to be hard to give these various contests the treatment they truly deserve.
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One is reminded that the 2015 Sugar Bowl started at 9 Eastern time (the kickoff occurred on the hour, or if not on the hour, at 9:01). Yet, Alabama and Ohio State delivered a 15.3 rating, a knockout number. If FOX had chosen to start Notre Dame-Stanford at 10 Eastern, would it be in position to scoop up all the viewers who would switch over after the end of Bedlam on ABC? It’s an interesting thought.
It’s also the note on which this column ends for the 2015 regular season.
