[NOTE: Don’t forget to enter the Irish Trojan USC & ND pick ‘em contest! Deadline is 8pm EDT Sunday Saturday.]
Last year’s college-football season ended with a thrilling showdown between two teams, USC and Texas, who had been previously undefeated. One of the first games of this year’s college-football season — tonight at 7:00 PM EDT — is, in a way, the mirror image of that game: it’s a showdown between two teams, Buffalo and Temple, who will very likely go winless from here on out. :)
Believe it or not, this Cellar Bowl, if you will, between the Bulls (1-10 last season) and the Owls (0-11), is actually televised… sorta. It’s on CN8, which is “televised” in the same sense that games on ESPNU and ESPN360 are “televised.” In other words, you can’t watch it unless you subscribe to some sort of fancy-pants newfangled TV thingamadooger that I don’t. :) But apparently you can also watch it live on CN8’s website, which is pretty nifty! If that fails, you can always listen to the UB audio. (They’re expecting a near-record crowd, by the way, which is really a bit sad.)
While the Bulls-Owls crapfest isn’t on normal, non-newfangled TV here in South Bend, a whole bunch of other games that you might not necessarily expect to be televised, are. (For example: Nevada vs. Fresno? On the flagship ESPN? Really?) Here’s the full rundown of this weekend’s locally viewable college-football action, all times EDT:
Today:
Boston College at Central Michigan, 6:00 PM, ESPN2
South Carolina at Mississippi State, 8:00 PM, ESPN
Tomorrow:
Nevada at Fresno State, 8:00 PM, ESPN
Saturday:
Vanderbilt at Michigan, noon, ESPN
Grambling State at Hampton, noon, ESPN2
Akron at Penn State, 3:30 PM, ESPN2
*Northern Illinois at Ohio State, 3:30 PM, ABC
Cal at Tennessee, 5:30 PM, ESPN
UAB at Oklahoma, 7:00 PM, TBS
Washington State at Auburn, 7:45 PM, ESPN2
Notre Dame at Georgia Tech, 8:00 PM, ABC
USC at Arkansas, 8:45 PM, ESPN
BYU at Arizona, 10:15 PM, TBS
*ABC hasn’t actually announced yet which game they’ll be broadcasting locally, but the options are Stanford at Oregon, Rutgers at North Carolina, and NIU at OSU. Regionally, the latter seems the head-smackingly obvious choice, and it involves the #1-ranked team in the nation to boot, so I assume that’s what we’ll be getting.
Let’s get ready to rumble!!! Goooo Irish, Beeeeat Jackets! Fight on Trojans, Beat the Razorbacks! Also, for purposes of Pac-10 pride: Go Bears, rock Rocky Top! (Sorry, Jay.) And of course: LET’S GO BUFF-A-LO!!
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Categories: College Football
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August 31st, 2006 at 1:55:36 pm
And no OTA ABC HDTV (how’s that for alphabet soup?) in South Bend. Damn FCC.
August 31st, 2006 at 2:53:25 pm
Hey, now, that’s not cool.
You don’t see me rooting for the Razorbacks (Wooo—pig…Sooooey) just b/c they’re in the SEC do ya?
I’m all for conference-wide pride, but are you really a Berkeley fan? Why not throw out a little love to us down here on Rocky Top?
I have a feeling it could be a long evening at Neyland though.
GO VOLS!
August 31st, 2006 at 2:59:49 pm
If the conferences were irrelevant, I would root for Tennessee, but the fact is, strength of schedule matters, as do perceptions of relative conference strength, so I gotta root for the Bears. Especially considering it’s against an SEC team. With all due respect, you guys (by and large — not you personally) are by far the most insufferable of all the conferences in terms of your over-inflated perception of your conference’s own strength. (”Our offenses don’t suck, our defenses are just THAT GOOD!! Really, 6-3 games are actually very exciting to watch!!” At least we Pac-10 fans mostly acknowledge that our defenses aren’t very good, but our offenses are awesome. Own what you got!)
And don’t even get me started on the out-of-conference scheduling… I mean, c’mon, USC’s OOC games are Arkansas, Nebraska and Notre Dame. Who is Auburn playing? Washington State, Arkansas State, Tulane and — wait for it — Buffalo! Wow, I’m so freakin’ impressed!
But you KNOW that if it comes down to a Pac-10 team (or any other team, really) vs. an SEC team, in terms of who gets into the title game, SEC fans will be carping about how much better their conference is, how SEC conference play is a war, week in and week out, yada yada yada. Gag me with a spoon. I can’t deal. Sorry, but we gotta take the ammunition away by beating ‘em now.
With Auburn probably beating Washington State and USC probably beating Arkansas (knock on wood), the Bears-Vols game is the “rubber match” of the weekend’s “Pac 10-SEC Challenge,” if you will…
August 31st, 2006 at 5:48:27 pm
I think UTEP v. SDSU is on CSTV tonight.
August 31st, 2006 at 7:49:02 pm
Um, you might want to fix that deadline, because if we can enter after each have played their first two games, it might skew the results a bit.
August 31st, 2006 at 7:53:40 pm
Oops. Saturday, I mean. Heh.
August 31st, 2006 at 9:31:37 pm
Cellar Bowl? Or Toilet Bowl?