Longest…seven…and a half…months…EVER.

We’re back fans. We’ve made it. We’ve survived. I mean technically the 2016 college football season started this past Friday night. But really, that game kind of sucked. And the commentary was atrocious. That game should be the first red flag to ESPN to tell them that Allen Bestwick is not even close to a decent replacement for either Sean McDonough or Brad Nessler. The fact that Steve Levy is the best replacement that the four-letter network named says a lot about what is happening at ESPN past the top four or five commentary teams. Oh well, at least the FCS Kickoff game Saturday night was a fantastic one to watch. If you could get it. Sounds like Rogers customers had issues with both games. Ah, college football season…where cable companies in Canada tell you go to fist yourself if you don’t like their mediocre attempt to give you what you are paying for.

So I have decided to go with a little different format this season. Hoping this will be a little more organized, especially for you visual people. Here we go!

Thursday

ROGERS FIBE SAT Indiana at FIU 7:30 PM SP X X X Appalachian State at #9 Tennessee 7:30 PM SP X X Rice at Western Kentucky 8:00 PM CBSSN X X South Carolina at Vanderbilt 8:00 PM SP X X X Oregon State at Minnesota 9:00 PM BTN X

Nothing THAT special tonight but it is technically opening night. OK last Friday’s Outback Showdown (or whatever it was called) was the real opening night but whatever. ESPN obviously doesn’t care since they have told anyone who will listen that it starts SATURDAY! But it’s football so I will watch with glee. I am actually looking forward to seeing if Appalachian State can give the Vols a game.

Friday

ROGERS FIBE SAT Furman at #12 Michigan State 7:00 PM BTN X Army at Temple 7:00 PM CBSSN X X Colorado vs. Colorado State (in Denver) 8:00 PM SP X X X Toledo at Arkansas State 9:00 PM SP X X X

OK even less than Thursday but again, it’s still football. Toledo-Arkansas State is a great Group of Five matchup. I would argue that they should have got the main network spot and the Rocky Mountain Showdown should have been relegated to ESPNU. Doesn’t matter to us since it’s all in the same cluster of channels.

UPDATE: Thanks to reader Dan’s message, I can tell you that Toledo-ASU is no longer on TSN networks. I can’t see any evidence that it is on the specialty packs…yet. It should show there since it is an ESPNU game but we have seen stranger things before.

UPDATE #2: I have found Toledo-ASU on SD on both Fibe and Satellite. Nothing on Rogers yet but that’s not surprising. Should show up on HD on all three soon enough.

UPDATE #3: OK it looks like it is SD everywhere but I can’t see it showing up in HD on any provider. Hopefully that changes. It should. I can’t see a reason why it wouldn’t. But remember who we’re talking about here.

UPDATE #4: Um, Peachtree TV is showing Ball State-Georgia State right now. Talk about out of the blue…Ah, that makes a bit more sense. It’s an ASN broadcast. We get them on MyTV in this area but it would be games close to the Buffalo area. So for Peachtree they will get ASN games close to Atlanta. Looks like we will have this all year as next week’s South Alabama-Georgia Southern is on Peachtree (as of right now).



UPDATE #5: Well, Toledo-ASU actually did end up only on SD as far as I can tell. Someone dropped the ball. And let it roll away.

Saturday Early Afternoon

ROGERS FIBE SAT Boston College vs. Georgia Tech (in Dublin) 7:30 AM TSN1 X X X #15 Houston vs. #3 Oklahoma (in NRG Stadium) 12:00 PM ABC X X X Bowling Green at #6 Ohio State 12:00 PM BTN X Howard at Maryland 12:00 PM SP X Fordham at Navy 12:00 PM CBSSN X X Hawaii at #7 Michigan 12:00 PM TSN2 X X X Western Michigan at Northwestern 12:00 PM SP X X X South Alabama at Mississippi State 12:00 PM SP X X Liberty at Virginia Tech 12:30 PM WSBK/SP X X X

Yes I know 7:30 in the morning isn’t early afternoon but I figured I would stick it here since I wasn’t going to give Georgia Tech-Boston College it’s own timeslot section. No way.

So this is where the REAL games start. Houston-Oklahoma is the first game of the season that has College Football Playoff implications. As of right now, the game in Ireland and the Hawaii-Michigan game appear on the Super Sports Pack guide but I am guessing that will be removed since both games are on one of the TSN Five.

UPDATE #6: As I figured, Hawaii-Michigan and the current ACC affair across the pond are only on TSN now.

Saturday Mid-Afternoon

ROGERS FIBE SAT #5 LSU vs. Wisconsin (in Green Bay) 3:30 PM ABC/TSN2 X X X Gardner-Webb at Elon 3:30 PM MyTV X X Kent State at Penn State 3:30 PM BTN X Murray State at Illinois 3:30 PM SP X #16 UCLA at Texas A&M 3:30 PM CBS X X X Texas State at Ohio 3:30 PM CBSSN X X Miami-OH at #17 Iowa 3:30 PM SP X X X Louisiana Tech at Arkansas 4:00 PM SP X X New Mexico State at UTEP 5:30 PM beIn X X X #18 Georgia vs. #22 North Carolina (in Atlanta) 5:30 PM SP X X X

Now we are getting into the meat of the schedule. LSU-Wisky in the not so Frozen Tundra of Lambeau Field is another of those CFP-esque games. Wisconsin probably won’t contend but an upset turns college football upside down (and destroys my national championship prediction). Also UGA-UNC is a game between underrated contenders and UCLA-TAMU is underrated period. That should be a good one. I am glad to see CBS gets college football all year now thanks to the U.S. Open going to ESPN.

Saturday Primetime

ROGERS FIBE SAT San Jose State at Tulsa 7:00 PM CBSSN X X East Tennessee State at Kennesaw State 7:00 PM Peachtree X X X Southern Miss at Kentucky 7:30 PM SP X X X UMass at #25 Florida 7:30 PM SP X X #1 Alabama vs. #20 USC (in Arlington) 8:00 PM ABC/TSN2 X X X Fresno State at Nebraska 8:00 PM BTN X #2 Clemson at Auburn 9:00 PM TSN1 X X X Northern Illinois at Wyoming 10:30 PM CBSSN X X

This is why this Saturday is the best opening weekend lineup (arguably) in college football history. Bama-USC is the kind of mega-matchup that is worth the hype (despite the fact I don’t see USC as a true contender this year). We also get Clemson-Auburn at a special 9:00 start time. Fantastic stuff.

Sunday

ROGERS FIBE SAT Alcorn State at Bethune-Cookman 1:00 PM SP X X X Texas Southern at Prairie View A&M 6:00 PM SP X X X #10 Notre Dame at Texas 7:30 PM ABC/TSN3 X X X

Notre Dame-Texas could be good. COULD be. Or it could be like last year’s debacle. ABC is sincerely hoping it’s the former since this is the only time ABC has EVER shown a game on Labour Day Sunday. If it bombs we may not see it next year…oh who are we kidding. We should be surprised if there isn’t a tripleheader next Labour Day Sunday.

Monday

ROGERS FIBE SAT #4 Florida State vs. #11 Ole Miss (in Orlando) 8:00 PM SP X X X

Wow there is a lot of football spread out over a lot of days. And I am not complaining. Let’s just hope that there are no issues like last year’s shitshow with the tOSU-VT game. TSN had it, then they put the FIBA tournament on, so it should have gone to the specialty pack. But for some reason it didn’t show up there. My guess is because of TSN’s late schedule change (it happened Sunday night), they couldn’t put the game on the specialty pack. Still makes no sense. Lucky for us it was a shitty game and we didn’t miss much. But again, when you pay for a service, you should expect to get that service. Period. End of story. End of rant.

So there you go. A shit-ton of football starting tomorrow night. I will be live-tweeting all Saturday so who knows what vile concoction of food and beverage will enter my belly that day (and night). I am hoping to also live-tweet the other days but we shall see. Saturday is the main event so that’s all that matters really. Remember, it’s @LikeABauce1978 if you want to catch me on the Twitter machine.

At some point I have to start mentally preparing myself for this. I tend to watch football late into the night, get less sleep than I do the other seven-and-a-half months of the year, and sometimes eat less than stellar food (health-wise at least). So if I had a personal trainer, he or she would probably go insane trying to deal with this. Ah, the life of a college football fan. I am sure it’s similar for other hardcore sports fans. At least that’s what I tell myself. Enjoy the games!