General Sports Water Cooler

http://thesportsarsenal.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/college-football-tv-listings-2011-week-8/

Week 8 of the college football season has already begun, as on Tuesday night the Red Wolves of Arkansas State took care of business against the formerly trendy FIU Golden Panthers. Incidentally, we are about two weeks away from the first football-every-day-of-the-week stretch of the year.

I think this is a decent slate of games -- not eye-popping, but okay. Each time slot on Saturday features two or three reasonably high-profile games that could be interesting, plus two or three other matchups that offer potential comedy value.

Just as a reminder, not all the TV games are listed in this post. Check out the linked site for a complete rundown of televised games/announcers.

On to the action (all times ET):

Thursday, 9:00 pm

-- UCLA-Arizona, ESPN/ESPN3 (Rece Davis, The Bachelor, Blah Humbug, GNC Spokesmodel Jenn Brown): One coach has already been canned, while the other is on very thin ice. Plus you have Jesse Palmer and Craig James. Lame matchup, but the other FBS game on Thursday (UCF-UAB) is worse.

Friday, 8:00

-- West Virginia-Syracuse, ESPN/ESPN3 (Tess and Rod): There are two Big East games on Friday night, featuring one school already leaving the league and two others that seem destined to move to a another conference in the near future. .

-- Rutgers-Louisville, ESPN2/ESPN3 (Dave Lamont, David Diaz-Infante): The third-ranked Scarlet Knights put their elite status on the line, as they travel to the Land of Dough…I mean, the Land of Doom known as Papa John Stadium.

Saturday

Noon

-- Kansas State-Kansas, FSN-National, to include CSN-MidAtlantic+ and SportSouth, among others (Bill Land, Dave Lapham, Emily Jones): Kansas is wretched and K-State is undefeated, yet I wouldn’t be surprised if this is a fairly close game.

-- Oklahoma State-Missouri, FX (Gus!): Mizzou tries to pull the home upset over the Cowboys. It’s not likely to happen, but the Tigers aren’t a bad team and I get the feeling at least one of the BCS title contenders is going down on Saturday.

-- North Carolina-Clemson, ESPN/ESPN3 (Dave Pasch and crew): This should be a good game. UNC has to figure out how to stop Sammy Watkins. Good luck with that. Clemson being undefeated entering this matchup reminds me of the 1981 game between these schools, still to my mind the most intense ACC football game I’ve ever seen.

-- Jacksonville State-Kentucky, ESPNU (Rob Stone, Danny Kanell): FCS-over-FBS upset alert, as Jacksonville State beat Mississippi last year, and UK is much worse than that Rebel squad.

-- Northern Illinois-Buffalo, BH-Tampa/ESPN3 (Michael Reghi, Doug Graber): As far as this matchup is concerned: See. You. Later.

-- Arkansas-Mississippi, SEC Network/ESPN3 (Dave Neal, Andre Ware, Cara Capuano): I think Jacksonville State could beat this Mississippi team too, which each week seems to set a new school record for worst loss/longest losing streak.

12:30 pm

-- Wake Forest-Duke, ACC Network [National]/ESPN3 (Steve Martin, Dave Archer, Scott Pryzwansky): Earlier this week Andy Staples tweeted (I’m paraphrasing) that this was Mike Hogewood’s dream matchup, but Hogewood’s not even working the game. Sacrilege.

2:00 pm

-- New Mexico-TCU, The Mtn. (The Two Todds and Amanda Mazey): The Two Todds and New Mexico. Unwatchable football on an unwatchable network. Literally in most areas.

3:00 pm

-- Boston College-Virginia Tech, ACC Network [Regional] (Rich Waltz, Keith Jones, Jenn Hildreth): Eight regional nets are carrying this much-anticipated game. If you get NESN, CSN-MidAtlantic, PrimeTicket, Sun Sports, FSN-Arizona+, FSN-Houston+, FSN-South, or FSN-Southwest+, you’re in luck!

-- Idaho State-Brigham Young, BYU-TV (Dave McCann, Blaine Fowler, Robbie Bullough): Just mentioning this one to note that while almost nobody gets the Longhorn Network, BYU-TV is widely available by satellite and has been for some time.

-- The Citadel-Western Carolina, no TV (for shame): The good news is that the Bulldogs actually scored in the first quarter for the first time all season last week. The bad news is they would eventually trail by 35. The could-have-been-worse news is that after a furious comeback, The Citadel lost by only 7. Still a loss, though. Western Carolina is actually in much worse shape (!), so this game is a must-win for The Citadel, even on the road.

3:30 pm

-- Auburn-LSU, CBS (Uncle Verne and Crazy Gary): Les Miles, desperate for some guaranteed entertainment, has suspended several of his star players for enjoying too much grass. Miles doesn’t want anyone to do that unless they partake from the field of play itself.

-- Georgia Tech-Miami (FL), ESPN/ESPN3 (Bob Wischusen, Bob Davie, Samantha Steele): Two teams that may be going in different directions.

-- Maryland-Florida State, ABC or ESPN2 or GamePlan (Mike Patrick, you-know-who): The Terps and Seminoles draw the announcing short straw for the ABC reverse mirror group. This game will be seen on ABC or ESPN2 everywhere except for the following areas: SEC West country, most of the southwest, parts of the heartland, and half of Montana.

-- Nebraska-Minnesota, ABC or ESPN2 (Carter Blackburn, Brock Huard): This game will be seen everywhere on either ABC or ESPN2, as it is the primary “reverse mirror” game.

-- Texas A&M-Iowa State, ABC or ESPN2 or GamePlan (Mark Neely, Ray Bentley): Only available on ABC in the heartland, southwest, and (weirdly) parts of Montana. Also will be seen on ESPN2 in very small sections of the Midwest.

-- Air Force-Boise State, Versus (Paul Burmeister, Shaun King, Anthony Herron): The Broncos should continue their drive to perfection.

-- Oregon-Colorado, FSN-National, including MSG+ and CSN-MidAtlantic+ (Joel Meyers, Brian Baldinger, Brian Baldinger’s Finger, stuntman Jim Knox): Presumably this will be a walkover in Boulder, but you never know.

-- North Carolina State-Virginia, ESPNU: This is the Pam Ward game.

-- Montana State-Northern Colorado, Altitude/CSN-Northwest (Chris Marlowe, Scott Hastings, Maya Starks): There are 64 Division I games Thursday through Saturday that are on television and/or ESPN3. Going through the list, I saw this announcing team and got to thinking (always dangerous)…this crew may have achieved more athletically than any other working this weekend, and none of the three played college or pro football.

-- East Carolina-Navy, CBS Sports Network (Josh Lewin, Randy Cross, Kaylee Hartung): Last year in this game the Midshipmen scored 76 points, and that was in Greenville. I don’t see that happening this season, though.

-- Memphis-Tulane, FCS-Central (Steve Physioc, Yogi Roth, Desmond Purnell): I have no idea why this game is being televised. Must be the Bob Toledo factor.

4:30 pm

-- Marshall-Houston, WSAZ [WV]/CSS (Mike Morgan, Brian Jordan, Craig Ackerman): Houston, undefeated. Houston, unseen.

7:00 pm

-- Penn State-Northwestern, BTN (Tom Hart, Derek Rackley, Lisa Byington): This looks like a solid upset possibility and loss #2 for the Nittany Lions. Northwestern can at least score points.

-- Army-Vanderbilt, ESPNU (Clay Matvick, Brian Griese, Allison Williams): The Bulldogs of the Hudson desperately need this win to keep faint bowl hopes alive. Come to think of it, so do the Commodores. Let’s be honest, though: neither is going bowling.

-- Gardner-Webb -Coastal Carolina, MASN (Tom Werme, Nate Ross): Nate Ross, Renaissance Man, is back in the analyst’s chair for another week.

7:15 pm

-- Tennessee-Alabama, ESPN2/ESPN3 (Mr. Cooper hangs with Ed C and Jeannine Edwards): This game was once a BIG GAME. Not right now, though.

7:30 pm

-- Southern California-Notre Dame, NBC (Tom Hammond, Mike Mayock, Alex Flanagan): Lane Kiffin makes his head coaching debut in South Bend. I’m sure he has something special planned.

8:00 pm

-- Wisconsin-Michigan State, ESPN (Brent/Herbie/EA): The Russell Wilson Experience makes a significant road trip.

-- Texas Tech-Oklahoma, ABC or GamePlan (Brad Nessler, Todd Blackledge, Holly Rowe): This is one of two regionally televised matchups on ABC in this time slot.

-- Washington-Stanford, ABC or GamePlan (Sean McDonough, the sadly unstoppable Matt Millen, Heather Cox): This is the other.

Most of the country will get the Texas Tech-Oklahoma game. Matt Millen aside (a big aside, to be sure), shouldn’t it be the other way around? Washington-Stanford looks like the more attractive game. However, it’s only going to be seen on the west coast.

-- SMU-Southern Mississippi, CBS Sports Network (Dave Ryan, Rich Rodriguez): RichRod is on the scene in Hattiesburg for a nice C-USA matchup.

10::30 pm

-- Oregon State vs. Washington State [in Seattle], FSN-National: This is the Petros Papadakis game.

11:59 pm

-- New Mexico State-Hawai’i, Oceanic PPV/ESPN3 (Robert Kekaula, Darren Hernandez, Rob DeMello, Lori Santi): Late night action for diehards with access to ESPN3.

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Happy Watching!