Category Archives: Sherman Spotlight

Rose out again: ABC, TNT, ESPN, NBA TV will feel pain with several Bulls games scheduled for national TV

Posted on by

It’s a dark and bleak day in Chicago. And I’m not talking about the dreary weather outside.

The news that Derrick Rose suffered another knee injury requiring surgery has the city in a collective funk. Everyone is concerned that Rose will become the Chicago basketball version of Gale Sayers.

Scary parallel: Both players got injured in their fourth seasons. Sayers never was the same. Hopefully, that won’t be the case for Rose, but you never know.

Also feeling the pain today are the NBA’s national TV partners. They were counting on the return of the 2010-11 MVP to produce a big year for the Bulls.

The networks loaded up on the Bulls this season: ESPN 10 times, on TNT nine times, on NBA-TV nine times and on ABC five times.

Some of those games already have been played, but there’s many more on the menu, including two Miami-Chicago games on ABC.

Not having Rose will hurt the marquee value of the Bulls national TV games. While the Bulls remained competitive last year without the star guard, it will be a challenge to hold things together two years in a row, as evidenced by a 39-point loss to the Los Angeles Clippers Sunday.

A strong Chicago team always does big numbers for the NBA. If the Bulls falter without Rose, the league might have to readjust some of its national TV schedule.

Yes, the pain of Rose’s latest injury extends beyond Chicago.

 

 

 

Flex to rescue again: NBC wins with Carolina-New Orleans moved to Sunday night on Dec. 8

Posted on by

Ah yes, it is good to be NBC.

On Dec. 8, the schedule called for the network to air Atlanta at Green Bay. What looked to be an attractive game before the season now is largely forgettable thanks to the Falcons’ disaster at 2-9.

However, don’t despair NBC, it’s flex scheduling to the rescue. Last night while NBC was pulling in what is sure to be a huge rating for Denver-New England, the NFL announced it will move Carolina-New Orleans to Sunday night on Dec. 8. Atlanta-Green Bay gets thrown back to Fox.

How great is this for NBC? The game in the Superdome should be a battle for first place in the NFC South with Drew Brees facing Cam Newton and the upstart Panthers.

Fox and CBS are allowed to protect a certain number of games, but Carolina-New Orleans wasn’t on the list. Instead, Fox sealed up Seattle at San Francisco for the doubleheader slot on that Sunday.

It’s hard to argue with that decision given that Seattle might be the best team in the NFL. However, it would help the marquee value of the match-up if the 6-4 49ers win tonight against Washington and then next Sunday at home against St. Louis.

NBC, meanwhile, will give thanks to the God of Flex again for Carolina-New Orleans on Dec. 8. So will fans, who will get to see a much better game.

 

 

Nov. 22, 1963: Lundquist never got to hear Kennedy speak in Austin; his memories

Posted on by

It loomed as a memorable day for Verne Lundquist when he went to work at an Austin, Tex. TV station on Nov. 22, 1963. He was looking forward to seeing President John F. Kennedy speak later that day in town.

Fifty years later, Lundquist remembers vividly how his day and the nation’s suddenly changed.

“I was on an earlier shift, working the board,” Lundquist said. “I had been invited by a good friend of mine to hear Kennedy speak. Her dad was the general manager of the station, and he gave me permission to not do the show that night so I could take her to hear the president’s speech.

“I was on the phone with her 12:25 p.m. (going over the details), when the news anchor broke into the control room and said, ‘Give me the microphone. The President has been shot.’ That’s how I heard about it.”

Then Lundquist recalled things got surreal.

“I swear to God, within an hour, we had secret service people blanketing the building. Nobody knew at the time if there was some kind of coup going on. Because the president was destined to come to Austin, and because (Lyndon Johnson) owned the only station in town, they were all over the building just in case.”

Only 23 at the time, Lundquist suddenly found himself assisting in CBS’ coverage. He was assigned to drive around a network correspondent to Johnson’s home town of Johnson City.

“We spent 8 or 9 hours there collecting information on the new president,” Lundquist said. “Television was in its infancy back then. The idea of going live (from a remote location) was not that easy. It required land lines. We shot all the film, and then they flew it back on an overnight flight to New York to so they could use it over the weekend.”

Looking back, Lundquist said, “I was a witness to history, absolutely.”

There are a couple of postscripts, he said.

“You remember Pete Rozelle allowed the NFL to play games on that Sunday (following the assassination,” Lundquist said. “Well, on the following Friday night, I was on the sidelines with my 16 mm. camera covering state high school football playoff game. The juxtaposition of priorities was really extraordinary.”

Once Johnson settled in as president, Lundquist received an unexpected education from some of the top journalists in the business.

“When Johnson would come home for the summer, the White House press corps would stay in Austin,” Lundquist said. “There was a hangout that they all went to in town. I was 24-years-old and I got to mingle and meet these guys. Here I was having a beer with George Herman. I was in their world. To sit and listen at the feet of those fellas is something I’ll treasure for the rest of my life.”

 

 

 

Lee Corso: Still getting it done for ESPN ‘GameDay’; Even with a little blood

Posted on by

My latest column for the National Sports Journalism Center at Indiana is on the one and only Lee Corso. The old football player even is willing to spill some of his own blood. He got nicked on the lip during this playful sword fight Saturday with Kirk Herbstreit.

Here’s an excerpt from the column.

*******

Lee Corso is 78-years-old, and he admits age is beginning to catch up to him. He still experiences the remnants of a stroke he suffered a few years ago.

Corso has cut back on his schedule and he must do daily vocal and throat exercises to maintain his voice. Hot tea with lemon and honey always is close to his side.

“I gargle twice a day,” Corso said. “You ought to be with me some time.”

The bigger issue, Corso says, is that his brain doesn’t work like it used to.

“I lost the ability to be spontaneous,” Corso said. “My mind used to be really quick. I’m not as quick as I used to be. I have a harder time getting what I want to say from my brain to my mouth.”

Yet you could have fooled me after I recently spent a few minutes with the former Indiana coach on a Friday during preparations for that Saturday’s “College GameDay” on ESPN. Corso was full of energy and anticipation. There was the ever-present twinkle in his eye that spoke of passion, if not a bit of mischief.

He set me up perfectly by telling the story of his final days as a coach in the USFL during the 1980s.

“When the league folded, I knew it was time to get out of coaching,” Corso said. “You know how I knew?”

“No,” I replied, playing the straight man.

“People quit asking me to coach,” said Corso of a line that he surely has said a million times. As I laughed, he had a works-every-time-smile on his face.

It turns out leaving coaching was the best thing that happened to Corso. It also has worked out pretty well for ESPN too.

In 1987, ESPN hired Corso to be an analyst for a fledgling new college football pregame show. Now 26 years later, the man in his 70s is arguably more popular on college campuses than any of the young players he analyzes.

“Coach is the same anywhere we go,” said “GameDay” producer Lee Fitting “His energy and enthusiasm is unbelievable. He’s bringing it every week. It’s hard to put into words what he’s meant to college football. He’s done more to popularize the game than anyone in the last 25 years.”

Corso actually started prepping for the job during a 10-year run as the Hoosiers’ coach from 1973-82. Hardly the Big Ten’s most successful coach with a record of 41-68-2 in Bloomington, Corso realized he had to find another way to keep them entertained.

“At Indiana, I was more famous for my (coach’s) TV show than I was for our teams,” Corso said. “I tell the guys (today’s coaches) all the time, ‘We’re in the entertainment business. College football is our vehicle.’ People think if you’re funny, you can’t be serious. Well, that’s not true.”

*******

The link to the complete column.

 

Wild Sunday: Chicago CBS affiliate has to balance coverage of tornadoes, Bears game

Posted on by

I wrote about the difficult balancing act for WBBM-Ch. 2 in today’s Chicago Tribune.

Tornadoes already had hit in Central Illinois, and with the threat of severe weather looming at Soldier Field and elsewhere in the area, Ch. 2 had to inform the public of a potentially dangerous situation. As a result, we missed of NFL Today for weather coverage.

However, shortly after noon, Ch. 2 switched to the game. Bears fans wanted to hear from Jim Nantz, not weatherman Ed Curran. You can’t pre-empt a Bears game here. Ch. 2’s switchboard would have exploded.

From the story:

“Certainly, a Bears game is a big event for Chicago. It’s a big event for WBBM,” said Jeff Kiernan, station vice president and news director. “But you have to make tough decisions. Public safety and information is our No. 1 priority. There’s nothing more important than informing viewers of a dangerous and threatening situation.”

Channel 2, though, did not pre-empt coverage of the game. It joined CBS and Nantz just as the Bears’ Devin Hester grabbed the opening kickoff in the end zone. The station provided weather updates coming out of commercials until play was suspended late in the first quarter.

Outside of the Super Bowl, Bears games deliver the highest local ratings of the year for the networks. Channel 2, the CBS affiliate in Chicago, only gets two shots at the Bears this year; it had the season opener against the Bengals. Under the NFL television contract, CBS has the rights for Sunday afternoon inter-conference games when the AFC team is the visitor.

“We found balance (after the opening kickoff),” Kiernan said. “We showed the game, but we also were able to communicate critical information through the updates and the on-screen crawls.”

Ohio State-Michigan: New BTN film looks at controversial ’73 game; Conference didn’t allow attorney waiver on vote

Posted on by

The mystery remains 40 years later: What was the exact vote among the Big Ten athletic directors that sent Ohio State to the Rose Bowl over Michigan in 1973?

The BTN could have taken the easy route in solving the mystery, but it didn’t in its new documentary, Tiebreaker. (Saturday at 7 p.m. ET.)

The film examines the storied rivalry and the fallout from the ’73 game, arguably the biggest controversy in Big Ten history.

For now and probably forever, the essence of Ohio State-Michigan will be defined by the 10-year war between Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler. Among those games, the 10-10 tie in Ann Arbor in 1973.

Here are the facts: The tie left both teams at 7-0-1 in the Big Ten; Ohio State was 9-0-1 overall and Michigan was 10-0-1. Who goes to the Rose Bowl?

The conference did a vote the next day of athletic directors. It was assumed that since Ohio State went the previous year, and since Michigan dominated the second half, the Wolverines would go to Pasadena.

However, Michigan quarterback Dennis Franklin broke his collarbone at the end of the Ohio State game. The injury likely swayed the ADs, who didn’t want the Big Ten to be embarrassed again in the Rose Bowl. In a stunner, they went with Ohio State.

For 40 years, the exact outcome of the secret vote and how each AD voted remained a mystery. It is at the core of the documentary, as the BTN tries to provide some answers.

There are only two people who know for sure. Unfortunately, health issues prevented former Big Ten commissioner Wayne Duke, 85, from appearing in the film.

The other person, Big Ten attorney Byron Gregory, only talked off-camera for the film. He provided some details, but he cited attorney-client privilege in declining to answer questions about the exact vote.

Gregory’s answer leads to another interesting question: Why didn’t the Big Ten just waive the attorney-client privilege to allow the network it owns to get a direct answer?

“All of the ADs at the time were assured the vote would be confidential,” said BTN president Mark Silverman. “The conference decided to honor that and maintain the attorney-client privilege.”

Indeed, it’s hard to imagine in today’s media landscape that a vote like that would be done in complete secrecy. Twitter would have exploded.

“It was a different time, and things were done differently,” Silverman said. “You didn’t have Twitter, the Internet, and 24/7 coverage. That’s one of the things that comes across in the film.”

From the documentary’s perspective, it probably was better that the conference attorney didn’t tell all. Instead, the uncertainty left the BTN to sift through the myths and legends to finally unravel what really happened.

It all adds up to a highly compelling film. The highlight was a reunion meal with participants from both teams.

While the players were friendly and showed considerable respect for the rivalry, the bitterness on the Michigan side remains strong 40 years later.

Franklin from Tom Dienhart’s column at BTN.com:

“How did I find out we weren’t going to the Rose Bowl? People were calling me. A reporter from the New York Times called my apartment to tell me Ohio State was voted to the Rose Bowl. I didn’t believe it until I heard it from Bo.”

“I never saw Bo so upset, bitter, frustrated, confused. He always told us if we did this, we would get this payoff. Well, we did what he asked but didn’t get the payoff. He just couldn’t explain it. That’s the kind of stuff you don’t forget.”

“Were politics involved? There always are, but I don’t think there were active politics. There wasn’t enough time for that. The Big Ten had lost four Rose Bowls in a row and felt Ohio State gave the league a better chance to win than Michigan because I was hurt. But I could have played. I was throwing the ball in December. C’mon. I would have played. Are you kidding me? We were denied our reward for three seasons. I never got to go to a bowl despite going 30-2-1 as a starter in three years.”

“Even if I couldn’t have played, we could have won with Larry Scippo at quarterback. He was talented. A good, strong arm, threw a tight spiral. He had all the ability. Who said we couldn’t win with Larry?”

“If any good came from it, it was the fact the Big Ten opened up to allowing more than one team to go to a bowl. It makes me feel good to know that.”

 

 

 

 

Don’t put it on board yet: Harrelson faces obstacles to win Hall of Fame honor; Reinsdorf makes case for Sox announcer

Posted on by

My latest Chicago Tribune column is on Ken Harrelson, a finalist for this year’s Frick Award. However, the White Sox announcer knows it is a process to win the Hall of Fame’s highest honor for an announcer.

You also can access the column via my Twitter feed at Sherman_Report.

From the column:

*********

Jerry Reinsdorf is talking up Ken Harrelson, who rarely needs help calling attention to himself.

The long-time White Sox play-by-play voice is a candidate for the 2014 Ford Frick Award, the Hall of Fame’s highest honor for a baseball broadcaster. The team chairman gives such a ringing endorsement, it almost seems as if he would be happier than Harrelson if he won.

Reinsdorf, 77, calls the 72-year-old Harrelson “a brother,” although he puts his sentiments in another context.

“You always take more pleasure from seeing your kids succeed,” Reinsdorf said.

Harrelson is one of 10 finalists for the Frick Award, which recognizes long and meritorious service in the booth. The group includes Mike Shannon from the Cardinals and Dewayne Staats, the former Cubs announcer who now works for the Rays.

The voting committee is made up of all 16 living Frick Award winners, including Vin Scully and Bob Uecker, and a panel of five broadcast consultants, including Bob Costas. The winner will be announced Dec. 11 at the Baseball Winter Meetings.

The Frick Award doesn’t mean the recipient technically is in the Hall of Fame. But he does get a plaque in Cooperstown.

It is as big as it gets for announcers, as Harrelson seeks to join previous winners with Chicago ties — Harry Caray, Jack Brickhouse, Bob Elson and Milo Hamilton. However, he is realistic about his chances. He knows winning the Frick Award is a process.

“I used to call (Mariners announcer) Dave Niehaus, and say ‘This is your year, Buddy,'” Harrelson said. “He’d say, ‘I’ve been a finalist 14 or 15 times. I don’t even think about it anymore.'”

What happened to Niehaus, who finally won the Frick in 2008, shows voters tend to go with candidates who have been finalists for many years. This is Harrelson’s second time on the final ballot.

Length of service with one team also is a top priority. Harrelson just completed his 27th year with the Sox. Meanwhile, Shannon, one of this year’s favorites, has logged 42 years with the Cardinals.

In other words, Harrelson might have to get in line.

“I have a 100-mile drive (from the South Bend area, where I live during the season) to do the Sox games,” Harrelson said. “After our game, I listen to a lot of the games (on satellite radio). Shannon is terrific. He’s old school. All of the guys on the list are deserving to be in the Hall of Fame.”

Indeed, it is up to Reinsdorf to do any sort of campaigning for Harrelson. He hired him along with Don Drysdale to man the White Sox TV booth in 1982.

“He has all his ‘Hawkisms,’ but if you get through, ‘The put-it-on-the-board’ stuff, he tells you a lot about the game,” Reinsdorf said. “When you think of Hawk, you think of the White Sox. There’s no question he’s extremely popular with our fans.”

******

Click on my Twitter feed to win the entire column.

 

 

 

No denying Glazer’s ties to Incognito; Does it matter in today’s media age?; Critiques of interview

Posted on by

In the interest of journalism, it would have been great to see someone like Scott Pelley, Brian Williams, Diane Sawyer conduct the Richie Incognito interview Sunday. However, there was zero chance that the disgraced Miami offensive lineman would ever sit down with one of them.

Instead, Incognito did the big chat with his pal, Jay Glazer. At the top, Glazer revealed he had done MMA training with Incognito, as he does with a number of NFL players.

A conflict of interest? To be sure.

But does it matter in today’s media age? Probably not.

The bottom line: Glazer got the interview everyone wanted. Fox NFL Sunday likely did a big rating because of the interview. Throughout Sunday and now today, the interview remains a prime topic of discussion, especially on the competition, ESPN.

In another person’s hands, the interview probably would have been handled differently. Glazer is one of these Buddy-Buddy guys. To expect him to become Mike Wallace on Incognito wouldn’t be realistic.

Glazer wasn’t capable of truly pressing Incognito. He gave him an out with this question: “There’s so many subplots in this. How much has come out, where you looked at it and said … ‘That’s not even close’?”

Translated, you’re not really that bad of a guy, are you?

Dave Zirin of The Nation pounded on Glazer:

To say that this interview was a cheap exercise in public relations would be to insult the people who do very good work in the world of public relations. The interview was edited with the subtlety of a Breitbart video and Jay Glazer threw more softballs than the cumulative careers of Lisa Fernandez and Jennie Finch.

I viewed the interview through the prism of knowing Glazer had a relationship with Incognito that went beyond journalist-player. Yet how many viewers, who don’t have a journalist’s eye, watched it the same way?

They wanted to hear from Incognito, and Glazer delivered him on Sunday morning with your bagels and coffee. In the eyes of Fox, so what if it is less than ideal?

Glazer and Fox NFL Sunday landed the big interview. That’s what matters in today’s media age.

Your turn, Jonathan Martin. However, Glazer won’t be getting that interview.

********

Here are more critiques to the interview.

Tom Ley, Deadspin: The interview was a fucking joke.The segment was more theater than journalism, with Glazer lobbing obviously pre-determined questions at Incognito, allowing him to reel off as many face-saving platitudes as possible.

Richard Deitsch, SI.com: Prior to the interview, Glazer said he “held nothing back” and asked Incognito “everything.” Did he fulfill that charter? I’d say not entirely given this viewer wanted to hear Incognito address the allegations that he harassed a women on a golf course in 2012 during a team charity golf tournament, how often Incognito had been called into the NFL offices over the last couple of years, as well as an on-camera denial from Incognito refusing to answer questions about the role of Dolphins general manager Jeff Ireland and coach Joe Philbin.

Jarrett Bell, USA Today: Incognito, the suspended Miami Dolphins guard and face of the alleged workplace harassment that prompted second-year tackle Jonathan Martin to bolt from the team and seek counseling, was rather pathetic as he tried to explain himself amid the “friendly fire” interview with Glazer, his pal who trains him in MMA tactics.

Tom Jones, Tampa Bay Times: For the most part, Glazer handled the interview well. He asked Incognito about using the n-word on Martin’s voice mail. He questioned whether Incognito is a racist and a bully and a bad guy. He asked about the details in his dealings with Martin. And he even questioned Incognito’s “checkered past,” which included problems in college and a recent allegation of inappropriate contact with a woman at a charity golf tournament.

I would have liked to have seen Glazer press Incognito on the details of that golf incident, but it’s my guess that Incognito’s representatives made that off-limits. If so, Glazer should have said that. And if there were no off-limit topics, Glazer should have reported that, too. Still, overall, Glazer did a respectable job.

Last words on baseball: Please, please speed up the game; time-study examines problem

Posted on by

For the better part of October, I pounded on baseball. Hard.

It’s not that I don’t love the game. I do. I just hate the way it is being played now.

Really, it would seem to be an easy fix for baseball: Enforce rules that require batters to stay in the box and demand that pitchers work faster. Simply pick up the pace.

If they played quickly in big games in Babe Ruth’s era, Mickey Mantle’s era, Reggie Jackson’s era, why can’t it be that way in Miguel Cabrera’s era?

I thought I would leave some parting shots from others to show I am hardly alone in this crusade.

********

Michael Glicken of Sports Media Monitor was intrigued by my rants about the length of games. Far more proficient in math than me, he took an analytical approach in evaluating the pace of play.

Glicken writes:

Our goal was not to explain every inefficiency that drives games longer (why game six in 1918 only took an hour and 46 minutes for example), it was to determine whether the present postseason games ran longer than “normal,” and get closer to the root causes.

Glicken offers a detailed analysis. Definitely an interesting read.

*******

Matthew Futterman of the Wall Street Journal did a piece on why kids aren’t watching baseball. I’ve made that observation from my own teenage boys, who only had a passing interest in the World Series. They were much more into college and pro football and the beginning of the NBA season.

Writes Futterman:

The average World Series viewer this year is 54.4 years old, according to Nielsen, the media research firm. The trend line is heading north: The average age was 49.9 in 2009. Kids age 6 to 17 represented just 4.3% of the average audience for the American and National League Championship Series this year, compared with 7.4% a decade ago.

Comparisons with the NFL are pointless. That behemoth of North American sports dominates nearly every demographic. But kids make up a larger segment of the television audiences for the NBA, NHL and even soccer’s English Premier League than they do for baseball.

Kids accounted for 9.4% of the NBA conference finals audience this year, compared with 10.6% a decade ago. They represented 9% of the NHL conference-finals audience in the spring. For Premier League soccer on the NBC Sports Network, kids are accounting for 11% of the audience.

Futterman then writes:

As riveting as the sport can be at its most intense moments, baseball’s primary activities are the pitcher staring at the catcher to decide what to throw and the batter stepping in and out of the batter’s box. It doesn’t have to be that way.

May we suggest two simple rule changes: Once batters step into the box, they shouldn’t be allowed to step out. Otherwise it’s a strike. If no one is on base, pitchers get seven seconds to throw the next pitch. Otherwise it’s a ball.

Wow, what a novel concept.

*******

Michael Bradley of the National Sports Journalism Center also harped on the time issue.

Baseball can, however, do something about two things that hurt it. First, the sport has become long and, frankly, boring. No matter how much Fox tries to play up the drama that accompanies every pitch of a Series game, there can be no denying the horribly tedious pace of just about every baseball game played. Come October, the tortoise becomes a slug. Game three of the 2013 Series, a 5-4 nine-inning affair, lasted 3:54. That’s absolutely uncalled for. It’s one thing to let a three-hour game wash over you on a balmy summer evening and quite another to endure hours of standing around when the alarm clock is ready to pounce at 6 a.m.

Bradley, though, adds baseball needs to do a better job of marketing its stars.

The magic of baseball doesn’t fire fans’ interests any longer. There has to be more. The NBA doesn’t sell the pick-and-roll or the three-point shot. It sells the people who make those things come to life. And it does that throughout the whole season and then during its draft and free agency. By the time the Finals come around, fans can’t wait to see these heroes on the biggest stage. And just about every team capable of reaching the Finals has stars with whom fans are quite familiar. Baseball does a terrible job with this. As the 2013 playoffs dawned, few fans outside of Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Oakland knew about those team’s top players, and that was 30% of the field. If baseball wants its World Series to be more popular, it must create a culture of stars, the better to rope in casual viewers.

********

Joe Lucia of Awful Announcing also picks up on the marketing theme.

That’s why baseball is struggling among kids. It’s not the pace of the game, the length of the game, or the late start times – it’s all about marketing. Joey Votto is one of the best players in baseball, but when was the last time you saw him in a commercial? Chris Sale is the best player in the city of Chicago, one of the largest media markets in the country – but could a non-White Sox fan even pick him out of a lineup? If Andrew McCutchen shaved his head, could he walk into any convenience store in Pittsburgh and buy a candy bar?

Agree, Joe, but it also is pace of the game too. Combination of both.

*******

Anyway, I wanted to get in a few last shots. I’ll give it a rest for a while, but you can be sure I’ll be firing away again next October.

 

 

Super Thursday: With Oregon-Stanford, Baylor-Oklahoma, who needs Washington-Vikings?

Posted on by

As Thursday nights go, this is a most excellent pre-Thanksgiving feast. Maybe the best ever for college football.

ESPN has No. 3 Oregon traveling to No. 5 Stanford tonight. Meanwhile, Fox Sports 1 will show No. 6 Baylor hosting No. 10 Oklahoma.

Two games with four top 10 teams and plenty of BCS implications on a Thursday night. I mean, who needs Washington at Minnesota on NFL Network? That’s Mediocre vs. Terrible.

How did this bounty happen? According to ESPN, Stanford was slated to host a Thursday night game this year, and the network requested the one against Oregon. Voila, ESPN now gets one of the best match-ups of the year on any day.

Fox Sports 1 also has a strong game. The staggered starting times will allow college football fans to watch the end of both games: Baylor-Oklahoma starts at 7:30 ET and Oregon-Stanford is at 9 p.m. ET.

How unusual are these Thursday night powerhouse games? Bill Connelly of SB Nation writes that since 2009, there only have been two match-ups on Thursday nights featuring ranked teams: Sept. 15, 2011: No. 3 LSU 19, No. 25 Mississippi State 6; Nov. 10, 2011: No. 10 Virginia Tech 37, No. 21 Georgia Tech 26.

Connelly:

We rarely expect to see elite teams playing on Thursday nights. These games are usually reserved for programs that are happy to risk iffy weeknight attendance for a spot on national television. We’ve seen a lot of Georgia Tech on Thursday nights over the years, for instance. But the big teams and huge games are typically saved for Saturdays.

Alabama-LSU is slated for Saturday night on CBS. That should be more than enough to fill your plate. ABC is showing Notre Dame at Pittsburgh in primetime. When in doubt, always go with the Irish, right ABC?

However, for quality and quantity, it will be hard to top Thursday night. Both ESPN and Fox Sports 1 should do strong ratings. Whether they beat the NFL monster remains to be seen, but the pros will lose many viewers to the college games.

Enjoy the feast, college football fans.