ESPN Needs Better Weekday Games

[Eric]

This year in total has been something of a clunker. I'm thinking of Pittsburgh/Cincinnati, Washington State / UNLV, Hawaii / BYU, etc. There have been a couple close games, but you would assume that they could sort out some more attractive matchups. Looking ahead, I noticed Arizona State @ Colorado for a Thursday night game. A Thursday night game. Seriously. That is one of the days where college football gets a national audience to have a showcase of sorts and they're showing Colorado who is absolutely awful. That and the game probably won't be very close.

I'm wondering why they have shied away from having more ranked teams (or projected ranked teams) on the national broadcasts. I wonder if the NFL has anything to do with it since they started playing on Thursdays since the start of the year. It might be something of a white flag effect where they don't even feel like competing with the NFL Network. But even if that accounted for the scheduling, what is going on with Fridays? The announcing crews are absolutely horrendous (Carter Blackburn and Jemele Hill? This should be their D-Crew). Last year was awesome with Joe Tessitore, but I suppose he has graduated to national coverage.

[Eric]

I suppose I should give some credit where it's due: Baylor @ UL Monroe and Utah @ Utah State were pretty compelling games. Also, after I posted this, I went and looked even further ahead. It looks like there will be some good games: TCU vs. Texas, Virginia Tech vs. Florida State, Louisville vs. Rutgers on Thursday nights.

[donovan]

I think Eric you are correct. When the Thursday night games started Blaymeir, fromer AD, for Boise State jumped on it because it was a chance for National exposure and no one else really wanted it. But now you would think the networks would take charge and get some games that have some kind of national interest. The good games you mentioned were just teams that played better than expected, not that they inherently had any overall expectation. I would think schools would be clamoring to be seen when they were the only game.

[WoVeU]

I had always thought that teams would be lined up 8 or 9 deep by now to get on Thursday night?!?!?