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Awful Announcing
Your Week 1 college football announcing schedule
By Andrew Bucholtz,
4 hours ago
Here’s a look at who’s televising and calling (where available) this week’s college football games, with some discussion of a featured game in each slot based on announcers, matchup, or both. All times are Eastern.
Lehigh @ Army 6:00 PM CBSSN Dave Ryan, Adam Breneman
Temple @ No. 16 Oklahoma 7:00 PM ESPN Anish Shroff, Andre Ware, Paul Carcaterra
Florida Atlantic @ Michigan State 7:00 PM BTN Jason Ross Jr., Brock Vereen
Elon @ Duke 7:30 PM ACCN Clay Matvick, Steve Addazio
Western Michigan @ Wisconsin 9:00 PM FS1 Tim Brando, Devin Gardner
Featured game: TCU at Stanford 10:30 PM ESPN Dave Flemming, Brock Osweiler
This marks Stanford’s first game in the ACC following the conference’s addition of the Cardinal (as well as Cal and SMU) last fall. Meanwhile, the Horned Frogs have been in the Big 12 since 2012, but getting there came with quite the drama itself; they announced in 2010 that they would move from the Mountain West to the Big East, but then opted for the Big 12 instead of the next year as part of that wave of Big East exits . On the announcing side, Flemming and Osweiler have called a lot of Pac-12 games, and they’re now calling one of those teams in the ACC.
On the field, coach Troy Taylor’s first season with the Cardinal led to a 3-9 record last year (the same as the past season under David Shaw, who resigned following the 2022 campaign). Meanwhile, the Horned Frogs took a step back in Sonny Dykes’ second year, falling off significantly from their 13-2 run to the national championship game in 2022 to a 5-7 mark last season after several key departures for the NFL. We’ll see how their 2024 season starts.
Saturday, Aug. 31, Early Window
Credit: The Anderson Independent Mail
Featured game: No. 14 Clemson vs No. 1 Georgia (in Atlanta) 12:00 PM ABC Sean McDonough, Greg McElroy
This is one of only two ranked-on-ranked matchups Saturday, and it gets one of the three top ESPN teams . It’s also interesting to see ESPN put such a big game in the noon Saturday window, a spot that’s often been an emphasis for Fox. (They have their own good game there with No. 8 Penn State at West Virginia.)
On the field, the Bulldogs will be looking for redemption after their SEC Championship Game loss to Alabama last year left them as the first No. 1 team entering conference championship weekend to miss the playoff. (They’ll probably be the only one to ever do that, too, as the playoff expands to 12 teams this year.) But they were still 13-1 last season. Meanwhile, Clemson was 9-4, their lowest win total since they went 6-7 in 2010 (Dabo Swinney’s second year). So they’re coming in with a chip on their shoulder as well.
No. 8 Penn State @ West Virginia 12:00 PM FOX Gus Johnson, Joel Klatt
Virginia Tech @ Vanderbilt 12:00 PM ESPN Roy Philpott, Sam Acho
Connecticut @ Maryland 12:00 PM FS1 Connor Onion, Mark Helfrich
Kent State @ Pittsburgh 12:00 PM ESPNU Matt Schumacker, Dustin Fox
Illinois State @ 25 Iowa 12:00 PM BTN Mark Followill, Anthony Herron
Indiana State @ Purdue 12:00 PM BTN Pat Boylan, J Leman
Eastern Kentucky @ Mississippi State 6:00 PM ESPN+, SECN+ Kevin Fitzgerald, Charlie Strong
Richmond @ Virginia 6:00 PM ESPN+, ACCNX Chris Carlin, Forrest Conoly
Norfolk State @ East Carolina 6:00 PM ESPN+ Joe Tordy, Reggie Walker
Featured game: Idaho State @ Oregon State 6:30 PM CW Thom Brennaman, Max Browne
Idaho State at Oregon State might not normally get much attention, but this will certainly be watched for Thom Brennaman ‘s return to the national stage . And it’s also the first Pac-2 game for Oregon State, and the second in The CW’s new package there (following Portland State-Washington State at 3 p.m. ET). The game may not be close (the Beavers went 8-5 last year and are favored by 27.5 points against a Bengals squad that went 3-8 last year in FCS play), but many will be tuning in to see how Brennaman does.
Saturday, Aug. 31, Evening
Credit: South Bend Tribune
Western Kentucky @ 5 Alabama 7:00 PM ESPN Dave Pasch, Dusty Dvoracek
UNLV @ Houston 7:00 PM FS1 Alex Faust, Robert Smith
Furman @ 6 Ole Miss 7:00 PM ESPN+, SECN+ Jay Alter, Rocky Boiman
UT-Martin @ 18 Kansas State 7:00 PM ESPN+ Mark Neely, Ahman Green
Tarleton State @ Baylor 7:00 PM ESPN+ Peter Sousa, Brad Hopkins
Bethune-Cookman @ South Florida 7:00 PM ESPN+ AJ Ricketts, Patrick Murray
North Alabama @ Memphis 7:00 PM ESPN+ James Westling, Leger Douzable
Featured game: No. 7 Notre Dame at No. 20 Texas A&M 7:30 PM ABC Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbstreit
ESPN College GameDay will be at this one, making for an easy post-show commute for Herbstreit . There’s going to be plenty of interest in this as the day’s second ranked-on-ranked matchup and as the first game for new A&M coach Mike Elko. The Aggies went 7-6 last year under Jimbo Fisher and interim HC Elijah Robinson, while the Irish were 10-3 in Marcus Freeman’s second season.
Robert Morris @ Utah State 8:00 PM KMYU My TV Utah, MWC Digital
Grambling State @ Louisiana 8:00 PM ESPN+
Lamar @ Texas State 8:00 PM ESPN+
Nicholls State @ Louisiana Tech 8:00 PM ESPN+
Southeast Missouri State @ New Mexico State 9:00 PM ESPN+
New Mexico @ 21 Arizona 10:30 PM ESPN Brian Custer, Rod Gilmore
Wyoming @ Arizona State 10:30 PM FS1 Chris Myers, Petros Papadakis
Weber State @ Washington 11:00 PM BTN Jeff Levering, Jake Butt, Lincoln Kennedy
Sunday, Sept. 1:
N.C. Central vs Alabama State (in Miami) 3:00 PM ESPN Tiffany Greene, Jay Walker
Tuskegee vs Johnson C. Smith (in Montgomery) 7:00 PM ESPNU Jason Ross Jr, Marcus Ray
Featured game: No. 23 USC vs. No. 13 LSU (in Las Vegas) 7:30 PM ABC Rece Davis, Kirk Herbstreit
The weekend’s third and final ranked-on-ranked matchup should be a good one. It’s USC’s first game as a member of the Big Ten, and after an offseason with a lot of questions for Lincoln Riley after they went 7-5 despite having eventual No. 1 NFL draft pick Caleb Williams at quarterback. We’ll see how they replace him.
Meanwhile, LSU went 10-3 last season. That was Brian Kelly’s second year there, and the record was similar to the 10-4 the Tigers put up in his first year. But it came without the conference championship game appearance. The expectations are again high for the Tigers, and they’ll be looking to make noise of their own in a prominent matchup..
Monday, Sept. 2
Credit: Eric Canha-USA TODAY Sports
Featured (and only) game: Boston College at No. 10 Florida State 7:30 PM ESPN Bob Wischusen, Louis Riddick
The Seminoles will be looking to bounce back after last week’s well-watched season-opening defeat at the hands of Georgia Tech in Ireland. There’s plenty to talk about with them beyond that, too, from their controversial exclusion from the playoff last year despite a 13-0 record (they went on to finish 13-1 after an Orange Bowl loss to Georgia) through their current media rights lawsuit involving ESPN and the ACC. And we’ll see if and how Wischusen and Riddick discuss any of that.
On the field, we’ll see what Mike Norvell (in his fifth year as HC) can do to turn the Seminoles’ season around. They’re still strong ACC contenders, and in the expanded playoff era, a season-opening loss is far from enough to knock them out of contention. Meanwhile, the Eagles were just 7-6 last season (Jeff Hafley’s fourth), but that’s the same 2023 record Georgia Tech had. We’ll see if Boston College can pull off a similar upset.
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