Home > BLARRGH! > Archives > 2009 > June > 19 > Entry
Football Pirates TV Party….
With the recent release of the Fighting Pirates 2009 football schedule, it’s obvious someone’s been thinking.
ECU AD Terry Holland, through negotiation and/or intimidation, has smoothed the kinks out of a rough conference TV agreement and as a result, put together football schedule that’s as seamless as our league permits.
Conference USA, hungry for television exposure and market coverage, agreed several years ago to provide fodder for ESPN’s weeknight TV lineup. The thinking went that some coverage was better than no coverage and with the dry ink on the deal, relegated C-USA teams to play their far-flung league counterparts on basically every night of the week. The more traditional Saturday TV matchups are often left to our more monied friends in the Old Schools.
What the suits at the ESPN family of networks failed to mention during the course of these negotiations is that our games would take a back seat to the endless commentary about the BCS, at times making these affairs little more than an afterthought to the announcers who are allegedly covering the game.
The worst is the dreaded Tuesday night hole, which at least in the past, been ‘Interactive Tuesday’. On these brain-numbing occasions, viewers are invited to call, text, tweet or send smoke signals to the booth, with any question or comments that could even remotely divert attention away from the game at hand.
As usual though, our crack athletic administration has, for the most part, kept us out of the fray. With our obligatory ‘off-night’ games located on the distant shores of our conference mates, and our one shot at stardom (the now more socially acceptable Thursday ESPN game versus Virginia Tech) at home, we hardly feel a thing.
Last year, ECU played a Sunday night matchup against UCF (away) and played the season finale on the Friday after Thanksgiving against UTEP (where the holiday helped to diffuse the time slot). In both cases, our savvy administration found ways to buffer the negative effects of playing a game that was meant to be played on Saturday.
That’s the case again this year with the schedule listed below. While it’s too soon for predictions and the best guess on the season that is to be, I’ve listed a few game notes and the ‘preternatural premonitions’….where available…
09/05 v. Appalachian State 12N MASN/WITN
Ideally, this game is to be played under cloak of night, with no TV coverage and little press in the Sunday papers. As it stands, I hope the check from MASN was substantial.
09/12 @ West Virginia TBA
At this time of the year, all game times are subject to change, but the near-annual carnage in Morgantown is the only game on ECU’s schedule without a post time. It would be nice to beat ‘em twice…. and Skip Holtz could join Steve Logan as the only members of that little fraternity.
09/19 @ UNC-Ch 12N ESPN/ESPN2
Pound for pound, Keenan Stadium the weakest sauce in all of collegiate football. It’s so weak that spellcheck questions me when I type the name.
09/26 v. UCF 3:30 WITN
I just got back from Orlando, where I took the fam’ to a few of the city’s awesome attractions (SeaWorld, Universal, Wet-n-Wild)…. Funny, no one ever mentioned UCF… ever.
10/03 @ Marshall 12N CBS-CSTV
I’ve got four months to get and figure out TiVo.
10/10 @ SMU 8PM MASN/WITN
SMU plays in Gerald Ford Stadium…. named for a Texas billionaire banker, not the former US President.
10/17 v. Rice 3:30 MASN
Finally a date that works with the kickoff time….
10/27 @ Memphis 8PM ESPN2
Wa-hoo! It’s interactive Tuesday…. I’ll be listening to Jeff Charles, no matter how big the tv/radio delay.
11/05 v. Virginia Tech 7:30 ESPN
There’s a ‘Pirate-Out’ set for this game… where’s my peg-leg?
11/15 @ Tulsa 8:15 ESPN
The NFL must be taking a night off.
11/21 v. UAB 3:30 MASN/WITN
Any game outside of Birmingham is UAB’s Super Bowl.
11/28 v. Southern Miss 1PM
Southern Miss should be our Thanksgiving opponent every year. We give and they say ‘Thanks’.
12/05/09 Conference USA Championship Game
Comments
By Den
June 21, 2009 9:33 AM | Link to this
IF we beat WV in Motown, it’ll be a first, aye?
By Bob
August 27, 2009 9:58 PM | Link to this
The Pirate Out will be huge!!!