Welcome to the Friday Feedback, which won’t be coming to you a day later than planned. As for WVU v. Marshall and the sixth annual — do you believe that? — Friends of Coal Bowl, what was once a standard Saturday kickoff is no more.
Multiple sources report as a done deal what was speculated as likely to happen in this space back on April 6.
Sept. 4 is the Sunday of Labor Day weekend. The Coal Bowl will have a 3:30 p.m. kickoff on ESPN, and an announcement from the network is expected as early as today.
It’s the third time in six years the game has drawn a national cable slot, the two previous times at Edwards Stadium. The game had been listed on the Big East master schedule as having the potential to move from a Saturday kickoff.
This, of course, is going to bum out a number of people who were planning their holiday weekends around this and have made and perhaps prepaid hotel reservations. Instead of a Saturday night slumber and a Sunday trip back home, the plan must change. Unintended victims, I suppose, but I like it.
The game needs something to make it mean something. The spot at the start of the schedule helps. Getting it on national television is big for Marshall, of course, because those are not regular occasions. It’s as big for WVU and Dana Holgorsen, too. Don’t overlook the day of the week, either.
If the NFL sustains its lockout and Sundays are open, Fox, CBS, and ABC/ESPN will have to fill programming slots and I suspect the football starved can only take so much rugby or soccer or other alternatives. There are agreements between conferences and networks already in place — the SEC and CBS, the Big XII and Fox, the Big East and ESPN — and the schedules could be juggled. So is WVU v. Marshall the first game of their seasons or is it also the first time the NCAA satiates the NFL crowd?
(Kind of related and unrelated, WVU. V Syracuse is now Friday, Oct. 21 at 8 p.m. on ESPN2.)
Onto the Feedback. As always, comments appear as posted. In other words, seek proper help.
WVMANIAC said:
Mike,
In my time in Morgantown I was always told by prominent people that the only way WVU is going to get rid of pass-outs is by selling beer in the stadium. Could Ollie be pulling a political move here to get the pass out policy removed without beer sales?
Think about this: The columns all week have stated that beer sales have to be approved but the university doesn’t have to sell beer right a way, but the pass-out policy is something that Ollie says will be taken away no matter what. So who is to say that the BOG doesn’t pass the alcohol sales and Ollie still looks like a good guy that tried, but is still taking away pass-outs
That would be diabolical, but pretty shrewed.
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