Big Ten Prime-time Schedule
The Schedule:
Aug. 31
Boise State at Michigan State, 8 p.m., ESPN
Sept. 1
Indiana State at Indiana, 8 p.m., Big Ten Network
Sept. 8
Vanderbilt at Northwestern, 8 p.m., BTN
Sept. 15
Notre Dame at Michigan State, 8 p.m., ABC
Utah State at Wisconsin, 8 p.m., BTN
Ball State at Indiana, 8 p.m., BTN
Sept. 22
Syracuse at Minnesota, 8 p.m., BTN
Louisiana Tech at Illinois, 8 p.m., BTN
Sept. 29
Wisconsin at Nebraska, 8 p.m., ABC, ESPN, or ESPN2
Oct. 6
Nebraska at Ohio State, 8 p.m., ABC, ESPN, or ESPN2
Oct. 13
Ohio State at Indiana, 8 p.m., BTN
Oct. 20
Penn State at Iowa, 8 p.m., BTN
Oct. 27
Ohio State at Penn State, 6 p.m., ESPN or ESPN2
Michigan at Nebraska, 8 p.m., ABC, ESPN, or ESPN2
Some of my notes:
-Our game at Notre Dame will be a night game. I'm not sure why that's not included on this schedule.
-The above would put Ohio, Nebraska, IU and us at 3 prime-time games each. As for why IU is getting 3 prime-time games, I don't think anyone really knows.
-Purdue is the only team with no prime-time games.
Hit the link for some of their notes on the match-ups:http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/category/_/name/michigan-wolverines
They left off Michigan/Alabama as well.
Cowboys Classic website (link) states that game will be a "prime time kickoff" televised either by ESPN or CBS. As Bama / UM is not on the ESPN release re: prime time B1G games, this probably means the game will be on CBS with Lundquist and Danielson. Boo.
Hence the reason Notre Dame and Alabama are not listed on the release.
Alabama in Dallas, ND at night, Nebraska at night, and at OSU is a group of games for which Michigan would do well to go 2-2. It's going to be tough to win ten regular season games this year.
As for MSU, I have to give them credit for scheduling Boise, Alabama, and Oregon. It's not clear to me why MSU can afford to play those teams and ND but Michigan cannot.
The upside is that we should be fine in every other game except MSU. We have no business losing to AFA, UMass, Illinois, Minnesota or Iowa, and Purdue or Northwestern losses would be big upsets. If we can go 3-2 in those tough games, we're back around where we were last year (which would be a great season with our schedule, IMO), obviously the downside is that, while it would take a lot to lose all five, each are losable in a vacuum.
I could see them losing all four of the games I mentioned, FWIW. Those games are going to be four really tough outs. I thought Nebraska was the most winnable, but the fact that it's a night game makes it that much tougher (obviously).
Last year was great, and I think the future is very bright, of course, but I will be (pleasantly) surprised if there's not a dip in 2012 (and 2013, for that matter). It's just hard for me to imagine a repeat of last year given that they lost Martin, Molk, RVB, and Hemingway and given the schedule, but I hope I'm wrong.
With the way we embarrassed Nebraska last year, I can see them really loving a night game rematch in their house.
ND and Nebraska are going to want our asses, bad. It's going to be tough to win those games if we don't play as if their our home night games.
Not sure if Mark Hollis was smart enough to look at Boise's depth chart and wait to book them when they graduate K. Moore and a 75% of their starters, but it worked out brilliantly. They get to play Boise in Boise's annual look at us game and they will probably kick the shit out of them as breaking in a new qb on the road at night against a top defense is a recipe for disaster. MSU will shoot up the rankings for dismantling them when in reality Boise probably won't be very good.
If you like to bet put the house on MSU. Boise's name will probably keep the spread reasonable when in reality they are in a lot of trouble.
Its NOT like MSU is playing all those in ONE YEAR...Mich plays ALA, ND and Air Force
in ONE Year.....MSU playing BSU, ALA and Oregon is ONE PER YEAR...no diff than Michigans schedule..In fact Mich almost Always plays a better Non con sched than MSU
I think* that MSU is playing those teams (one at a time, of course) and ND in the given year. I just want to give credit to those jerks when it's due.
*Per Brian, they're at least playing Bama and ND in the same years.
Michigan has at times played two quality out of conference opponents in the same year--until recently, when the allure of selling 110,000 seats and not having to do a home and home became too great. 2001 and 2002, home and home with Washington. 2003 and 2007, home and home with Oregon. 2008 Utah in AA. 2012 Alabama in Dallas. State is trying to raise its profile by playing these games. If they lose most of them, that won't work quite so well. If Hoke keeps crushing them on recruiting, those losses are sure to follow too.
I remember the days of Michigan playing ND and FSU or ND and Miami in the same season. I suppose you're right, if I'm understanding you correctly, that MSU thinks it's worth losing money on the gates of those given games in exchange for getting more national exposure. I can't help but wish that Michigan would do the same thing, but I also understand that the football team pays for a lot more than itself.
The oregon games are when we have a two year break with ND.
It's not clear to me why MSU can afford to play those teams and ND but Michigan cannot.MSU has a smaller athletic department than we do. They don't field 29 teams.
they're not paying off a major stadium renovation.
Sept 1st - Nobody make any plans that night!!!!
With the Indiana game on, not sure which one to watch.
Dude, Indiana State - Indiana is must see tv. The stadium might be half full for once
There's no way I'll be going out that Saturday night. It just isn't worth missing such an epic, in-state rivalry game between two powerhouse teams.
/s
The ND game isn't technically a B10 game since it's at Notre Dame, at least in terms of broad-casting rights; that's why it's not included.
so that game will be on NBC.
Bama/UM will probably be on a nationally televised network as well.
Bama/UM might be on national television... kind of like water might be wet.
Careful about using that analogy, last time that happened we had like 4 replies explaining when Water wouldn't be wet
The Barwis Effect posted this in November 2011.
A stupid question, quite a few of you will now say. Of course water is wet. But try to explain to a small child what "wet" actually is. In order to answer the question as to why water is wet we need to start by looking into the meaning of "wet".
Follow us on a little experiment.
Take one bowl of water and one of flour. Now dip one finger into the bowl of water and one into the one with flour in it. What do you feel? The water swirls and flows around your finger. When you take your finger out of the water, both the water in the bowl and the water on your finger move. It trickles down your finger and drops form on your fingertip. If you now move your dry finger through the flour you notice that the flour around this finger trickles too. But when you take your finger out again, nothing carries on moving. There is another difference that you only notice after a while. With the finger that was in the flour you do not notice any significant change in temperature but the one that was in the water starts to feel cooler shortly afterwards. Physicists call this evaporation cooling "adiabatic cooling". And so in fact water is only wet because we associate these two sensations with it: evaporation cooling and movement. In other words, "wet" simply describes a very particular combination of sensations. If you really want to split hairs, it is actually not the water that is wet but our fingers, the towel we dry ourselves on or the flannel we use to wash with.
Blue Seoul posted this link as well, trying to explain why ice is slippery.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/21/science/21ice.html?pagewanted=all
Nebraska prime time back to back weeks. That's gotta get Husker nation excited.
and its one reason why we joined the B1G
We should follow your lead. We shouldn't limit ourselves to one night game every other year or so. In a given season, if we have several big time opponents at home and it's not November, we should look at multiple night games. I've heard that we do night games pretty well.
A MICHIGAN fan only one game has me worried,alabama.