Posted by Tom Fornelli

We're still three months away from the 2011 college football season starting, but it's never too early to begin planning your Saturday afternoons this fall. So luckily for you, I'm here to help. CBS announced it's SEC on CBS schedule for the year, along with other games that will be broadcast on CBS, and it features the excellent SEC matchups you've come to expect from CBS.

Here's a look at what you'll be seeing this fall.

- 9/17 Florida vs. Tennessee 3:30PM, ET
- 10/1 SEC Doubleheader 3:30PM, ET and 8PM, ET
- 10/29 Florida vs. Georgia 3:30PM, ET
- 11/12 SEC Doubleheader Noon, ET and 3:30PM, ET
- 11/25 LSU vs. Arkansas 2:30PM, ET
- 12/3 SEC Championship 4PM, ET
- 12/10 Army vs. Navy 2:30PM, ET
- 12/31 Sun Bowl 2PM, ET 

As for the Saturdays in between, don't worry, we aren't giving Verne Lundquist, Gary Danielson and Tracy Wolfson those Saturdays off. There will be SEC games on CBS those Saturdays, but the matchups will not be announced until six to twelve days before the games. This way we can assure you'll be seeing the best SEC football on CBS every week. The same can be said of the matchups for our two doubleheaders this season.

Now all you have to do is wait three months.

Posted by Tom Fornelli

South Park has been on television since 1997 and during its impressive run it has never been afraid to take on a topic, satirize it, skewer it, put it on the grill and burn the hell out of it. While some may feel that the show has lost its edge over the years, there are still plenty of episodes each season that are dead on with their special brand of commentary on a variety of issues. Last night's episode was one of those, as South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone decided to take on the NCAA.

Sure, comparing student athletes to crack babies may not be the obvious choice, but then it wouldn't be South Park, would it? Besides, as you'll see in the video below, the crack babies were only a device to get to the real point of the story.



At least at the end of the episode, the crack babies got their very own orphanage -- thanks, Slash! -- but I guess we'll just have to wait and see what student athletes get. 

Hat tip: SB Nation 

Posted by Tom Fornelli

Michigan State had already decided last fall that it would open its 2012 schedule against Boise State on a Friday night during Labor Day weekend, and it seems the school likes the idea of a Friday night game so much, they've decided to do it in 2011 as well. The school issued a statement on Thursday saying that it was moving its season opening game against Youngstown State from Saturday September 3 to Friday September 2.

“We’re extremely excited about this special opportunity to kick off the 2011 season with a nationally televised game against Youngstown State,” said Michigan State's AD Mark Hollis. “Over the years, fans have expressed increased interest in kicking off our home football schedule with a Friday night game on Labor Day weekend. We believe it will be a positive experience for our entire fan base, including the student body, and we couldn’t pull something like this off without campus-wide cooperation.

“Since Michigan (K-12) schools don’t begin fall classes until after Labor Day, the vast majority of high school teams will play their football games on Thursday that week, making this a great way for our fans to kick off the holiday weekend. By moving the Youngstown State game to Friday night, it’s also our hope that the state tourism industry will receive a positive bump since most fans will now have the opportunity to make plans to enjoy the entire Labor Day weekend.”

The game will be played in primetime on the Big Ten Network, and it will mark only the tenth time in school history that the Spartans have held a home game at night.

Personally, I'm all for moving the game to a Friday night. I'll take football on as many days of the week that I can get, because, let's face it, what else am I going to do on a Friday night? Go outside? I'm a blogger, fresh air terrifies me.

Posted by Tom Fornelli

Though word got out about the Pac-12's new television deal with ESPN and Fox on Tuesday, the conference officially announced its new $2.7 billion agreement that will be bringing a whole lot more Pac-12 football into televisions around the country than ever before. 

“We are equally excited by the creation of Pac-12 Media Enterprises," said Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott in a release. "Which will enable us to launch our own Pac-12 television and digital networks, providing signi cantly more exposure for women’s sports and Olympic sports in which the Pac-12 excels, in addition to academic and other campus programming of interest to our fan base. These new platforms will also provide us with an unprecedented opportunity to control the distribution of our intellectual property rights in sports, education and other Conference and membership initiatives.”

Yes, yes, but what does this mean for you, the college football fan? Well, it means you're going to have a lot more games to watch on Saturdays.

There will be 44 Pac-12 regular season games televised across ESPN and Fox platforms. Ten games a year will appear as national broadcasts on either ABC or Fox, with plenty of those games coming in primetime. Then there will be 34 other Pac-12 games broadcast on a combination of ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and FX. As for the Pac-12 Network, that will carry any game not on the ESPN or Fox stations, and will average about three games per week.

As for the Pac-12 Championship game, it will be broadcast on Fox in 2011 and 2012, and then alternate between Fox and ESPN for the remaining years of the deal.

Posted by Tom Fornelli

For as long as this college football fan can remember, the Big Ten has started its Saturdays in the fall at noon eastern. As a kid growing up in Chicago, this was a pretty sweet deal. I could sleep in a bit on Saturday mornings and when I woke up --BAM! -- college football. Honestly, that habit hasn't really changed much as I've grown older, but it sounds like I may have to watch the ACC and Big East for an hour before the Big Ten games begin. That's because, according to a report in the Quad City Times, Jim Delany is trying to make it so that the noon eastern start times are a thing of the past. Instead, he wants to push the start of Big Ten games back an hour.

Note: The times in the text quoted from the report are in central standard time.

Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany reportedly is lobbying hard in negotiations with the television networks to do away with them. If Delany has his way, all Big Ten games next season will start at either noon, 3:30 p.m. or 7 p.m.

Many fans objected to the 11 a.m. starts because they cut down on pregame tailgating time and made it difficult for fans who lived several hours away to get to games on time.

Won't somebody please think of the early morning drinkers!?

Seriously, though, it is pretty cool to think that Delany is actually listening to the fans who have been complaining about the lack of proper tailgating time. An extra hour of fun before kickoff doesn't hurt anybody except for those in charge of cleaning up afterward. The question is, just because Delany and the Big Ten want it, will the television networks?

While I'm sure Delany wouldn't have much trouble convincing the Big Ten Network to push back start times, it may not be as easy to do so with ESPN/ABC. ESPN has had games beginning a noon, 3:30pm and 8:00pm for some time now, and I'm not so sure they'll be willing to move everything around just to please the Big Ten. And let's be honest, it's the networks that televise the games who will be the ones deciding when those games start, not the fans attending them.

Cable channel FX will broadcast a weekly college football game during the coming season.

The Fox-owned network said Monday it would air at least 13 games involving teams from the Big 12, Pac-12 and Conference USA.

FX is available in more than 99 million homes. The channel has shown other sports in the past, including Major League Baseball and NASCAR.