In an attempt to shed a little light on how the ACC football schedule comes about, theacc.com posted a Q&A with Senior Associate Commissioner of Football Operations Michael Strickland. There's a lot of interesting nuggets in there, so well worth the read, but the one that stood out to me revolved around the ACC's Friday night deal with ESPN.

If you love Friday night ACC football, boy, are you in for a treat!


Q. There have been a handful of Friday night games in recent years involving ACC teams, and a couple more have been added this season. Is that something we can expect to continue moving forward?

In this and future seasons, we will play five Friday games, an increase from three in previous seasons. Playing in a limited inventory of specialty games on Monday, Thursday and Friday affords our programs an exclusive platform before a guaranteed primetime national audience to showcase their football and athletic programs, as well as the broader institution. They are highly valuable for a number of reasons, and certainly among them is the financial value those games create for the ACC and its member institutions to continue to meet the needs of our student-athletes.

When the ACC re-upped with ESPN back in 2012, the conference agreed to host three ACC games a year on Fridays and got a standing commitment from Boston College and Syracuse to host two of those three games. The third game would fall on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

In 2013, the first year of the deal, Boston College hosted Wake Forest, Pittsburgh hosted Miami and Syracuse, well, didn't. For whatever reason, SU got out of the whole Friday night deal and the ACC only staged two Friday games in 2013.

In 2014, Boston College hosted Pittsburgh, Syracuse hosted Louisville and Virginia Tech hosted Virginia on Black Friday. Syracuse also faced FCS Villanova in the season opener on Friday night, so perhaps this was a make-up for a 2013 schedule with no Friday dates (though the original agreement clearly stated Friday night ACC games).

That requirement has now increased to five games moving forward and starting in 2015:


Florida State at Boston College (Sep. 18)
Boise State at Virginia (Sep. 25)
N.C. State at Virginia Tech (Oct. 9)
Louisville at Wake Forest (Oct. 30)
Miami at Pittsburgh (Nov. 27)

Do you have a link? TheACC.com is a total shltbag of a website to try and navigate. I'd like to read the full Q&A.

I would hope the ACC is receiving more money from this increase in games.

http://www.theacc.com/news/inside-acc-fo...01-29-2015

By the way, this was released by the ACC on January 29th, 2015.

I can't remember anyone mentioning it before.

Bush league....typical.

(07-29-2015 11:02 AM)TIGER-PAUL Wrote:  Boise State at Virginia (Sep. 25)
N.C. State at Virginia Tech (Oct. 9)
Louisville at Wake Forest (Oct. 30)

These won't go over well.

This is what happens when Espn has all your content...

The questions you have to ask yourself are:
1) which of the Thu/Fri games, if any, would've been in Prime Time on Saturday?
2) how badly do you want the Prime Time TV exposure - bad enough to play on Thu/Fri?

Friday night home games in Louisville are awesome! The crowd is always crazy. I don't know why, but it' like that everytime.

Friday Games:

FRI 9/18: Florida St @ Boston College
FRI 9/25: Boise State @ Virginia
FRI 10/9: NC State @ Virginia Tech
FRI 10/30: Louisville @ Wake Forest
FRI 11/27: Miami @ Pittsburgh

more non-Saturday games: http://accfootballrx.blogspot.com/2015/0...-2015.html

Now I'll probably try to watch ALL of those, but that's my sickness... be honest, those look like a bunch of noon kickoff Raycom games if they were all on Saturday. However, move them to Friday night and they are national telecasts...

So I'm still unclear if the ACC is actually making more from ESPN by doing this since the original contract said only 3 games.

(07-30-2015 07:35 AM)CardinalZen Wrote:  Friday night home games in Louisville are awesome! The crowd is always crazy. I don't know why, but it' like that everytime.

I can think of a reason why. It starts with B and rhymes with Shmourbon

(07-30-2015 10:38 AM)Marge Schott Wrote:  So I'm still unclear if the ACC is actually making more from ESPN by doing this since the original contract said only 3 games.

I haven't heard any announcement but I would hope were making more money. Especially considering how Friday games are going to go over with the high school coaches in Virginia and North Carolina.

(07-30-2015 10:38 AM)Marge Schott Wrote:  So I'm still unclear if the ACC is actually making more from ESPN by doing this since the original contract said only 3 games.

Don't ever expect to hear a rational explanation.


ACC just drinks kookaid and believes whatever they are told.....or don't ask hard questions.

I hate Friday games. They are the worst. However, it is important to note that ESPN's Thursday Night College Football ratings are getting curb stomped by the NFL to such a degree that the Friday night games are probably of a higher value from an exposure standpoint.

We have a number of schools that are located in or near major cities. As such, they can get their fans to the weeknight games better then their more rural counterparts.

Again, I do not like it either. However, as programs like Louisville, Boise State, BYU, etc. have proven over the years, it is not the worst way to get your programs seen.

I have no problem whatsoever with the specialty weeknight games. If you want to put Pitt on the Friday after Thanksgiving every year, sign me up. However, I do not have much interest in being on a traditional Friday night telecast. We have done a lot of that in recent years and it always sucks. If you lose, that weekend is totally shot. On the other hand, if you win, as we did at Boston College last year, the rest of your weekend is relatively enjoyable. It allows you to get a lot of things done you wouldn't normally get done on a Saturday.

Friday night games in Louisville are a reason to only work 4 days that week, start tailgating at 8am and turn game day into a true all day event.

I would rather play at 8pm Friday on National Television instead of Noon Saturday on ESPN3.

Not sure what kind of environment to expect on the road in The ACC on Friday night.
CJ

I think going forward that all ACC teams will have a Friday every week.

(08-02-2015 08:46 AM)CardinalJim Wrote:  Friday night games in Louisville are a reason to only work 4 days that week, start tailgating at 8am and turn game day into a true all day event.

I would rather play at 8pm Friday on National Television instead of Noon Saturday on ESPN3.

Not sure what kind of environment to expect on the road in The ACC on Friday night.
CJ

I expect the game day atmosphere to be great at VT and a really enjoyable game. But will pissing off the state high school coaches by playing on Friday hurt recruiting?

No, it won't have any impact whatsoever on that front. Just blame it on ESPN and everyone will just nod.

(08-02-2015 01:36 PM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  No, it won't have any impact whatsoever on that front. Just blame it on ESPN and everyone will just nod.

http://www.tampabay.com/sports/college/f...hes/699444

Quote:High school coaches across the state are upset to see college football encroaching on a night which once exclusively meant high school games. But the conflict isn't likely to end soon.

"I have very strong feelings about this issue," said Hillsborough High coach Earl Garcia, a past president of the Florida Athletic Coaches Association. "The NFL waits until college season has ended to play any games on Saturdays. It's like scheduling a varsity game on a junior varsity night. I feel like the Big East is biting the hand that feeds them, and I don't think that sends a good message."

http://www.idahopress.com/blueturfsports...61826.html

Quote:“We get it, but it’s a shame it’s come to that,” Middleton football coach Bill Brock said. “Everybody understands it, but in a perfect world, we’d play on Friday nights and the college games would be on Saturday.”

Boise State gets a $300,000 payment when a non-Saturday game airs on ESPN, ESPN or ABC. The Broncos have already locked in three of those checks — for a total of $900,000 — due to three Friday night games on either ESPN or ESPN2.

But with the big payday for Boise State comes scarce crowds or schedule changes for the local high school teams.

“It’s becoming an issue,” Skyview coach David Young said.

http://www.athleticmanagement.com/2008/0.../index.php

Quote:David Green is mad. The Head Football Coach at Leesville Road High School in Raleigh, N.C., feels strongly that Friday nights in the fall should be reserved for high schools. So when Appalachian State University announced it had scheduled a televised home game for Friday, Oct. 31, Green spoke up.

In protest, he asked that Appalachian coaches be disinvited from speaking at the annual state coaches clinic in July. "Our association is on record as being against colleges playing on Friday nights," he says. "I felt that if the coaches association could band together and make a statement, it would have sent a message--not just to Appalachian State but to all the colleges--that this is something we feel strongly about."

Green adds that his discontent is not with the App State coaching staff, but its administrators. "This is nothing against Coach Jerry Moore and his staff," Green says. "They're good coaches and good people. I'm sure they understand the importance of Friday night high school football. But maybe the people above them don't. They are really who we ultimately want to send a message to."

The North Carolina High School Athletic Association (NCHSAA) is also upset with Appalachian's decision to host the Friday night TV game. "Those Friday night games are the lifeblood and livelihood of our high school programs," says Charlie Adams, Executive Director of the NCHSAA. "Some of our schools live and die by what they bring in on those five Friday nights.

"Our biggest fear is what happens down the road if they keep playing these Friday night games," Adams continues. "All we have to do is look at basketball. There was a time when we were totally protected on Tuesdays and Fridays in basketball. Now they're televising college basketball seven days a week. We don't want to see the tradition of Friday night high school football start eroding like it did in basketball."

Quote:East Carolina University drew the ire of high school football coaches and administrators for scheduling a Friday night television game in 2002, the first at a North Carolina college. Some even refused to let East Carolina coaches on their campus to recruit as a result. Green says he's heard of a few coaches talking about doing the same with Appalachian State, but he's not choosing that tactic. "I don't want to do anything that might jeopardize one of my athletes' chances to play in college," he says.

And missed in all of the discussion is the fact that when you host a Friday night game you lose the ability to bring recruits in for the game because they are also playing. Fr most of you that may be a good thing because with sparse crowds and a dead atmosphere you might not want recruits to see that, but for those of us who do have a great gameday atmosphere it is an issue.