40 Acres Sports

Programming providers announced for Texas-FAU pay-per-view telecast. Find out who is airing the game in your area.

Everything is right again in the world now that the college football season kicks off the 2008 season tonight. Since most schools schedule cupcakes for the season opener, you obviously can’t expect any marquee match-ups. But you know what? I don’t care. All that matters is that I get to watch ESPN Gameday Saturday morning and follow that with 10 hours of college football. Let’s see what looks good this weekend.

(23) Wake Forest at Baylor (+12) – 8:00 PM EST (Thur) on FSN. The Big 12 starts of the season with Baylor playing a tough Wake Forest team. Former Houston coach Art Briles takes the helm for the Bears, hopefully ushering in a new era down in Waco. Unfortunately it looks like they will be overmatched by a Wake Forest team returning 2 ACC offensive rookies of the year (QB Skinner and RB Adams), along with 9 returning starters on defense that ranked 28th in the nation last year allowing only 340 yards per game. I don’t normally like to go against home underdogs, but Baylor is not known for showing up in the first game of the season, and they just don’t have the offense to keep up with Wake Forest.

Appalachian St at (7) LSU (NL) – 5:00 PM EST on ESPN. Normally I wouldn’t really care about this match-up, but there are a couple of things that interest me here. First is obviously the fact that Appalachian St beat Michigan last year in what is arguably the greatest upset in college football history. Second is the quarterback situation down at LSU. Punk kid Ryan Perrilloux finally ran out of excuses and was kicked off the team due to “not fulfilling his obligation” as an LSU athlete, according to head coach Les Miles. I can’t say that I’m not surprised. There is no line for this game, though not surprising for a Div I school playing a Div I-AA.

FAU at (11) Texas (-24) – 7:00 PM EST. Obviously this game won’t get much national attention because it is on PPV, but is a game we all need to watch. How does Colt recover from last season? Is the defense going to be improved under Will Muschamp? How ready is the incredibly young talent? These are all questions that coming into the season. The line here is sitting at right around 24, probably my least favorite number of all. Since I don’t bet on Texas (EVER), I can’t really make a prediction here.

(24) Alabama at (9) Clemson (-5) – 8:00 PM EST on ABC. The pressure starts now for Tommy Bowden and the underachieving Clemson Bulldogs, as they are the clear favorites to win the ACC this season for the first time in school history. Unfortunately they have to start their season facing a solid Alabama, who are looking to improve in their second season under head coach Nick Saban. I think Clemson has too many offensive weapons for Alabama to handle, and their defense is set to be one of the best in the nation. Even though there are a lot of doubters on Clemson, I think they squeak by on this one and cover those 5 points.

Horns basketball will get three Big Monday telecasts. Texas will make 11 national TV appearances in 2008-09 season.

The Texas baseball team is going for an important sweep of the Aggies right now (1pm on Sunday) live on Fox Sports Southwest. Last regular season game that could impact Big 12 tourney seeding as well as regional pairings.

Breaking News: ESPN is Not Biased Against Your Favorite Team. Of course that doesn’t mean they don’t suck.

Holiday Bowl Marred by Herbstreit and Musberger. I bitched about the awful job they did during my live blog, glad I wasn’t the only one who noticed.

No Texas game today so you can spend all day rooting against teams ranked ahead of the Horns, or you’ll have time to catch up on the chores your wife has been bugging you about since August. Either way you’ve got a busy day ahead of you. The game of the day is Ohio State at Michigan. Not as exciting as we thought it would be a week ago but the outcome will decide the Big 10 winner.

If you choose to tick off the misses, here’s what to watch today:

(7) Ohio State at (21) Michigan – 11:00 am on ABC. Winner goes to the Rose Bowl and Ohio State could still back their way into a national title shot if they win.

Duke at Notre Dame – 1:30 pm on NBC. Please don’t actually watch this, I just wanted to point and laugh at the worst nationally televised game in history.

(6) West Virginia at (22) Cincinnati – 6:45 pm on ESPN. Cincinnati “upset” South Florida and UConn the last two weeks but I don’t think they can hang with the Mountaineers if White and Slaton play the whole game. The Big East has been terribly overhyped all season but I think WVU is legit.

(17) Boston College at (15) Clemson – 6:45 pm on ESPN2. This is a game between two decent, ranked teams but I still couldn’t be any less interested in watching it. The media keeps screaming about how many second ranked teams have lost this season, maybe it’s because they keep putting decidedly average (or worse) teams like BC and South Florida in that spot?

(4) Oklahoma at Texas Tech – 7:00 pm on ABC. A win by the Sooners means they clinch the Big 12 South. If the dirt burglars win out they also are probably going to get a shot at the MNC. So in other words… GO RAIDERS!

FSN to air Texas 2007-08 basketball preview Monday night. 30-minute show will feature interview with Rick Barnes on the upcoming season.

An SEC match-up between Auburn and Georgia is the only game between ranked teams today but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad day for college football fans. The Big 12 may be home to the day’s best games including a huge trap for the still undefeated Kansas Jayhawks as they travel to Stillwater to face Oklahoma State.

Here’s today’s lineup:

(12) Michigan at Wisconsin – 11:00 am on ESPN. After losing their first two games of the season Michigan has beaten a bunch of mediocre Big 10 teams to climb back up to number twelve in the current polls. Wisconsin beats them at home unless Chad Henne has a huge day.

Texas A&M at (6) Missouri – 11:30 am on FSN. This could be an ugly one for the Aggies, Mizzou quarterback Chase Daniel is going to light them up today and put the final nail in Dennis Franchione’s coffin.

Air Force at Notre Dame – 1:30 pm on NBC. 1-9. Ha. Go Air Force!

Texas Tech at (14) Texas – 2:30 pm on ABC. The game will reportedly be in high definition, finally. Tech is always a scary game for the Horns and today shouldn’t be any different.

(18) Auburn at (10) Georgia – 2:30 pm on CBS. The only game of the day between two top 25 teams. I haven’t been particularly impressed with either team this year but they play great defense and they’ve been winning tough games.

(4) Kansas at Oklahoma State – 7:00 pm on ABC. The Jayhawks’ defense has been incredible this season but the OSU Cowboys’ offense will give them one of their first tests of the year. I’m calling the upset, Okie State wins at home tonight in front of a national audience.

(17) USC at California – 7:00 pm on ABC. Not nearly the match-up we thought this game was going to be a month ago but still should be fun to watch. A battle to see which team will finish third in the Pac-10.

Microsoft adds ESPN programing to the Xbox 360. I might pay $4.50 for a game in HD if I could have it on more than my Xbox.