...about the schedule

sorry if this is terribly difficult to read, but below is a chart of all the kickoff times and TV clearances that have been announced thus far (accurate as of May 21, 2008, check back later for more)

First column is school name (duh)

Next 6 columns show the number of games each school has on each TV station. These are

1. RED: ABC/ESPN/ESPN2 Primetime game.
2. ORANGE: ABC Afternoon game (usually 2:30PM)
3. PURPLE: TV Station yet to be announced, but kickoff time announced (these are all 11AM games that will either be on ESPN or the Big Ten Network)
4. BLUE: Big Ten Network games (mostly 6 or 7PM primetime kickoffs)
5. GREEN: ESPN or ESPN2
6. GRAY: "Other"... right now the only one is the NBC game for Purdue @ Notre Dame... games like Illinois/W. Michigan and Wisconsin @ Fresno State could wind up on other networks as well.

The Next 3 columns represent how many games each school has at each of the 3 major time slots (Early being usually 11AM kickoffs, Midday being 2:30 or 3:30 kickoffs, Evening being anything after 5PM)

Just in case you are wondering, all times are Central... you people east of Illinois can cope.

After that is the Big Ten schedule chart, showing the games each team plays each week, colored according the method mentioned above with the kickoff time in (). Black boxes represent Bye Weeks, games that are in white boxes haven't set TV clearances or kickoff times yet.




A couple thoughts RE: our schedule.

1. With Michigan State @ California occupying the 7PM game on ABC, it looks like Illinois will probably be playing earlier... this backs up the rumors that we will be playing at ~6:00PM on ESPN.
2. Those of you hoping for Ohio State @ Illinois under the lights might want to temper that... Ohio State already has 3 games on ABC during primetime lined up... will they get a fourth? Working in favor of OSU/Illinois in prime time is the fact that no other Big Ten game that weekend comes close to standing out, unless there is a major cinderella story in the Big Ten.