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Oklahoma Football: Sooners Stuck with Another 11 a.m. Start in 2016 Season Opener

By Chip Rouse

Dec 31, 2015; Miami Gardens, FL, USA; The Oklahoma Sooners run onto the field prior to the 2015 CFP semifinal at the Orange Bowl against the Clemson Tigers at Sun Life Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports
Dec 31, 2015; Miami Gardens, FL, USA; The Oklahoma Sooners run onto the field prior to the 2015 CFP semifinal at the Orange Bowl against the Clemson Tigers at Sun Life Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports /
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It will be another 11 a.m. CT kickoff for Oklahoma football, this time to open the 2016 season.

Oct 24, 2015; Norman, OK, USA; The Oklahoma Sooners take the field prior to action against the Texas Tech Red Raiders at Gaylord Family – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports
Oct 24, 2015; Norman, OK, USA; The Oklahoma Sooners take the field prior to action against the Texas Tech Red Raiders at Gaylord Family – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports /

With two top-10 teams going against one another in what is certain to be one of the top two games on the opening Saturday of the 2016 college football season, you would think the contest between Oklahoma and Houston, both expected to start the season ranked in the top 10 in the country, would be deserving of a better TV time slot than what amounts to the crack of dawn in the college football fandom.

If we didn’t know any better – and, honestly, we probably don’t – it would appear that the network TV scheduling wizards who decide which college games get which available time slots – or, in this particular case, the anti-Big 12 fiefdom at ABC/ESPN – have dismissed the OU-Houston showdown as nothing more than a mere appetizer for the heartier TV viewing feast to follow on that football Saturday.

Something is horribly wrong with this scheduling decision. Oklahoma vs. Houston is arguably the best game of the entire opening Saturday of the college football season. The two teams posted a combined record of 24-3 last season and both finished the year ranked in the top 10 in the both the final USA Today Coaches Poll, the Associated Press Top 25 voted on by the media. Both teams should be ranked high again to begin the 2016 season.

The Sooners should be ranked in the top five in most every poll out there from now until the college opening kickoff. Sports Illustrated even projects the Sooners as the preseason No. 1.

Texas and Notre Dame are scheduled to play the same day, and somehow that game rates higher than the Oklahoma-Houston contest, because the former has been scheduled for a 6 p.m. CT kickoff, and on the same network (ABC).

It is pretty obvious that more weight has been given by the network schedulers of sports programming to the legendary brand names associated with the Fighting Irish and the Longhorns, because it surely cannot be justified based on the quality of the teams involved. Notre Dame finished outside of the top 10 to end last season, and Texas wasn’t even ranked.

Given the choice, the Oklahoma players and coaches will generally always prefer an afternoon kick over one that requires the team to sit around all day waiting for a prime-time TV kick (the one caveat to that being the hot afternoon temperatures of the early fall, when the cooler nighttime temperatures are more desirable). I’m not aware of many fans or players, though, who would say that games that begin before noon on Saturday are to their liking.

If it is true that the 11 o’clock kick time for TV games is somewhat equitably divided among all the Big 12 teams over the course of the season, then perhaps it is good to get one for the Sooners out of the way early in the season so that when it comes time for conference games, Oklahoma will have already contributed its fair share.

The other thing is, knowing that Ohio State follows two weekends after the Houston game – and that one is in Norman – it is probably safe now to assume that that game will also be one of the top, if not the top, games of the college football weekend and that the start time will be pushed back to a time of day more representative of the quality of the two teams.

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