Ever since the massive success of ABC's Labor Day Sunday broadcast of Texas-Notre Dame last season -- it was the top-rated regular season game until the Ohio State-Michigan game -- college football administrators and television programmers have viewed that day on the schedule like mid-19th century prospectors in search of California gold.
And, really, it's a wonder why it took last year's double-overtime thriller to capitalize on what was the television equivalent of an unclaimed 100 dollar bill. Watching football on Sundays in the fall is built into our DNA as Americans and yet that Labor Day Sunday sat empty, even as college football games on Labor Day Night became an annual tradition.
UCLA and Texas A&M became the first to claim this vacant territory, announcing late last month they would move from Saturday, Sept. 2 to Sunday, Sept. 3. Two days after that West Virginia and Virginia Tech announced the same. Bruins-Aggies will air nationally on FOX, and Mountaineers-Hokies will be shown on ABC. Which, hey, more football for us.
And then on Tuesday Texas Tech announced that its game with Eastern Washington will also move to Labor Day Sunday.
Red Raiders-Eagles is not exactly network television material, but it's actually not the first time Texas Tech has moved its opener to Sunday night. One problem: Texas Tech forgot to inform Eastern Washington.
At present, there is no mention of moving the Eastern Washington game to Sunday on any of Texas Tech's digital platforms.
Update: Oops.