We're in middle to late May, what would ordinarily be the dog days of the football calendar. Spring football and the NFL draft are now old news. June recruiting and the fireworks/headaches therein are still aways away. Media days and the opening of fall camps are further still.
But on Tuesday we got a glimmer of light at the end of this tunnel. ESPN has graced us with their early-season TV schedule.
Remember, at this time last year there was no such announcement, because everything was in a covid-induced holding pattern. But the 2021 season is happening, it's happening as normal, and the Worldwide Leader will kick off this celebrated season in a big way:
Saturday, Sept. 4
Alabama vs. Miami (at Atlanta) -- 3:30 p.m. ET, ABC
Clemson vs. Georgia (at Charlotte) -- 7:30 p.m. ET, ABC
Sunday, Sept. 5
Notre Dame at Florida State -- 7:30 p.m. ET, ABC
Monday, Sept. 6
Louisville vs. Ole Miss -- 8 p.m. ET, ABC
Saturday, Sept. 11
Texas at Arkansas -- 7 p.m. ET, ESPN
Washington at Michigan -- 7:30 p.m. ET, ABC
Saturday, Sept. 18
Auburn at Penn State -- 7:30 p.m. ET, ABC
There we have six of my 13 most-anticipated non-conference games on the 2021 slate now with their countdown clocks officially set.
But we also learned a lot by what ESPN did not announce.
Fox has already set LSU at UCLA (No. 12 on my list) for a primetime kickoff on Sept. 4 opposite Georgia-Clemson. Fox shares Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-12 rights with ESPN, and so by not including the following games, we can make a safe assumption these games will wind up on Fox's air, most likely in the Big Noon Kickoff slot
Saturday, Sept. 11
Oregon at Ohio State
Iowa at Iowa State
Saturday, Sept. 18
Nebraska at Oklahoma
Notre Dame home games against Wisconsin (No. 7 on my list) and Cincinnati (No. 4) are guaranteed to air on NBC, and so if my above assumptions are correct, we now know the TV assignments for all of the 13 biggest non-conference games of the upcoming season. (Florida at USF, No. 13 on my list and not mentioned until now, is still unassigned but is guaranteed to land somewhere in the ESPN family of networks, since it's a USF home game and ESPN owns all the American Athletic Conference rights.)
And while we're on the subject, ESPN also announced the following games will land on its air this season, with times to be announced closer to kickoff:
-- Texas vs. Oklahoma, Oct. 9
-- Notre Dame at Virginia Tech, Oct. 9
-- Florida State at Clemson, Oct. 30
-- Oklahoma at Oklahoma State, Nov. 27
The two ACC games aren't news since ESPN owns all of that conference's TV rights, but the Big 12 games are. Fox had shown every Red River game since 2016, and while ESPN/ABC aired Bedlam in 2020 and '18, it hasn't aired a Bedlam game in Stillwater since the 2015 edition.
The 2021 college football season will be the most anticipated in living memory, and it became a whole heckuva lot closer on Tuesday.