Marshall televised schedule nearly complete
IRVING, Texas – Nine of 12 start times for the 2012 Marshall football season have been set with Thursday’s release of Conference USA’s composite television schedule.
All of the games are on Saturdays, except a Friday, Nov. 23 regular-season finale at East Carolina.
CSS (Comcast Sports South, Huntington Comcast and Wilderness Comcast channel 68) will show the Thundering Herd three times in Conference USA games this season.
There are two 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time road starts (Sept. 22 at Rice in Houston, Texas, and Nov. 10 at UAB, in Birmingham, Ala., both at 3:30 p.m. Central Time at those locations) and a noon start at Marshall's Joan C. Edwards Stadium (Nov. 17 vs. the Houston Cougars).
CSS is a 24-hour sports channel carrying a full slate of college sports programming.
The channel offers a comprehensive sports lineup throughout the year including over 40 live college football games including the SEC, Sun Belt, Conference USA, and Gulf South Conference.
In addition, CSS broadcasts over 165 men's and women's live college basketball games and over 80 live baseball games, as well as a comprehensive mix of sports news and in-depth sports analysis geared toward fans in the south.
For more information on CSS, or to find out how you can get CSS on your cable system, log on to css-sports.com.
CBS Sports Network (channel 14 on Huntington's Comcast) will have four Marshall C-USA telecast games -- twice at home, twice on the road -- including three consecutive games in October.
Marshall will host Tulsa at 3:30 p.m. Eastern on Oct. 6; travel to Southern Mississippi on Oct. 20 at 7 p.m. Eastern (6 p.m. CT in Hattiesburg, Miss.) and return home to face UCF in the only scheduled 8 p.m. Eastern start time on Oct. 27.
CBSSN will also carry the Herd’s date at East Carolina on Friday, Nov. 23 at 2 p.m. Eastern in Greenville, N.C.
This season marks the eighth year of C-USA's partnership with CBS Sports Network that includes significant national and regional exposure for football, men's and women's basketball and other C-USA sports.
CBS Sports Network (CBSSN) is the 24-hour cable destination of CBS Sports. Available to more than 99 million homes nationwide, CBS Sports Network covers more than 340 live games annually, showcasing 30 men's and women's sports, in addition to a variety of studio shows and original programming.
The Marshall Athletic Department also announced two 6:30 p.m. starts in non-conference games at Joan C. Edwards Stadium – Sept. 8, the home opener against long-time Southern Conference foe Western Carolina and MU Hall of Fame Weekend on Sept. 15 against the Ohio University Bobcats.
It will be the 21st meeting all-time between WCU's Catamounts and Marshall, who played all the previous games in the SC between 1977 and 1996. The series is tied at 9-9-2.
Ohio will come to Marshall off one of the biggest wins for the Bobcats in the annual "Battle for the Bell," a traveling trophy of an Ohio River boat bell, when OU beat the Herd 44-7 last season to take its first win in the series since 2000.
The series began in 1905, and this will be the 56th meeting all-time, with Ohio U. leading the all-time series, 30-19-6, although the Herd is 8-2 in the last ten and 12-3 in the last 15, back to 1985.
Start times for a Sept. 1 game at West Virginia, a Sept. 29 game at Purdue and a Nov. 3 home game against Memphis have not yet been finalized.
All Big Ten home games, however, are live on the Big Ten Network, and a Noon start in the first time meeting between the Thundering Herd and the Purdue Boilermakers might well be on the schedule eventually.
The West Virginia game has been on national television three of the last six meetings, with the other games in the "Friends of Coal Bowl" being marketed on a statewide network of stations, including WOWK-TV 13 in the Huntington-Charleston market and WOAY-TV 4 in Oak Hill-Beckley.
This may be the last in the "Friends of Coal Bowl" series, as it was set up under former West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin for seven games between the Mountain State's only two Division I programs. Marshall is 0-11 all-time against WVU, with four games played between 1911-1923 and one more in 1997, MU's first year back in Division I-A (now D-I, FBS).
2012 Marshall Football Schedule
Sept. 1 at West Virginia-TBA
Sept. 8 WESTERN CAROLINA-6:30 p.m. ET
Sept. 15 OHIO-6:30 p.m. ET
Sept. 22 at Rice*-4:30 p.m. ET (CSS)
Sept. 29 at Purdue-TBA
Oct. 6 TULSA*-3:30 p.m. ET (CBSSN)
Oct. 20 at Southern Miss*-7 p.m. ET (CBSSN)
Oct. 27 UCF*-8 p.m. ET (CBSSN)
Nov. 3 MEMPHIS*-TBA
Nov. 10 at UAB*-4:30 p.m. ET (CSS)
Nov. 17 HOUSTON*-noon ET (CSS)
Nov. 23 at East Carolina*-2 p.m. ET (CBSSN)
All times subject to change
Home games are in BOLD CAPS
*- denotes a C-USA game.
Woody Woodrum, HI Sr. Editor and Marshall SID added to this story
