The ACC has its first top-25 matchup of the season between SMU and Pittsburgh. The game has ACC Title game implications, playoff implications, and may end up being the only top 20 ACC game prior to the ACC Championship.
Did gameday go to SMU for the game? Nope – ESPN preferred to hype their 4th game this year that they won’t televise in Penn State and Ohio State. It’s an odd move to be sure to keep having Gameday at Big 10 sites. Well, certainly the game ended up on ABC or ESPN? No, and certainly it should have ended up on one or the other.
The ACC Network will be televising it in primetime. Hmm – did ESPN just relegate a top 20 ACC matchup, well to a certain extent.
Some things to note though – ESPN didn’t totally ignore the ACC. Miami vs Duke is a noon ABC game, and Clemson vs Louisville is an ESPN prime time game at 730. For whatever reason ESPN selected those as higher profile games.
What about the CW, ESPN2, or any other ESPN Channel? I’d argue if the SMU and Pitt didn’t end up on ACC ESPN the ACC Network is not a bad consolation prize. As @TuckerBlanc pointed out, it’s not the first top 25 matchup to end up on a conference network.
It should’ve been ABC 7:30 but it’s pretty similar to Texas/Vandy on SECN last week. In sone cases ACCN/SECN seem to get priority over ESPN
— Tucker Blankinship (@TuckerBlanc) October 31, 2024
What the ACC Network is doing is giving a top 20 matchup the proper coverage it deserves. As they’ve done all year for their primetime game ACC Huddle will be televised live from the prime time site all day long. Gameday can have Penn State and Ohio State, but I’m going to watch ACC Huddle for my college football pre-game show.
Heck, I’ve been doing it most of the year, and if you’re a fan of an ACC School, you should be too.
