ACC Announces Early Season Game Times

As if you weren’t already excited enough about the Pack’s non-conference schedule, the season-opener vs. I-AA powerhouse first-year I-A Georgia Southern will be televised at 12:30 on the ACC Network.

WRAL:

NC State’s season opener Aug. 30 against Georgia Southern will kick-off at 12:30 p.m. on ACC Network affiliates throughout the country. The Old Dominion contest on Sept. 6 will be broadcast on ESPN3 and have a 6 p.m. start.

Wolfpack legend Mario Williams, whose Buffalo Bills squad will play a preseason game on Aug. 28, will return to Carter-Finley for the Georgia Southern game to have his jersey officially honored. The three-time Pro Bowl selection, who is the only player in ACC history to be the top selection in the NFL draft, will see his No. 9 jersey added to the display in the stadium where he set school records for tackles for loss and sacks.

To be fair, it’s all about TV. This is simply the result of the contract with the ACC’s TV partners: every game is televised on some medium, and we drew the short straw for the second straight season with a 12:30 kickoff on the ACC Network.

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Home Forums ACC Announces Early Season Game Times

Viewing 25 posts - 1 through 25 (of 36 total)
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  • #52263
    StateFans
    Keymaster

    As if you weren’t already excited enough about the Pack’s non-conference schedule, the season-opener vs. I-AA powerhouse first-year I-A Georgia Southe
    [See the full post at: ACC Announces Early Season Game Times]

    #52265
    BJD95
    Keymaster

    F-ing great, our August game will be during the hottest part of the day. Death by boredom, death by August sun, or watch from home…

    #52266
    DRW
    Participant

    If it wasn’t apparent before, it should be now.

    The powers that be care NOTHING about the paying fans. From the god awful non conference schedule to the noon kickoffs in August.

    #52267
    13OT
    Participant

    I say take every NCSU official who agreed to yet another insane early-season noon kickoff and tie them to East Stadium seats at the 50 on August 30. Maybe after 4 hours of nonstop heat and generally Godawful football, they might realize why so many of us LTR fans are ready to bail.

    For 19 seasons, I’ve bought LTR seats for football, and this will POSITIVELY be my last one. Schedules like this one, not to mention being cooked like I was at the Clemson, Akron and other notable early kickoffs in the past, have led me to believe that we fans don’t matter anymore. It’s hot enough on the West Side where I sit, and I cannot imagine enduring 4 hours on the East Side from noon forward.

    Let alone watching ANY game shown on the ACC TV Network.

    #52268
    ncsslim
    Participant

    Last year’s La Tech game was miserably uncomfortable, and it wasn’t an overwhelmingly hot day for late summer standards. For us spoiled fans on the west side, we get baked as well in an August nooner. Generally, the only fun in the game is to watch the poor bastards on the east side and know they are not only watching mediocre football, but paying good money to watch it from hell. Sounds like a long half time in the making.

    #52269
    Wulfpack
    Participant

    There should be some other solid semi-competitive games on the tube to keep you mildy entertained to whet your football appetite. Candidates could be Clemson/UGA, Bama/WVU, UCLA/UVA, and Cal/Northwstern. And in the evening there are a couple dandies (at least by Week 1 standards anyways) in Arkansas/Aubie, Wiscy (and much of it in the Bayeaux)/LSU and FSU/Okie State.

    But for now we watch nothing for three months. Have a great off season, because it sure wasn’t a good season on the whole for Pack football, basketball and baseball this year. Here’s to success on all fronts in 2014-15.

    #52270
    kornegaylw
    Spectator

    The Pack better be ready to play. Georgia Southern is no joke…You can say what you want about them having just moved up to I-A but they know how to play on the road, i.e winning at the Swamp & at App State (Kidd Brewer is the most hostile stadium in NC) last year. This game will be interesting

    #52280
    choppack1
    Participant

    I don’t want to hear anything from ESPN or the NCAA about how they care about fans. It is insane to have games between noon-330 in August/early September in the south.

    You put players and fans at risk. Back before ac people could handle it…..not many folks are outside any more between 1230-400…for 3.5 hours.

    #52295
    ryebread
    Participant

    choppack1: Respectfully, I don’t think sitting outside for four hours puts the fans at risk. Unpleasant experience? Sure. At risk? Only to purchasing future tickets.

    I would admit that it could lead to heat exhaustion and dehydration for the players. Hydration will be an issue.

    We’re going to take every “broadcasted” game we can get as a program. It’s better to be on the ACC network at 12:30 than to not have any coverage at 7 PM.

    And nobody cares about the fans in the stands — not the NCAA, not the ACC and not the university. They care about eyes on the tube that generates way more revenue. Bowl games that are 20% filled has shown that.

    #52305
    13OT
    Participant

    Anyone who was in the East Stands for the Clemson game several seasons ago would take exception to a statement that they were “not at risk”. There were numerous EMS calls throughout this game, the most ever at C-F. And if it was that bad for the fans, imagine how bad it must have been for the players down on the field. I knew several people on the East side who had to leave at the half that day due to the oppressive early-afternoon heat.

    What’s worse, the ACC Network, which is an iron-clad noon kickoff deal, will continue to demand more and more of these games. There are going to be more and more empty seats in stadiums around the ACC if the idiotic noon kickoffs continue during September. Since the cameras have to face east, these empty seats will become harder to hide in the coming years.

    What the ACC should do is tell the ACC Network that they’ll have to start their September games later (4pm) or quit doing business with them. A 4pm game would easily be over by the 7pm “holy hour” if it wasn’t ridiculously dragged out the way the games are now.

    As far as the ACC Network goes, I can’t imagine that being shown by this two-bit network does anything to enhance your program’s stature. With 3 ESPN tv networks plus multiple Fox sports stations simultaneously showing far better college games, there are simply too many other tv choices. NCSU-Ga. Southern? Outside of Raleigh and Statesboro, NOBODY will want to watch this one, especially State fans who have East Stadium seats.

    One more thing about the 20%-capacity bowl games- they generate revenue because big corporations buy up most of this 20% capacity (all the good seats). Schools like NCSU can’t afford, for long, to continue scheduling noon kickoff games early on and expect to make a lot of money, especially with Sun Belt-level teams being the primary opponents.

    It’s time for ACC ADs and officials to make up their minds as to who is more important to their football programs’ futures- their booster club members or the ACC TV Network. I don’t know where AD Yow stands on this, but she had better wake up before State starts losing more LTR subscribers than they gain. Right now, road games against decent opponents (Tennessee and LSU) would generate more revenue than home games against opponents like Old Dominion and Presbyterian.

    #52307
    bradleyb123
    Participant

    They have no business complaining about fans not coming back to their seats in a timely fashion, after halftime I mean. We get scorcher noon games in early September, and the opponents are lackluster, as well. And it sounds like we may have scheduled the worst kind of “easy game” — one that can actually beat us.

    I just paid off my LTRs, so I’m not anxious to stop buying tickets yet. But if this keeps up, I may just do that.

    #52312
    Virginia Wolf
    Participant

    Game one! 12 noon in late Aug.???? What???? Okay, I won’t be there. Almost passed out at that Clemson game you all were referring to. This will be my LAST year to buy LTR tickets. The scheduliing is the reason, not the heat. I’m sick of paying out the nose to see these teams. We’ll lose the game against Ga. So. anyway. See you for the 1st confenence game of the season. I’m out!!!

    #52323
    LRM
    Keymaster

    There’s just so little surrounding our program lately to be excited about. We get a new coach every few years and C-F is expanded but we don’t have much to show for it. We rely on gimmicks.

    This is why the little things like an exciting non-conference home game matter to us LTR folks. It’s at least something. Hell, we finally got a fun game in Atlanta and ESPN moved it to Friday night.

    One of the main problems for those of us with LTRs and/or season tickets, is that if we don’t go — for whatever reason (for example, many NC folks head to the coast Labor Day weekend) — to a game — any game, really — there’s almost no secondary market for tickets. So we’re stuck with them.

    And no matter how much we’ve given, if we’re not in our seat for every snap, we’re a bad fan.

    #52326
    BJD95
    Keymaster

    I’m lucky to have gotten out before the secondary market collapsed. Trying to think how much one would have to pay me to sit there all game for Georgia Southern in August with noon kickoff.

    #52329
    Greywolf
    Participant

    What is an “exciting” game/schedule? We piss and moan about having to play home games against OOC teams other than top 25. Perhaps instead of Georgia Southern, Old Dominion, Presbyterian we would prefer to play Idaho, Bethune-Cookman, and Nevada – those 3 “exciting” OOC teams that Florida State beat by a combined score of 196 to 27. Those poor FSU fans got griping rights. WTF? 80 to 14, 64 to 7, 52 to 6? Not much excitement there. What we “fans” really expect and want is wins that vs. top 25 that are exciting and we want them now!
    I realize after reading the comments above that no one is serious but is merely engaging in some spring time pissing and moaning but the fact is nobody who is anybody is “excited” about playing NC State away from home — if at all.
    I get the complaints about the heat but complaining about the heat at an August football game is like complaining about going to your mother-in-laws for Sunday dinner.

    #52332
    choppack1
    Participant

    I just don’t like the kickoff time. I sit in the east side and while I can take it, it won’t create a pleasant experience for my 6 year old.

    Hell, you combine this game time, expected temperature and opponent – as bjd indicated you should probably pay fans for the game.

    I do think it would be a great gesture for yow to spend the entire game on the east side of.the stands. Show up early and not.leave until game is over.

    #52334
    BJD95
    Keymaster

    This would be a perfectly interesting schedule, and appropriate for our team’s development:

    Georgia Southern
    North Texas
    Purdue
    Mississippi State

    #52347
    LRM
    Keymaster

    Attendance has been down across all of college football — even the SEC.

    FSU is actually a good example of how the watered-down schedules are affecting attendance. They’ve had only a handful of sellouts the past few seasons and averaged only around 75,000 (88% capacity) in their 2013 national championship season.

    #52348
    tjfoose1
    Participant

    You all realize Ga Southern beat Florida at the Swamp last year, right? And that they were probably scheduled as supplemental

    prep for GT?

    The former makes having them on the schedule even worse, the latter makes it better.

    #52349
    LRM
    Keymaster

    They beat Florida in the swamp last year…without completing a single pass.

    #52363
    tjfoose1
    Participant

    Uh yeah. That’s what option offenses do. Not rely on the pass.

    #52368
    BJD95
    Keymaster

    I think most people agree that Georgia Southern is not the problem with this year’s schedule. Nor is THIS YEAR necessarily the problem. It’s the constant degradation of our schedule, and the fact that we provide so little value for our shareholders.

    #52378
    tjfoose1
    Participant

    Right. I was responding to what I perceived as disregard for Ga Southern as a quality opponent, if not a quality draw.

    #52381
    LRM
    Keymaster

    For the record, my comment was meant to reinforce yours.

    Like App, Georgia Southern was a longtime I-AA powerhouse, and their win over Florida was even more impressive because they did it entirely on the ground. It’s scary to think that could’ve been — or could be — us.

    #52388
    tjfoose1
    Participant

    I got that, LRM. If an option team doesn’t attempt a pass, it means all is going well, extremely well. No pass attempts means there was no need to try.

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