Canes and Buckeyes to Play in Primetime
AMELIA ISLAND, Fla.– The University of Miami’s 2011 home game against Ohio State on Sept. 17 has been designated as either a 7:30 p.m. or 8 p.m. kickoff on either ABC on ESPN, Atlantic Coast Conference Commissioner John Swofford announced Wednesday at the conference’s annual spring meetings.
The game has been selected as a primetime option along with the Oklahoma-Florida State game scheduled for the same day.
Last season, Ohio State came away with a 36-24 win over Miami in Columbus on Sept. 1. OSU owns a 3-1 advantage in the all-time series between the two schools. This year’s game will mark the first ever played between Canes and the Buckeyes in South Florida.
The ACC also released game times and TV networks for all home games for the league in its first three weeks of the season, as well as for all of its 2011 Thursday night games and all national television games confirmed to date.
“This is an exciting time for the Atlantic Coast Conference as we kickoff our new 12-year multimedia partnership with ESPN,” Swofford said. “This year’s ACC Football schedule is terrific in terms of exposure, competition and possibility for our teams. I’m looking forward to the season and it’s culmination in Charlotte when the Dr Pepper ACC Football Championship Game kicks off in primetime.”
The 2011 ACC Football Championship Game, which will be played on December 3 in Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, N.C., will have an 8 p.m. kickoff and will be nationally televised by ESPN. It will be the second straight prime time exposure for the ACC title game which drew of a crowd of 72,379 fans in its Charlotte debut last year.
The ACC will have two syndicated packages produced by the ACC Network this fall. As in the past, the ACC Network will produce a game of the week which will actually expand to the opening week of the season, debuting with Appalachian State at Virginia Tech on Sept. 3.
New to this year will be the addition of a second ACC Network production which will air on the Regional Sports Networks throughout the ACC footprint. This package will debut with James Madison at North Carolina on Sept. 3 and features a doubleheader on Sept. 17 beginning with Kansas at Georgia Tech (12:30 pm), and concluding with Arkansas State at Virginia Tech (4 pm).
ACC network syndicated games will have a new, later kickoff time of 12:30 p.m.; while the Regional Sports Network package will be no earlier than 12:30 p.m., with several games slated for 3:30 p.m. or later.
Game times for Miami’s games at Maryland (Sept. 5) and against Virginia (Oct. 27) and Boston College (Nov. 25) had been announced previously. The Canes will take on the Terps at 8 p.m. on ESPN on Labor Day, the Cavaliers on a Thursday night at 8 p.m. on ESPN and the Eagles on the Friday after Thanksgiving at 3:30 p.m. on ABC.
