CBS releases 2013 SEC Game of the Week schedule, opens with Alabama vs. Texas A&M

Gary Danielson and Verne Lundquist return for another year of college football on CBS. Photo: CBS Sports

CBS is entering its 13th season broadcasting SEC football and this one is going to start with what could be the game of the year. The CBS SEC Game of the Week coverage begins Saturday, September 14 with the much-anticipated match-up of SEC West powers, Alabama and Texas A&M. The Aggies, of course, stunned the eventual BCS champions last year in Tuscaloosa so Nick Saban and his Tide will be looking for revenge. And you never want to face Saban under those circumstances, right? The game between potential BCS championship contenders (dare we say BCS Championship Preview?) kicks off at 3:30 pm Eastern in College Station, Texas.

In addition to 16 SEC games during the regular season, which includes a pair of double headers and the SEC Championship Game, CBS will also air the annual Army-Navy Game, Navy’s home game against Air Force, and the Sun Bowl. Each CBS broadcast will be led in to by a half hour edition of College Football Today to get caught up on the early action and preview the games still to be played. Here is the full CBS schedule at the moment, as provided by CBS Sports in a press release today:

• September 14: Alabama at Texas A&M (3:30 PM)
• September 21: SEC Game of the Week (Teams TBA, 3:30 PM)
• September 28: SEC Game of the Week (Teams TBA, 3:30 PM)
• October 5: Air Force at Navy (11:30 AM), SEC Game of the Week (Teams TBA, 3:30 PM)
• October 12: SEC Game of the Week (Teams TBA, 3:30 PM)
• October 19: SEC Doubleheader (Teams TBA, 12 PM, 3:30 PM)
• October 26: SEC Game of the Week (Teams TBA, 3:30 PM)
• November 2: SEC Game of the Week (Teams TBA, 3:30 PM)
• November 9: SEC Doubleheader (Teams TBA, 3:30 PM, 8 PM)
• November 16: SEC Game of the Week (Teams TBA, 3:30 PM)
• November 23: SEC Game of the Week (Teams TBA, 3:30 PM)
• November 29 (Friday): Arkansas at LSU (2:30 PM)
• November 30: SEC Game of the Week (Teams TBA, 3:30 PM)
• December 7: SEC Championship Game (4 PM)
• December 14: Army-Navy Game (3 PM)
• December 31: Sun Bowl (2 PM)

The future of CBS Sports and their place in SEC broadcast emphasis should be interesting to watch in the coming years. When ESPN debuts the SEC Network in August 2014 the network has a chance to become the true voice of the conference. It appears as though CBS is keeping a hold on their place covering games of the week, but long will that last as ESPN and the SEC Network move forward?

Don Draper missed out on a great Cotton Bowl

Don Draper missed one heck of a moment in college football history.

I’m a big fan of the show Mad Men, which aired the latest season premiere Sunday night. In the episode we see our favorite ad man Don Draper share an elevator ride with someone who works in his office that he barely recognizes. It turns out this employee of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, Bob Benson in accounts, is able to get tickets to the 1968 Cotton Bowl between Alabama and Texas A&M. Benson appears to admire Don’s work and wants to try and emulate his success. This will surely be a story that develops throughout the season now that Peggy Olsen has moved on to bigger and better things after years as Don’s upcoming apprentice of sorts.

Don appears to have little time to waste on sports throughout the series. It just doesn’t seem like his thing. Don would rather be smoking a cigarette, sipping on an Old Fashion (neat) and either coming up with new ad campaigns on a napkin or scoping out his latest woman to fancy, when his eye somehow wanders away from his lovely wife and aspiring actress Megan.

So, what game did Don miss out on? One of the greats.

… Continue Reading

AJ McCarron tells Aaron Murray he doesn’t win enough

If there is one thing we have come to learn about Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron over the past year, it is that he talks the talk and walks the walk. McCarron has now won back-to-back national championships as Alabama’s starting quarterback and he will be back in 2013 to make a run at a rare three-peat. He won’t be afraid to talk some smack along the way either with SEC rivals.

One of the hot topics of conversation in the Twittersphere during last night’s BCS Championship was AJ McCarron’s girlfriend. It prompted Georgia quarterback Aaron Murray to suggest she should switch over and be a Georgia fan. McCarron responded on Twitter…

@aaronmurray11 u don’t win enough bud!! #15

— AJ McCarron (@10AJMcCarron) January 8, 2013

Murray’s Bulldogs came up a few yards shy against Alabama in the SEC Championship game, a point noted by Nick Saban during a postgame interview on ESPN following the game and celebration. Both quarterbacks will be back next year. Here’s hoping more comes out of this. … Continue Reading

BCS Championship: Frame by frame of Ha’Sean Clinton-Dix’s fantastic interception

Alabama had no problem with Notre Dame in the BCS Championship Game. Down 28-0 out of halftime, Notre Dame needed to a miracle. Unfortunately for the Irish, their most promising drive of the game to that point ended with a spectacular interveption by Alabama’s Ha’Sean Clinton-Dix.

Clinton-Dix showed great determination in flying in to come up with an interception off a tipped pass by teammate Dee Milliner, who was defending Notre Dame’s DaVaris Daniels along the right sideline. Somehow he managed to take possession, get a toe down and maintain possession to the ground.

It was that kind of night for the Fighting Irish.

Check out rhe frame-by-frame images, as captured by Getty Images photographer Kevin C. Cox. … Continue Reading

This BCS Championship Game is for the purists

Alabama and Notre Dame meet for the first time since 1987. The Crimson Tide are 0-2 in bowl games, including the 1973 Sugar Bowl.

Since the dawn of the BCS era, this is the game many of us have been waiting for. “We” being the purists of the game.

Don’t get me wrong, USC and Texas was great and deserves a spot among the top games in the history of the sport. Ohio State and Miami also etched a classic between college football powers. But Monday night something different will be in the air in Miami. The aura of college football history filling Sun Life Stadium may go uncontested for years, or decades before anything close to this match-up develops again as we transition in to the era of a four-team playoff.

Notre Dame. Alabama. This is college football history at its finest. Storied college football programs go toe-to-toe for the ultimate prize, and if that does not get you excited about the sport, then what possibly could?

We’re talking about two programs with a combined total of 25 claimed national championships and 1,691 total wins.

The Four Horsemen. Win one for the Gipper. The Golden Domers and Touchdown Jesus.

The Bear. Goal Line Stand. The Kick. The most bowl victories in college football history.

These are two programs who were among college football’s elite on a routine basis in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. They started to fall back to the pack a little bit in the 1990s, leaving fan bases either starving for a return to glory or stuck in their old ways believing their favorite programs could still do no wrong and it would only be a matter of when, not if their school would get back to the top.

Alabama has been back on top of the college football world for a few years now after a long-awaited return to such national prominence. The hiring of Nick Saban resurrected the program and brought Alabama back to a point where winning SEC titles is not a goal, but an expectation that is penciled in at the beginning of the season.

Notre Dame is hoping that this season marks the beginning of a similar level of success. Despite running the table with a 12-0 record, holding the top spot in the polls and BCS standings, road victories at Oklahoma and USC along with home wins against Michigan, Stanford and BYU, the Fighting Irish are a decided underdog against the Crimson Tide, the defending BCS champions.

But Monday night will not be Joe Montana vs. Joe Namath. It is not Knute Rockne vs. Bear Bryant. It is not even Rudy vs. Forest Gump (Forest Gump an easy 13 point favorite in a neutral theater by the way).

When the game kicks off history will be just another backstory with no impact on the game itself. … Continue Reading