The SEC handed Texas A&M a frustrating setup for its Nov. 14 matchup with Tennessee, and the timing undercuts what was supposed to be the Aggies’ annual “Operation Blackout” game.
Texas A&M had already been dealing with a rough stretch on the schedule. As Billy Liucci pointed out, the Aggies will have been away from Kyle Field for nearly a month before they finally return to face Tennessee, and they also had to play Arizona State at noon in an extremely hot game two. Now comes another disappointment: the conference’s kickoff window for Tennessee is nowhere near the night slot A&M had been expecting.
Since the preseason, the Tennessee game had been one of the two most likely candidates for a night kickoff, along with Arkansas. Tennessee was also shaping up to be the tougher opponent, and that has played out, so A&M had reason to expect a later start.
Instead, the SEC announced that Texas A&M and Tennessee will kick at either 3 PM ET on ESPN or 4:15 PM ET on SEC Network, depending on the results of Nov. 7’s games.
The issue here isn’t that A&M has earned some special treatment and been denied it. It’s that the conference had room to make this a night game and simply didn’t.
South Carolina-Arkansas is currently sitting in the late SEC Network window, and that matchup doesn’t exactly scream ratings magnet. Both A&M and Tennessee have already beaten Arkansas, and South Carolina’s trip to Fayetteville figures to be all but settled by then.
The path the TV decision seems to have taken is pretty clear: Texas and LSU landed the late ABC slot, Kentucky and Florida got the late ESPN slot, and Texas A&M-Tennessee was left hanging in the middle. If Ole Miss and OU both win this weekend over UGA and Florida, respectively, then A&M and Tennessee could wind up in the afternoon ESPN window instead.
That’s the tradeoff the execs made: keep the possibility of an ESPN slot alive, and push A&M-Tennessee into an afternoon kickoff rather than locking it into the late SEC Network window. The result is that the Aggies’ Blackout game may not be a blackout at all.
Even with Standard Time in play, a 2 PM CT kickoff means the game will probably end before dark. A 3:15 start at least leaves a shot at a late third-quarter sunset, but that’s far from certain. This should have been a night game, and the TV decision looks like a miss that will land hardest on the fans.
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