BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — The Southeastern Conference and ESPN announced Tuesday the game times and networks for the first three weekends of the college football schedule.
Mississippi State will play host to South Alabama in its season opener at 11 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 3 (SEC Network). MSU will welcome South Carolina to Davis Wade Stadium for its SEC opener at 6 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 10. ESPN or ESPN2 will televise the game.
MSU’s game at LSU will be at 6 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 17. ESPN or ESPN2 will broadcast the game.
All three games will be available on WatchESPN.com and the Watch ESPN app via mobile devices.
MSU, which is coming off the winningest two-year stretch in program history, returns 43 letterwinners from a squad that went 9-4 and won the Belk Bowl last season. Eighth-year head coach Dan Mullen has guided the Bulldogs to a school-record six straight bowl games, and he owns the highest winning percentage at MSU since 1948 (.611).
Since the start of the 2014 season, MSU owns the SEC’s third-best record at 19-7.
Ole Miss will play its home opener against Wofford at 3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 10 (SEC Network).
Fans at the home opener will get to experience a renovated Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. The bowled-in north end zone will increase capacity to 64,038 (largest facility in the state of Mississippi), while the south end zone has been renovated to include 30 new field-level luxury suites. There also will be three new videoboards and new sound system and stadium lights.
The game comes on the heels of the team’s season opener against Florida State at 7 p.m. Monday, Sept. 5, in Orlando, Florida. ESPN will broadcast that game.
Ole Miss will play host to Alabama at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 17 (WCBI).
Alabama’s game against Western Kentucky will kick off at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 10 (ESPN2).
The Crimson Tide and Hilltoppers will meet for the third time in series history. Alabama won the initial meeting 41-7 in 2008. It shut out Western Kentucky 35-0 in 2012. Both games were played at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Alabama will begin its season on at 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 3, against Southern California in the AdvoCare Classic at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. ABC, which is WKDH-WTVA on local cable systems, will broadcast the game.
The Southern Mississippi football team will play its season opener at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 3, at Kentucky. ESPNU will broadcast the game live.
n AP source: Sun Belt to implement championship game in 2018: The Sun Belt Conference will implement a football championship game in 2018, a person with direct knowledge of the decision told The Associated Press on Tuesday night.
The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the conference had an announcement planned on Wednesday during a teleconference with Commissioner Karl Benson and Texas State President Denise Trauth.
ESPN was first to report the Sun Belt’s decision.
With the Big 12 Conference announcing last week it will bring its championship game back in 2017, the Sun Belt becomes the last of the 10 FBS conferences to play a football title game.
In 2018, the Sun Belt is set to be a 10-team conference. Football-only members Idaho and New Mexico State are departing the conference after 2017 and Coastal Carolina is moving up from the Football Championship Subdivision to join the Sun Belt in 2018.
The NCAA earlier this year approved a measure pushed for by the Big 12 to allow conferences to hold a championship football game with less than the previously required minimum of 12 teams, split into two divisions.
The Big 12 stopped playing a championship game after realignment whittled the conference down to 10 teams in 2011, but the league decided to bring it back to increase revenue and improve its chances to place a team in the College Football Playoff.
The Sun Belt hopes a championship game could give the conference a revenue boost as well.
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