FIBA WORLD CUP
ESPN will open the 2014 College Football season with Sam Houston State at Eastern Washington in the new FCS Kickoff today, Aug. 23, at 3:30 p.m. ET on ESPN. The only college game of the day, and the first Contest of the season, will match traditional Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) power programs that finished the 2013 season in the FCS Coaches poll (No. 3 Eastern Washington and No. 13 Sam Houston State) and are expected to be in the preseason FCS Coaches top 25 poll.
Sam Houston State of the Southland Conference at Eastern Washington of the Big Sky Conference will be the first game of an extensive schedule of FCS coverage across multiple ESPN platforms in 2014. The 2013 season included 58 regular-season games exclusively on ESPN3; all 23 games of the FCS Championship on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPN3; College GameDay Built by The Home Depot originating from North Dakota State; and multiplatform coverage of matchups against Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) programs.
lthough the B.C.S. was ridiculed and reviled, it is unclear whether the committee will do a better job separating the country’s fourth-best team from the fifth-best than the B.C.S. did picking the second and third. There are also new logistical questions. ESPN's coverage of the FBS - the most extensive among media networks with more than 400 games - will begin with matchups across multiple platforms on Thursday, Aug. 28, and conclude with exclusive telecasts of the inaugural College Football Playoff. Schedule details are being finalized.
In an office in Irving, Tex., there is a jar that as of early August contained about $17. The College Football Playoff’s staff members had decided to donate a dollar every time one of them referred to the new system as the college football playoffs. They planned to use the money to buy drinks, having quickly wised up to the fact that the plural was incorrect: Unlike previous years, when several bowl games collectively made up a murky postseason, this year there is only one playoff.
In the current climate of NCAA uncertainty, where smaller Division I athletic departments are more concerned about their future viability than getting into the facilities arms race, granting such a request with a snap of the fingers is practically unheard of. But at Liberty, a private evangelical school suddenly flush with cash and immense athletic ambitions, there is almost no amount of dirt officials won't move or concrete they won't pour these days to help break into the big time.
In the middle of a $500 million makeover of this campus, which sprouted up from the Blue Ridge Mountain foothills in 1971 under the name Lynchburg Baptist College and endured nearly 40 years of financial hardships and political controversies attached to its late founder, Jerry Falwell Sr., is a sparkling set of new athletic facilities that touch nearly all of Liberty's 20 varsity sports.
Its baseball stadium, which opened last year, has player and fan amenities that would put most of the neighboring SEC and ACC schools to shame. Its half-finished softball complex promises to be just as spectacular. In the past five years, new practice or playing facilities have gone up for soccer, field hockey, lacrosse, golf, track, basketball, volleyball and tennis.