Prime Time, Pard'ner | by Pat
ABC/ESPN released their newest broadcast plan with the announcement of ABC Saturday Night College Football. Once limited to a few night games a year, this fall ABC will feature a primetime game each and every week. The Fighting Irish figure prominently into this new lineup as ND will be featured on three such primetime broadcasts. The season opening Georgia Tech game, along with the games against Michigan State and USC will all be broadcast on ABC with kickoff scheduled for 8:00 pm E.T.
It seems that new Westwood One radio play-by-play man Don Criqui might get a larger audience than anticipated as ABC also announced that the broadcast tandem of Brent Musberger and Bob Davie will be calling all of the primetime games. Ack. If ESPN Gameday is in town, as it will be for the Georgia Tech game, then Kirk Herbstriet will join the Brent and Bob show up in the booth and hopefully get to add intelligent conversation to the mix. When the duo are up in the booth for the night game in East Lansing, I wonder if Brent will ask Bob how his last time under the Spartan Stadium lights went.
With this announcement, the 2006 schedule is nearly complete. All that remains is the kickoff for the game against Navy. For the first time since 1998, no ND game will appear on ESPN. In year's past the ND-Air Force game has been an ESPN game, but this year Air Force, as part of the Mountain West Conference, is in agreement with CSTV for home game broadcasts.
all times Eastern
| Sat | 09/02/06 | Georgia Tech | Atlanta, GA | ABC | 8:00 PM |
| Sat | 09/09/06 | Penn State | Notre Dame Stadium | NBC | 3:30 PM |
| Sat | 09/16/06 | Michigan | Notre Dame Stadium | NBC | 3:30 PM |
| Sat | 09/23/06 | Michigan State | East Lansing, MI | ABC | 8:00 PM |
| Sat | 09/30/06 | Purdue | Notre Dame Stadium | NBC | 2:30 PM |
| Sat | 10/07/06 | Stanford | Notre Dame Stadium | NBC | 2:30 PM |
| Sat | 10/21/06 | UCLA | Notre Dame Stadium | NBC | 2:30 PM |
| Sat | 10/28/06 | Navy | Baltimore, MD | CBS | TBA |
| Sat | 11/04/06 | North Carolina | Notre Dame Stadium | NBC | 2:30 PM |
| Sat | 11/11/06 | Air Force | Colorado Springs, CO | CSTV | 4:00 PM |
| Sat | 11/18/06 | Army | Notre Dame Stadium | NBC | 2:30 PM |
| Sat | 11/25/06 | USC | Los Angeles, CA | ABC | 8:00 PM |
