Scheduling

Last night ESPNU was running one of my favorite programs of all time. The 1984 college football game between BC and Miami. That's right the famous Hail Mary game. I can watch the end of that game several times a year and it never gets old (I bet it gets old for Mr. Flutie but sometimes you have to accept your 15 minutes and go with it). The only game that comes close to the level of enjoyment is the 1980 Miracle on Ice. I must admit I like the BC radio call better than Brent Musburger's ("Phalen is down there", "Oh, he got it!!" just has a little extra something to it).

According to the guide on my cablebox, the game was supposed to get over at 10:30pm. They had a three hour slot planned for it. I figured it would get over right around the same time as the Adamek-Cunningham cruiserweight fight on Versus (as an aside, that was a truly terrific fight, three knockdowns, lots of action, 12 full rounds, not a lot of blood, and a close and deserving winner - fight of the year candidate and rematch potential) so I was doing a lot of flipping.

As 10:30pm approached I realized that the game was not going to get over by 10:30pm. BC was going on their next to last scoring drive and still needed to give the ball back to Bernie Kosar for their touchdown with 30 seconds left and the ensuing Flutie miracle drive. There was no way it would end by 10:30pm. This got me to thinking...

This game has been over for 24 years. Everyone knows how it ends. There is no surprise here. The network knows for a fact exactly what moment this game is going to end. If they want it to fit in a 3 hour window (which is what the guide said it would be on for) then they could edit it or cut commercials or whatever to make it fit in that three hour window. It's not like it was a surprise to someone that this game could go over the allotted time. And yet here I was, 10:40pm, with the guide telling me some new program was coming on but the BC replay is still showing (and would show all the way until 11pm). Maybe someone was hoping BC would get an interception of Kosar and stop that last drive, maybe they thought the teams would work faster this time. I dunno. All I know is that it was pretty funny to see a station unable to schedule their programming around a game that ended 24 years ago and had been rebroadcast more times than I can count.

Maybe I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill, but I found it amusing and wanted to share with you my loyal readers.