ESPN College Football Saturday Primetime | |
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Starring | Sean McDonough, Todd Blackledge and Molly McGrath |
Country of origin | United States |
Production | |
Running time | 3 hours (approximate) |
Release | |
Original network | ESPN |
Original release | 1984 present | –
ESPN College Football Primetime is a live game presentation of NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision college football on ESPN. In the past, the presenting sponsors have been Polaroid, AT&T and Hilton. The current presenting sponsor is PlayStation 5. The game telecast airs every Saturday night at 7:45pm ET during the college football regular season. The game is preceded by a 45-minute-long College Football Scoreboard with Matt Barrie, Joey Galloway and Jesse Palmer, all of whom also appear on the halftime report. This game telecast is also presented in high-definition on ESPN HD.
Since debuting in 1979, it has broadcast games from numerous conferences including the ACC, Big Ten and the Big East Conference. In recent years, it has primarily featured the SEC as the second-choice game to CBS' national coverage earlier in the day. Games from the other conferences typically could air either on ESPN/ESPN2 or ABC, but the SEC does not offer such flexibility. This game is often seen as the ESPN Game of the Week along with the Thursday night telecast.
Some notable voices of ESPN College Football Primetime over the years have been Ron Franklin, Mike Gottfried and Adrian Karsten, but all have gone on to different assignments, except for Karsten, who died in 2005. Currently, the primary commentators for the ESPN version are Sean McDonough on play-by-play, Todd Blackledge as analyst and Molly McGrath as field reporter. The secondary commentators are Chris Fowler on play-by-play, Kirk Herbstreit as analyst and Holly Rowe as field reporter, all of whom also serve as the primary commentating team for ABC's Saturday Night Football.
On October 14, 2006, ESPN College Football Primetime aired on five different networks as part of ESPN Full Circle. The networks included ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN360 and Mobile ESPN.
On October 1, 2005, in a game that Ron Franklin was calling along with Bob Davie, sideline reporter Holly Rowe called out Purdue defensive coordinator Brock Spack for using all three timeouts on defense despite trailing by four touchdowns late in the game. "If the coaches are giving up," Rowe added, "what does that say to the players?" Franklin responded: "Holly, it's not giving up. It's 49-21, sweetheart."
In response to that, Mo Davenport, senior coordinating producer for college football said, "It was an inappropriate comment, and we've communicated that to Ron. There's never a reason to say something so mean-spirited. Ron apologized. We dealt with it internally."
Game | Play- by- play | Analyst(s) | Field reporter(s) |
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1990 | Ron Franklin | Mike Gottfried | Adrian Karsten |
1991 | |||
1992 | |||
1993 | |||
1994 | |||
1995 | |||
1996 | |||
1997 | |||
1998 | |||
1999 | |||
2000 | |||
2001 | |||
2002 | |||
2003 | |||
2004 | Erin Andrews | ||
2005 | Bob Davie | Holly Rowe | |
2006 | Mike Patrick | Todd Blackledge | |
2007 | |||
2008 | |||
2009 | Brad Nessler | Erin Andrews | |
2010 | Holly Rowe | ||
2011 | |||
2012 | |||
2013 | |||
2014 | |||
2015 | |||
2016 | Joe Tessitore | ||
2017 | |||
2018 | Sean McDonough | ||
2019 | |||
2020 | Todd McShay | ||
2021 | Todd McShay and Molly McGrath | ||
2022 | Molly McGrath and Todd McShay (select games) |