Football coaches need to stop reading right now because we are about to look ahead one week. LSU, the fifth-ranked team, will travel to Starkville next Saturday to face Mississippi State. It is unknown when that game will begin. It could be 11:00 a.m., 2:30 p.m., or 5 p.m. The TV networks will decide the start time when they air the SEC games. Fans of LSU and State will have to wait until then before they can make their plans. The same situation applies to fans of Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, and South Carolina. They don’t know when the Florida at South Carolina and Kentucky at Georgia games will start. It could be morning. It could be afternoon. It could be evening. In some cases, flights may be involved. Motel/hotel rooms are also included. Reservations for dinner. Tail-gating preparations. Not to mention kids’ soccer games, fall baseball schedules and dance recitals. All plans should be put on hold. The SEC rarely knows kickoff times more than two weeks in advance, which is a real inconvenience for fans. This is insane. Question: Can you think of any other sport where the start time is unknown until six days before? Answer: No. Scott Stricklin, Florida athletic director, said that “no other sport does this.” “This week, one of our fans lives in Chicago and is a huge Bears fan. He explained to me that he can plan his schedules according to the Bears games and knows months in advance when they will be played. He has to wait two weeks and sometimes one week before he can plan for our games. It’s a problem when you see it that way. This is another barrier to people coming to the games. CBS is the problem. We know the SEC kickoff times thirteen days in advance. This is not ideal but it’s better than six. CBS has the option twice per season to see the results from Saturday’s previous Saturday’s games before choosing a game for the coveted 2:30 p.m. slot. CBS wanted to view the results of Saturday’s LSU, State-Tennessee and South Carolina-Georgia games before it decided on next week’s game. The other games will be placed by ESPN and the SEC Network after CBS has made its selection late Saturday night. Why has the Oct. 19 Texas A&M/Ole Miss game been scheduled for 6:30 p.m. ET on the SEC Network. It was rejected by CBS. It will also be noted that the Oct. 19 Tennessee-Alabama match, which was a CBS 2:30 event, has been moved to 8 p.m. ESPN. Why? There are two reasons. CBS isn’t interested in using up one of its five Bama games for what seems to be a mismatch, with Tennessee so far down this year. These TV contracts were signed long ago. Yes, ESPN and CBS pay a lot for the privilege of setting broadcasting times. Each conference school was paid $43 million and more this year. The networks accounted for 75 percent of this amount. One SEC athletic director stated that “you go around the league’s campus and you see all the new athletic facilities. Most of these were built by CBS and ESPN. However, this observer believes there should be a happy middle ground and some common sense in the next TV negotiations. You will have noticed a significant change in the last few seasons if you are a fan of SEC football on television. You can now see large swathes of empty seats in areas where once there were butts. It seems that many people are staying at home or at their tailgates. There are many reasons. Here’s one reason: Football was not intended to be played at 11 AM or in the early afternoon of September in Mississippi. This is borderline insane. The fact is that Mississippi State issued extreme heat advisories to its three first home games of the season. The heat indexes reached over 100 degrees. It was dangerous. John Cohen, the state athletic director, stated that it was dangerous. Your fan base can be affected by playing at 11 o’clock every day, no matter what. Heat is the greatest in September.” The current CBS contract will run through 2023-24. ESPN will last much longer. My guess is that more fans will stay home._x000D