If you couldn't tell, I'm playing catch-up a tad today, so here's two bits from the scheduling office that came in, oh, around noon.
First up, and most directly, the kickoff time for the Maryland-FIU game on Sept. 25th was set to 12:00, and will be on ESPNU. Pretty good deal, if'n you ask me; not only is on TV, so we don't have to deal with another ESPN3 fiasco ("Del-Ray Scott"), but it's also the early game. Quite frankly, I've always loved them: they give me plenty of time to get game content up that day, and I can still enjoy Saturday night. Best of both worlds.
Meantime, the athletic department also announced that they've renewed the rivalry series with West Virginia through 2017. I was hoping that this might be delayed a little bit, so Maryland and Navy could work out a deal, but it's still not bad. It just means that either Maryland will have to play three high-major opponents one year (or only play Navy and West Virginia, which isn't that exciting of a proposition but might be better) or hold off on the Crab Bowl for a few more years.
Regardless, it got done, which was the most important thing. Navy's getting there, but West Virginia is the closest thing Maryland has to a football rival, and skipping two seasons never made sense to me. I can't think of much that Maryland got out of the Cal series; they still don't recruit on the West Coast, and I can't imagine Cal sold more tickets at Byrd than West Virginia would've.
All that's in the past, though, and it's a good thing to see that it won't be repeated. At least not for another seven years.