Cats, Cards go with Sunday football opener on ESPN

The University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville will play their annual football game on Sunday, Aug. 31, at 3:30 p.m. The game will be televised by ESPN.

U of L had requested that the game be played on Monday night, Sept. 1, to accommodate an 8 p.m. ESPN Labor Day telecast. But UK refused, saying it needed more time to prepare for a home game with Norfolk State the following week.

Tennessee and UCLA moved their originally scheduled Aug. 30 game to Monday night and will be shown in the prime-time Labor Day slot instead.

When the NFL decided in 2002 to begin its season after Labor Day weekend, that opened up television slots for college football. ESPN asked Louisville and Kentucky to move their scheduled game to Sunday that year, and an ESPN affiliate has carried the game for six straight seasons.

UK finished 8-5 last year while Louisville went 6-6, but both teams lost several key cogs from their respective offenses, including quarterbacks Andre Woodson and Brian Brohm.

ESPN Vice President of Programming Dave Brown said the Kentucky-Louisville game is always attractive to the network when it's played on the season's opening weekend.

'Every time the game has been played on the first weekend, we've televised it,' Brown said. 'Obviously it's a tremendous rivalry, and there aren't many rivalry games that first weekend. We've gotten great cooperation from both sides in moving the game to Sunday in the past, and this year was no different. We believe this year's game is really attractive because both teams are starting with a clean slate.'

Last season, Kentucky expressed a preference for playing the game later in the year, and the two schools reached an agreement that allows the home team to pick the date of the game. The game will be the season opener when its played in Louisville and will take place later in September when UK is the host. The 2007 game was played on Sept. 15 and carried by ESPN Classic.

This year's game will take place on the same day as the Ford Ironman Triathlon, which will attract 2,500 athletes from all over the world. Part of the 26.2 mile run will go past Papa John's Cardinal Stadium.

Steve Meckfessel, the race director for the triathlon, said he'll work closely with city officials to make sure things run smoothly.

'When there's two major events in a centralized area, there's going to be some operational challenges that we'll have to deal with,' Meckfessel said. 'We've anticipated that this could happen for a couple of months, and we've already been in contact with the police department and traffic control engineers. With Louisville's market size and expertise in managing two events effectively, we think everything will be fine.'