I kept hearing about the "traditional" 11am slot for the RRS. It isn't tradition. It's a legacy of the cruddy Big 12 TV contracts and the inability of Texas and/or OU to command national attention that early in the season. Since a lot of national rivals now play on the 2nd Saturday in October, ABC/ESPN didn't want to go up against nationally prominent games.
I'm optimistic that calculation can change going forward.
Well you're half right-- the 11 AM time slot certainly isn't "traditional" unless you consider history only since about 2008 or so.
But the 11 AM time slot IS the preferred "national" timeslot for both ABC and Fox. It's why B1G fans are so upset with Fox, Fox puts ALL of the high profile B1G games there at 11 AM (Fox "Big Noon" game), including Michigan-Ohio State. And ABC considers it to be the premier timeslot of the day as well, at least during daytime hours. Their primetime games are also big, but we all know the TX-OU game is never going to be played at the Cotton Bowl, at night.
The proliferation of additional ESPN channels and ESPN+ streaming and reverse-mirroring capability has somewhat diminished the importance of the 11 AM "national" timeslot, but the reason TX-OU keeps getting stuck there, is BECAUSE it's a big game.
But CBS has trained the country that the big-time SEC games are played at 2:30 (or primetime), so now TX-OU is going to shift into that slot.
Overall I'm ambivalent. When I was younger and staying out late in Dallas on Friday night, I hated the early kickoff. But now that I'm old, I don't mind the early kickoff so much, getting the game over early, and enjoying the rest of my Saturday afternoon/evening. So I can go either way on it.
