Coastal Carolina will open the football season in a nationally televised night game
The Coastal Carolina football team will open up its 2020 season on national television, as the Chanticleers’ game at Kansas on Sept. 12 will be broadcast by Fox Sports 1.
Kickoff is set for 10 p.m. Eastern.
“It’s an awesome deal. Of course on the East Coast they might all be asleep by 10 o’clock,” Coastal head coach Jamey Chadwell said. “But anytime you can get on national television it’s a positive, no matter who you’re playing. no matter what you’re doing, that’s a big deal. You can showcase your university, you can showcase obviously your football program. You never know who’s watching. . . . Hopefully we’ll play well. That’s always good, too.
“That’ll be a good experience for us.”
There will be no spectators in attendance, however, because of the coronavirus pandemic.
On the advice of the University of Kansas’ Pandemic Medical Advisory Team, the school will begin the fall athletics season without fans allowed at events through September, the university announced on Monday.
“It’s definitely going to be tough because sometimes players feed off the crowd,” said CCU junior running back Shermari Jones, a junior college transfer. “That whole environment is definitely going to be something unordinary. But I feel we’ll be up for the test.”
The game was originally scheduled to be played at CCU’s Brooks Stadium on Sept. 26. But the Big 12 is allowing its members just one non-conference game that must be played at home this season, so the teams swapped home games over the next two seasons.
The Chants are now scheduled to host the Jayhawks on Sept. 11, 2021.
Coastal defeated Kansas 12-7 last Sept. 7 in Lawrence, Kansas, to record the program’s first-ever win over an opponent from a Power Five conference.
FS1 is broadcast through several outlets locally.
Coastal has yet to announce if fans will be allowed at its home opener on Sept. 19 against Campbell.
CCU has submitted a request to the South Carolina state government to host spectators for home games at Brooks Stadium – as well as home games in other sports – at a percentage of the venue’s capacity of approximately 20,000.
The state is allowing Clemson to have 19,000 fans at its games, or roughly 23 percent of capacity at Memorial Stadium, while South Carolina can have 20,000 spectators, which is nearly 25 percent of seating capacity at Williams-Brice Stadium.
“I know they’re working hard to try to have some fans there,” Chadwell said. “I’m assuming that’s going to be anywhere between 20 and 25 percent, if you’re following some of the other schools in our state.”
This story was originally published September 1, 2020 at 1:16 PM.
