A few Ute fans have been expressing concern about their football team's season opener. Utah-at-Oregon State will be telecast on Fox Sports Northwest — and, of course, we don't get Fox Sports Northwest here in Utah.
Hey — you don't think our friends at Fox Sports Utah would let us down, do you?
Fox Sports Net is, of course, a bunch of regional sports channels across the country. Some programming goes across the whole amalgamation (most notably "The Best Damn Sports Show Period"), but most of what airs on any one channel is, well, regional.
It makes sense, of course, that Fox Sports Northwest would carry a college football game featuring Oregon State and Utah. But it also makes sense that Fox Sports Utah would pick up the game.
It's not rocket science. And they're not dummies at Fox Sports Utah.
Basically, if you can get Jazz games on FSN, you'll see Utah at Oregon State on that same channel. You'll get an hourlong pregame at 7 p.m. on Thursday, followed by the game at 8 p.m.
No worries.
By the way, FSN's telecast of Utah at Oregon State will kick off the Mountain West Conference football season.
As the season approaches, here are the channels you'll have to have in your lineup at home to see the local Division I-A teams:
BYU: Versus (three games); CSTV (three); The mtn. (seven). That adds up to 13 because the BYU-Utah game is on both CSTV and The mtn.
Utah: Fox Sports Net (one game); The mtn. (six); Versus (two); CSTV (two ); ESPN (one). The San Diego State game is not scheduled to air on TV, and then there's CSTV/The mtn. doubling up on Utah-BYU.
Utah State: Altitude (four games); The mtn. (two); KJZZ (four).
I know, I know ... a lot of you can't get The mtn. even if you want to. But there's at least a chance you can get Versus and CSTV. And, if you live in Utah, you may already have Altitude in your cable lineup.
Hurrah for KJZZ and its commitment to high school football. It's a great idea to air a weekly prep game-of-the-week on Friday nights.
I can only hope lots of people watch and the increased exposure will get some of those people to actually go attend a game in person.
But (and you knew there'd be a "but," didn't you?), I can't say that I'm much impressed with the decision to tape-delay tonight's Davis-at-Brighton game at 11 p.m. on Ch. 14. Particularly because it's being delayed to make way for an NFL preseason game.
Not that I have anything against the NFL, of course. And it's certainly not a bad idea for KJZZ to have picked up both Raiders and Broncos preseason games.
But it's preseason NFL football. In other words, it's essentially a scrimmage.
Personally, I'd rather watch a game that means something. And, while Davis and Brighton is a non-region matchup, the outcome is going to count on their records, whereas neither the Rams nor the Raiders will count the outcome of their game or anything that happens in it.
Should've aired the prep game live and delayed the NFL preseason contest.
Well, at least next week's Viewmont at Bountiful game is scheduled to air live.
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com