NCAA tries to infiltrate Tuesday TV

By Chris Duncan ~ The Associated Press

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Are you ready for some football? On a Tuesday?

Conference USA officials hope so.

Tuesday night's game between Southern Mississippi (3-1, 1-1 Conference USA) and Louisville (5-1, 1-0) will be a first for the league. Officials with the NCAA, the league and both schools could not confirm whether a regular-season college football game had ever been played on a Tuesday.

The league agreed to schedule games on odd nights as part of an eight-year deal struck with ESPN last December. Last month, Purdue played Cincinnati on a Sunday and Mississippi State was host to Memphis on a Monday.

"We're just trying to do something different," said Conference USA assistant commissioner Brian Teter. "It's a year-to-year thing. We'll have to wait and see how it goes to see if we continue to do it. It's an experiment."

Louisville coach John L. Smith predicts Tuesday night games will catch on.

"It's going to end up being just like Thursday nights," Smith said. "Sports bar people are going to love it. Wives are going to hate it."

The league chose its last two champions to be its first two guinea pigs.

The Golden Eagles had never lost a conference game at home before Louisville's 49-28 win in Hattiesburg last November. The Cardinals went on to win their first Conference USA title, while Southern Miss fell short for just the second time in the league's five-year history.

Smith said the Golden Eagles are still the measuring stick of the league.

"Southern Miss is as good as anyone and has the capability of beating everybody," Smith said. "But we're catching up."

The Cardinals are coming off a 7-2 win over Colorado State on Oct. 4.