ESPN College Football

Posted by ESPN.com's Adam Rittenberg

A look at the 2009 ACC composite schedule released earlier Thursday illustrates how leagues take different approaches toward football scheduling. 

The ACC opens its season on a Thursday night, as NC State hosts South Carolina. The league features five more Thursday night games as well as a Labor Day (Monday) matchup between rivals Miami and Florida State.

Midweek games are nothing new in college football, especially in the last few years. Football is an every-day affair, and while the non-BCS leagues are a big reason why, the bigger-name teams are also willing to give up a Saturday or two. One of last season's biggest moments came on a Thursday night, as top-ranked USC fell at Oregon State. 

But the Big Ten has largely stiff-armed the midweek trend, and it figures to stay that way. The league played all of its games on Saturdays last fall. In 2007, Northwestern faced Eastern Michigan on a Friday night in a contest that had to be moved because of high school games at Ford Field in Detroit.

The Big Ten hasn't played a true midweek game since 2006, when Minnesota and Northwestern opened against Kent State and Miami (Ohio), respectively, on a Thursday night. 

Mark Rudner, the Big Ten's associate commissioner for television administration, told me in an e-mail today that only on a "very rare occasion" would a Big Ten game get moved from a Saturday. This would only occur during the first or last week of the season. The Big Ten's television agreements are based on Saturday games.

I'm a bit greedy when it comes to college football and wouldn't mind seeing Big Ten games every night of the week (it's hard to keep track of everything on Saturdays). But midweek games present logistical problems for coaches, players and even fans, who plan their travel and tailgating around fall Saturdays. 

Plus, the Big Ten really has no reason to move away from Saturdays, given its strong ratings during the regular season and the bowls. It would seem very un-Big Ten to have, say, Iowa play Penn State on a Thursday night. Then again, I wouldn't complain.