6/20/2010 football Edit

ESPN eyes Texas doubleheader for national high school broadcasts

David McNabb

TheOldCoach.com Senior Editor

ESPN is in the final stages of negotiating a nationally broadcast doubleheader with Texas football powers Cibolo Steele and rival San Antonio Madison followed by Euless Trinity vs. Tyler Lee at the Trinity Mother Frances Football Classic in East Texas.

With a few details before contracts signed, the game is being scheduled for ESPN's main channel rather than a sister-station such as ESPNU or ESPN2 which don't have as broad of access. ESPN officials had been negotiating with Lake Travis vs. Austin Westlake at UT's DKR Field but the school's have apparently decided not to move the game from Friday (Aug. 27) to Saturday (Aug. 28.).

Trinity coach Steve Lineweaver and Lee coach Mike Owens have agreed to a date switch according to tylerpaper.com and Lake Travis and Westlake are looking at moving a much-preferred day of Friday for their game to Saturday.

Officials at Steele and SA Madison have re-scheduled their game to Aug. 28 and are anticipating the matchup with be broadast live by ESPN.

The ESPN broadcasts can't be done live on Fridays because of University Interscholastic League rules governing Texas high school football.

Trinity is the defending Class 5A Division I state champs while Lee reached the 5A Division I quarterfinals last year.

The high-profile teams and marquee athletes Cibolo Steele running back Malcolm Brown, defensive tackle Marquis Anderson, Madison running back Aaron Green and Trinity's WR/DB/QB Brandon Carter (an Oklahoma commit) have made this a focal point of ESPN's potential national high school coverage.

Brown is considered by some the nation's top recruit and has narrowed his list to last year's national championship foes Texas and Alabama.

Texas is hoping its in-state tie and pro-style offense lures Brown while Alabama is luring the Adrian Peterson-like back to be the heir to 2009 Heisman Trophy running back Mark Ingram.

[rl]