College football Wednesday night: Complete schedule for remainder of 2017 season

There are nine Wednesday night college football games scheduled to take place this season, with a little Sun Belt action to whet the appetite in October before MACtion takes over fully in November.

The games are often meaningless, but frequently fun. On a Wednesday last season, the Arkansas State Red Wolves defeated the Georgia Southern Eagles, 27-26. This matchup came down to the wire, culminating in Omar Bayless snagging an 8-yard touchdown pass with nine seconds remaining to win the game for the Red Wolves. We’ll see another meeting between Arkansas State and Georgia Southern on Oct. 4, before South Alabama travels to Troy on Oct. 11. Then the real fun starts.

Like in years past, Wednesday night means MACtion — Mid-American Conference football’s fun and sometimes high-powered offenses on display. The MAC and ESPN agreed on a deal in 2014 that allows ESPN to broadcast every MAC football game. This deal added an extra 10 years onto an existing deal.

There have been many great MACtion games over the years. The NIU-Toledo matchup in 2011 was when “MACtion truly became MACtion,” Bill Connelly wrote. Both teams went on offensive barrages, but NIU won 63-60. Toledo isn’t a stranger to great MACtion games. The following week, Toledo beat WMU 66-63. Toledo and WMU threw for a combined 945 yards and 10 touchdowns. If we’re lucky we’ll be able to add a game from 2017 to Bill’s list.