WAKE UP! ON ETBLITZ | Overton-Gary series begins tonight in Hallsville; Cowboys’ 2025 schedule; nostalgic for “NBA on NBC”
EDITOR’S NOTE: So, our job here on Wake Up! is to do just that: help get you guys woke up and informed the best we can. Today, that means the Dallas Cowboys’ 2025 schedule, a reminder about the Overton baseball playoff series, and a bit of basketball nostalgia. Stop by Cozy Coffee Station for something great to start your day; check out their menu before you go, at Home | Cozy Coffee Station. And then get to one of their two East Texas locations, either at Kilgore, at 110 Midtown Plaza, or in Gilmer, at 755 Highway 271 North. We’re willing to bet you’ll be a return customer!
Overton baseball
The Overton High School Mustangs have been off almost a week. But they’ll be back in action tonight, opening their best-of-three series against Gary in Hallsville.
We’ll have a preview on the site before noon.
Here’s the rundown: The Mustangs (25-6) play Gary in the third round, the regional semifinals, at Hallsville High School.
Game one tips off at 6:30 p.m. tonight.
Game two is Friday at 5. Game three would be 30 minutes after game two, if it’s needed to break a tie. The Overton-Beckville winner will meet either Hemphill or Beckville.
Cowboys schedule
So, you’re a Dallas Cowboys fan and you want to know who they’re playing and when they’re playing them.
The NFL’s annual schedule release was Wednesday night, and all 32 franchises now know their entire slate.
Dallas will play three preseason games. The first is August 9, at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles against the Rams. The second preseason game will be at home at AT&T Stadium on Saturday, Aug. 16, against the Baltimore Ravens. And the third: home against the Atlanta Falcons on Aug. 22.
The season will officially kick off for Dallas at Philadelphia, the defending Super Bowl champions, on Thursday Sept. 4 on NBC.
The Cowboys’ first home game of the season is Sunday, Sept. 14, and they’ll host the New York Giants at noon at AT&T Stadium. The Cowboys have an eight-game winning streak over the Giants.
A trip to Chicago to face quarterback Caleb Williams is up next (Sept. 21). Dallas’ new defensive coordinator is Matt Eberflus – the Bears fired Eberflus as head coach. It’ll be the first meeting between the Cowboys and Bears since 2022.
Dallas will close out September with a visit from the Green Bay Packers on Sept. 28, on “Sunday Night Football” on NBC. How about this: the Packers have never lost at AT&T Stadium, and that includes a Super Bowl win over the Pittsburgh Steelers. Green Bay is 6-0 at AT&T.
The Cowboys make the first of two trips to the New York / New Jersey area on Oct. 5, as they play a noon-kickoff game at the New York Jets.
In a weird quirk of the schedule, Dallas has journeyed to Charlotte to play the Carolina Panthers the last two years, and will do so for a third straight year on Oct. 12.
It’s another NFC East Division game on Oct. 19, as Dallas visits Washington.
Dallas has lost seven straight games to the Denver Broncos, dating back to 1995. They’ll get a shot to stop that on Oct. 25.
It’s a former division rival that the Cowboys play to open November, doing so on Nov. 3 on
“Monday Night Football” at home against quarterback Kyler Murray and the Arizona Cardinals. Arizona has won the last three games in this series.
Dallas is off, an open date, on Nov. 10, and then visits the Las Vegas Raiders for another “Monday Night Football” Game on Nov. 17.
Nov. 23 will feature a rematch of the season opener, this time, though with Philadelphia Eagles coming to the Metroplex. How about this: the Cowboys are 9-4 against Philadelphia with Dak Prescott as the starter.
Whitehouse’s own Patrick Mahomes brings the Kansas City Chiefs to town on Nov. 27, on Thanksgiving Day. This note from dallascowboys.com: the last time the Chiefs played at Dallas on Thanksgiving Day, the Cowboys won the Super Bowl (1995).
A second-straight Thursday game takes the Cowboys to Motown on Dec. 4, where they’ll face the Detroit Lions, no longer the joke of the league.
Dec. 14 is a home game for Dallas, and has them back on “Sunday Night Football” for a game against the Minnesota Vikings.
The Los Angeles Chargers visit the Cowboys on Dec. 21 – Dallas has beaten the Chargers the last two times they’ve played.
On Christmas, just four days after facing the Chargers, the Cowboys will get to go Christmas shopping in the Washington, D.C. area – they’ll play at the Washington Commanders. Last year, remember, the Cowboys got a 99-yard kick return from KaVontae Turpin to help them win the game.
Dallas winds the regular season up with a trip back to New York, this time to face the Giants, either on Jan. 3 or Jan. 4 (to be decided when it gets closer). The Cowboys have owned the Giants in recent years, with a 10-game winning streak.
“NBA On NBC” is back
The generation of basketball fans that grew up with Michael Jordan, Ervin “Magic” Johnson, Larry Bird, Patrick Ewing, Karl Malone, Charles Barkley and real basketball superstars has been smiling the last week.
That’s because, beginning with the 2025-26 season, the NBA will be BACK on NBC after many years’ absence.
Now, the novelty of the league returning to the network when it had some of its best years in its history won’t cure everything that’s troubling the NBA, whose finals have had lower ratings than regular-season NFL games in recent years.
The era of Lebron James, Kevin Durant and Steph Curry is rapidly coming to a close. The league will be looking for new superstars, very reminiscent of what it was like when Jordan retired in the late 1990s. A large segment of the population just feels comfortable with the NBA airing on NBC, like an old favorite pair of shoes, a favorite supper when your home.
Will it bring viewers back to the NBA, which has become a glorified three-point shooting contest in the last decade?
We’ll see.