Has it really already been five years? On Thursday night, BTN airs a one-hour show “BTN 5th Anniversary Special” to look back at just a few of the many memorable moments we’ve brought our viewers in our first five years. Hosted by Mike Hall and Rick Pizzo, the show airs on BTN/BTN2Go at 8 p.m. ET and then again at 9 p.m., too.

The 2012 Big Ten football season kicks off with Minnesota visiting UNLV late Thursday night. The Week 1 slate continues Friday, as Michigan State takes on always dangerous Boise State, and wraps up Saturday with the conference’s remaining 10 games, including Michigan battling reigning national champ Alabama.

With so much football happening across the Big Ten Conference in the early weeks of the season, it’s a good idea to plan ahead and find out where your game will appear on TV. So allow us to introduce you once again to the BTN TV GameFinder.  Avoid the rush and panic on Saturday. Use GameFinder below in this post, but if you prefer to bookmark it for future weeks, you can do that, too.

Each Tuesday morning during the Big Ten football season the 12 Big Ten football coaches hold a Big Ten teleconference with reporters from around the country. We post the audio Tuesday afternoon for each segment of the call, and we do this every week.  Also @B1Gfootball spotlights a tweet or three from each coach on the call live on Twitter in case you want to follow along online Tuesday mornings.

I have written much about the 2012 season, which starts on Thursday when Minnesota plays at UNLV. But before the first kickoff of the first game, I’m offering my look at how I think the Big Ten race will shape up this fall. My BTN.com colleague Brent Yarina did this on Monday to give you another perspective.