Ryan Day addresses Ohio State's slew of 12 pm kickoffs throughout 2024
Ryan Day and the Ohio State Buckeyes look to move 1 game closer to the B1G Championship on Saturday when they play Northwestern at Wrigley Field.
Kickoff time in that game is 12 p.m. ET, and that has become a talking point at Ohio State recently. Fans are expressing their frustrations for all these early games, but Day says he has way too many things to worry about to care about kickoff times.
“Listen, I’ve got to deal with a lot of fan backlash for other things than time of games,” Day said at Tuesday’s presser. “I’m going to leave that for other people to deal with. I got other things I’ve got to deal with. Whatever they tell us to play, we’re going to play. It doesn’t matter where it is. It could be in a baseball field, it could be 11 am, it could be at night. Whatever it is, we’re going to put the football down and go play.”
Since the night game against Oregon, Ohio State has played in 3 consecutive 12 p.m. ET kickoff times, and will end the regular season with 6 in a row. Week 13’s kickoff time against Indiana was set for FOX’s Big Noon slot with the season-ending rivalry with Michigan long established for that prime slot.
For a team as highly ranked as the Buckeyes, those teams are generally in evening and night games. However, the way the B1G schedule works out, that 12 p.m. ET time slot on FOX is going to get a lot of the best matchups.
Fans are frustrated with the lack of night games, but if all goes well for Ohio State in its next 3 games, there will be some primetime and night games in the near future.