Unpopular Opinion: Ohio State and Michigan doesn’t have to start at noon

NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos...

From now until preseason camp starts in August, Land-Grant Holy Land will be writing articles around a different theme every week. This week is all about unpopular opinions. You can catch up on all of the Theme Week content here and all of our “Unpopular Opinion” articles here.

There are three certainties in life. Death, taxes, and Ohio State and Michigan playing at noon every year in their final game of the college football regular season.

The Game has moved from the Saturday before Thanksgiving to the Saturday after Thanksgiving, with the schedules for Big Ten teams moving to a 13-week schedule in 2009. There has only been one occasion when the Buckeyes and Wolverines didn’t play at 12 noon, which came in 2006 when the teams were the top two-ranked teams in the country.

At the time when it was announced, The Game was being moved to the Saturday after Thanksgiving, many fans were against the change since they were so used to Ohio State and Michigan squaring off on the third Saturday of November.

The change to a week later has actually worked out great. Not only does it add to the suspense with another week of buildup to the annual clash, since it falls on the long holiday weekend, but it makes it easier for family and friends to come together for the regular season finale.

If we can change when The Game is held without a problem, why can’t we move the start time? We already got a sneak peek at what life would be like with Ohio State and Michigan starting later in the afternoon.

Although the situation was a little different since it was the first time we would see the rivals meet as the top two ranked teams in the country, it’s not like there weren’t a number of top-five battles between them before, and there have been four occurrences since 2006.

The reasoning for a noon game between the teams is understandable. Having an earlier game gives fans less time to get drunk and become unruly, making things easier for police and security when it comes to crowd monitoring and control.

We’ve come a long way since the early 2000s, when there were fears of riots after big Buckeye wins or losses. Fans on both sides have cleaned up their behavior over the last couple of decades. If anything, the concerns should be more about what happens on the field after The Game, after seeing what happened with flag planting in 2024.

Sometimes, when it comes to The Game, a noon start feels a bit rushed, considering everything else that is going on in the few days before kickoff. For many, early in the week is when they travel to be with family for Thanksgiving, and then on Friday, some will make their way back to the Columbus area or wherever their home base is.

With just a day to recover from a gluttonous Thursday, Saturday can get off to a slow start, even with the excitement for kickoff. Just imagine if you could get a couple extra hours of sleep on Saturday if the game didn’t kick off until 3:30 ET.

Another reason it would be great to see The Game moved from the normal noon start time is to possibly get it off of FOX. Having to listen to Gus Johnson call a game is terrible. It gets even worse when you add in Joel Klatt, who must think he is paid by the word since he never shuts up and lets the game breathe a bit.

It would be nice to give the other networks the Big Ten partners with a shot at airing the game, but I guess that’s why FOX paid the biggest bucks, so they can guarantee eyeballs all around the country will be on their network on the last Saturday in November.

Along with Ohio State winning the thrilling game in 2006, what made the contest even more fun to watch was the setting going from light in the afternoon to the darkness of the evening by the end of the game. While it wasn’t quite the picturesque shift of light to darkness of the Rose Bowl, it still added to the suspense of the game.

It would be fun to have a late afternoon/early evening game in late November and to add some snow to it. Not that we have never seen the Buckeyes and Wolverines play in the snow before, but we haven’t seen it at that time of the day.

College football has changed so much over the years; I don’t see why The Game can’t change as well. I’m not saying the game has to move to later in the afternoon every year, but give us a little variety. If it’s a top-five matchup, then why not have a later start?

We are at the point where we might even see the two teams play next week in the Big Ten Championship Game, or we could even see them meet in the College Football Playoff. If there is a chance they could play twice in one season, then we could survive a later start to The Game.

At this point, since Ohio State is carrying so much water for FOX when it comes to Big Noon Saturday, fatigue of noon games is real, even when it comes to The Game. These days, whenever the kickoff time for a Buckeye game is announced, and it’s not at noon, it feels like Christmas has come early.

Despite many believing noon is the only proper time for Ohio State and Michigan to play, I’m ready for a change, especially after getting a taste of how much fun a later start could be after what we saw back in 2006.

More at NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos