Ohio State vs. Penn State could be in primetime once again.
The Ohio State Buckeyes and the Penn State Nittany Lions have played in some memorable primetime games over the past few years, with Penn State hosting numerous legendary “White Out” games in Happy Valley. However, as Fox’s “Big Noon” game, the game has begun at noon for the last two years, which has irritated supporters of both teams in the Big Ten rivalry. Although the start time of the game this year is still unknown, we did learn some information that would probably disappoint supporters of both teams who dislike Fox’s emphasis on the noon kickoff.
When Michael Mulvihill, the president of Fox Insight and Analytics, spoke on The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast on Monday, he disclosed the following:
Fox gets to choose the first three weekends’ worth of games to broadcast first.
Mulvihill clarified that they utilised their first two selections to select Michigan hosting Texas on weekends when Michigan was playing Ohio State, as they do each year. They then used their second selection to select Michigan hosting Michigan.
Mulvihill went on to say that they couldn’t decide between two excellent choices for the same weekend: October, when Oregon would host Ohio State, and Nov. 2, when Ohio State would host Penn State. Michigan would also host Oregon.
In the end, Mulvihill revealed that they had traded the third pick to NBC or CBS, though he did not specify which. After hearing such information, it appeared that Ohio State vs. Penn State would not take place at noon. The network that made the transaction only needed to select the weekend of November 2nd as their selection, and as that date drew nearer, they had to select Ohio State vs. Penn State, which would air on either NBC at 7:30 or CBS at 3:30.
However, that is not the case. Mulvill clarified through the transcription of Awful Announcing:
“The pick was traded,” Mulvihill declared. We simply couldn’t make the decision because it was too tough. In this selecting procedure, we are able to trade our picks in the same way that you would in the NFL Draft. We actually arrived at a solution that, in my opinion, satisfied everyone and worked well for everyone. Since the network we worked with hasn’t yet revealed their plans for the pick, I won’t identify them because that is their news to share. However, I can tell you that even though we traded up later in the selection to move down from the No. 3 pick, we still managed to secure the Nov. 2 date and wind up with five of the top seven picks.
Apparently, Fox was unable to broadcast the Ohio State vs. Oregon game on October 12 at 12:00 ET, therefore CBS or NBC made a transaction to secure the date of November 2, which will either see Ohio State host Penn State or Michigan host Oregon, depending on how the season plays out. Considering how popular Ohio State and Penn State have been in recent years, you would have to believe that Fox won’t tamper with a winning formula and will favour Ohio State at Penn State unless Michigan and Oregon are a top ten matchup and Ohio State vs. Penn State loses a lot of its potency with a few losses each.
That brings us to our problem. That weekend, Fox has the first pick in control. If you truly wanted the game to take place later in the day, it would almost definitely mean that Ohio State or Penn State, or both of them, were having bad seasons to force the game out of that time slot. For supporters of both schools, who have been outspoken in the previous several years about how much they detest the 12:00 kickoffs for such a significant game, that is a no-win scenario.
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