Why is Michigan-Ohio State football always at noon? 'The Game's' kickoff time, explained
College football titans Ohio State and Michigan, are set to kick off their rivalry game in Week 13 of the college football season, where the stakes would suggest the game should demand a primetime slate.
But tradition will once again trump that notion with a kickoff scheduled for noon ET.
Despite being the most enticing game on the college football slate this weekend, the second-ranked Buckeyes (11-0, 8-0 in Big Ten play) and third-ranked Wolverines (11-0, 8-0) will battle it out on the gridiron early in the day, a customary quality of "Ohio State-Michigan matchups "The Game" that has held true for decades.
The meeting will be ripe with College Football Playoff implications, as the two powerhouses are currently undefeated while vying for a spot in the playoff. While a one-loss team could still make the postseason (as Ohio State did in 2022), a win in Week 13 for either team would likely cement them a spot to fight for the national championship.
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Here's everything you need to know about why "The Game" is played at noon.
What time is the Michigan-Ohio State game?
Date: Saturday, Nov. 25
Time: Noon ET
As is tradition, the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry game will be held at noon ET on Saturday at Michigan Stadium.
Why is Michigan-Ohio State game always at noon?
The current answer is that Fox, which holds broadcast rights to Big Ten football games, always hosts its biggest games of the day at noon (hence it's "Big Noon Saturday" moniker. But the Buckeyes and Wolverines' noon slate has a deeper, longer-running reason:
Tradition.
Since the 1990s, the rivalry game has mostly kicked off at noon (as charted by Ohio State's Eleven Warriors site in 2014). As can be seen in the chart, games in the 1950s started around 2 p.m., but gradually began to get earlier as decades passed.
There has been one distinct outlier in the 21st century, however: the 2006 "Game of the Century," which kicked off at 3:30 p.m. ET. No. 1 Ohio State took down No. 2 Michigan in a exhilarating 42-39 win, the first time in the rivalry series that the teams entered the matchup polled as the top two teams in the nation.
It also helps that the Wolverines did not get permanent lights installed at Michigan Stadium until 2010. The Buckeyes' Ohio Stadium followed suit in 2014.
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'The Game' will likely continue to be scheduled for noon for the foreseeable future, as Martin Jarmond, the former architect of Ohio State's schedule, informed Cleveland.com that he anticipates no imminent changes to the starting time back in 2016.
"I think that the tradition and having it at noon, I think fans like that and I know we like that and can count on that," Jarmond said. "I can't see that changing. I really think that it's locked in at noon in that early slot and that's what people have come to expect."
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Why is Michigan-Ohio State at noon? 'The Game's' kickoff time, explained
