Texas reveals why it denied Ohio State's request to move Week 1 game

Texas didn't want to have a short week coming out of the opener against Ohio State, according to athletic director Chris Del Conte, after the Buckeyes requested a change to Sunday night.

Why Texas denied Ohio State's request to move their Week 1 football game. / Sara Diggins-Imagn Images

Texas denied Ohio State’s request to move the school’s marquee football season opener to Sunday night, but it wasn’t because of the kickoff time.

Ohio State asked Texas if they could move their game set for Sat., Aug. 30 to the following Sunday night, but Texas declined, citing concerns over a shorter time to prepare for their Week 2 game, UT athletic director Chris Del Conte said.

“Why would I want to move the game to Sunday night and have a short week for our boys that were just told we were kicking off at high noon?” Del Conte said at the SEC spring meetings.

Del Conte also denied that Texas refused Ohio State’s request out of a fear of playing under the lights in the face of what should be an inspired Buckeyes home crowd.

“That was never about moving the time of the day,” he said. 

“It was just, ‘Hey, do you want to move the day?’ We’re contractually obligated to this day. That was it. The craziness is, ‘Oh my God, they said no.’ I just said no to Sunday. I gotta go to church. I mean, hot dang.”

Speculation around a possible change to the game arose earlier this month when Fox didn’t announce a kickoff time for the matchup while doing so for other games.

Fox’s “Big Noon Kickoff” program has been a major draw for the network for several years and moving this game to Sunday night would have likely put it against the Notre Dame vs. Miami matchup on ABC set for the same time.

Fox Sports’ president of analytics told Front Office Sports that the network would have seen a minor drop in viewership by moving the game to Sunday night, but that they were willing to move the game at Ohio State’s request.

--

Read more from College Football HQ

feed