Ohio State will play every home game in daylight this season. The university announced Monday that the Buckeyes’ Nov. 14 home game against Northwestern will kick off at noon on Fox, closing the last opening for a primetime start at Ohio Stadium and leaving the program without a home night game for the first time since 2018, according to Awful Announcing.
The announcement completes a schedule that has tilted steadily toward early kickoffs. Ohio State’s first three home games this season started at either noon or 12:30 p.m., this week’s showdown with Oregon kicks off at 3:30 p.m., and the season-ending rivalry game against Michigan is set for noon on Fox, Awful Announcing reported.
The pattern traces to Fox’s hold on the Big Ten’s early window. The network has been the conference’s lead broadcast partner since 2017 and built its Big Noon Kickoff franchise around the weekend’s biggest game, with Ohio State as its most reliable draw. That value, Awful Announcing noted, is exactly why the Buckeyes keep landing in the noon slot.
Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork has acknowledged the bind publicly. There is, in his words, “no flexibility” in the contracts because “Fox bought the noon window,” Bjork said in June 2025 remarks recounted by Awful Announcing. “I think our program, our fans deserve some marquee night games,” he said in those remarks. “We understand why Fox went with Big Noon, we understand why we’re picked all the time, but we’re hoping (for) just, more flexibility.”
The school had appeared to hope for a different outcome this fall. As Dan Hope of Eleven Warriors noted in reporting cited by Awful Announcing, Ohio State released a schedule pin in August showing a black helmet for the Northwestern game — a nod to the all-black Tunnel Vision uniforms the Buckeyes typically wear under the lights — before swapping it for a traditional helmet design.
Ohio State’s own agreements may also narrow its options late in the season. In 2024, Ryan Glasspiegel of The New York Post reported that stipulations in the schools’ television deals with Fox, CBS and NBC prevent Ohio State and Michigan from being assigned night games over the final three weeks of the regular season, though either school can still accept one if a network offers it, according to Awful Announcing’s summary of that reporting.
For fans, the practical effect is a season of tailgates that start at sunrise and home Saturdays that end before dark. With the Big Ten’s media deals running through the end of the decade, Awful Announcing concluded that Buckeye fans should not expect the pattern to change soon unless Fox rethinks its strategy. Ohio State’s next home test comes this week against Oregon, with kickoff at 3:30 p.m.
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