Fall Saturdays are made for Ohio State football. It's unusual for Ohio State to play any other day in the regular season, yet a Thursday tilt at Indiana is how Ohio State will begin its 2017 season.
This clash in Bloomington will make some history as the first Big Ten game for Ohio State football that won't be on a Saturday since the Buckeyes joined the conference to start the 1913 season. However, the Buckeyes have historically been no stranger to playing on any other day in the program's illustrious history. It's just a stark departure from Big Ten tradition.
Ohio State played 35 games on a weekday from 1890 to 1912, the last season before Ohio State joined the Western Conference (i.e. the Big Ten). Yearly Thanksgiving contests, played first thing in the morning, are conspicuous in this list as Ohio State hosted opponents at Recreation Park or Ohio Field in what amounted to "society affairs."
| Year | Date | Day | Opponent | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1890 | Nov. 14 | Fri | Wooster | L, 0-64 |
| 1890 | Nov. 27 | Thu | Kenyon | L, 10-18 |
| 1891 | Nov. 11 | Wed | Western Reserve | L, 6-50 |
| 1892 | Nov. 7 | Mon | Oberlin | L, 0-50 |
| 1892 | Nov. 24 | Thu | Kenyon | W, 26-10 |
| 1893 | Nov. 30 | Thu | Kenyon | L, 8-10 |
| 1894 | Sept. 5 | Wed | Akron | L, 6-12 |
| 1894 | Sept. 7 | Fri | Wittenberg | L, 0-6 |
| 1894 | Nov. 29 | Thu | Kenyon | W, 20-4 |
| 1895 | Nov. 15 | Fri | at Kentucky | W, 8-6 |
| 1895 | Nov. 28 | Thu | Kenyon | W, 12-10 |
| 1896 | Nov. 5 | Thu | Ohio Wesleyan | L, 4-10 |
| 1896 | Nov. 11 | Wed | Ohio Medical | T, 0-0 |
| 1896 | Nov. 26 | Thu | Kenyon | L, 18-34 |
| 1897 | Oct. 6 | Wed | Ohio Medical | W, 6-0 |
| 1897 | Oct. 26 | Tue | Columbus Barracks | L, 0-6 |
| 1897 | Nov. 25 | Thu | Ohio Wesleyan | L, 0-6 |
| 1898 | Nov. 24 | Thu | Ohio Wesleyan | W, 24-0 |
| 1899 | Nov. 30 | Thu | Kenyon | W, 5-0 |
| 1900 | Nov. 29 | Thu | Kenyon | W, 23-5 |
| 1901 | Nov. 28 | Thu | Kenyon | W, 11-6 |
| 1902 | Nov. 27 | Thu | Indiana | T, 6-6 |
| 1903 | Oct. 14 | Wed | Muskingum | W, 30-0 |
| 1903 | Nov. 26 | Thu | Indiana | L, 16-17 |
| 1904 | Oct. 5 | Wed | Muskingum | W, 46-0 |
| 1904 | Nov. 24 | Thu | Carlisle Indians | L, 0-23 |
| 1905 | Oct. 4 | Wed | Muskingum | W, 40-0 |
| 1905 | Nov. 30 | Thu | Indiana | L, 0-11 |
| 1906 | Nov. 29 | Thu | Ohio Medical | W, 11-8 |
| 1907 | Nov. 28 | Thu | Ohio Wesleyan | W, 16-0 |
| 1908 | Nov. 26 | Thu | Kenyon | W, 19-9 |
| 1909 | Nov. 25 | Thu | Kenyon | W, 22-0 |
| 1910 | Nov. 24 | Thu | Kenyon | W, 53-0 |
| 1911 | Nov. 30 | Thu | Cincinnati | W, 11-6 |
| 1912 | Nov. 28 | Thu | Michigan Agricultural | L, 20-35 |
| 1917 | Nov. 29 | Thu | Camp Sherman | W, 28-0 |
| 1959 | Oct. 2 | Fri | at Southern California | L, 0-17 |
| 1986 | Aug. 27 | Wed | Alabama | L, 10-16 |
| 1994 | Aug. 29 | Mon | Fresno State | W, 34-10 |
| 1995 | Aug. 27 | Sun | Boston College | W, 38-6 |
| 1997 | Aug. 28 | Thu | Wyoming | W, 24-10 |
| 1999 | Aug. 29 | Sun | Miami (FL) | L, 12-23 |
| 2010 | Sept. 2 | Thu | Marshall | W, 45-7 |
| 2015 | Sept. 7 | Mon | at Virginia Tech | W, 42-24 |
Kenyon was the first opponent in this old tradition that started in Ohio State's inaugural season. It was also the most frequent opponent in this tradition. The Buckeyes played Kenyon on Thanksgiving 12 times, winning nine of those contests.
The last Thanksgiving game for Ohio State was in 1912 against the Michigan Agricultural Aggies, better known as the current Michigan State Spartans. The Buckeyes dropped its final game as an Ohio Athletic Conference member by a final score of 35-20.
Midweek games effectively end after that for multiple reasons. Path dependence and inertia constitute important explanations. Saturday seemed like a natural day for what was effectively an extramural activity outside normal academic operations. As the sport matured, it became a turf that the NCAA needed to defend against competition from the NFL. This, along with important lobbying and federal regulation, explain why the NCAA forced the NFL to Sunday.
The Big Ten has more reasons for hedging against midweek games. The conference, at its core, is an academic consortium that seeks to enhance its scholastic mission. Midweek games are logistic headaches for the normal operations of universities as programs that have them, prominently in the ACC, tend to force school closures. The rationale for midweek games in the present—exposure—is not enough to induce a high-profile conference like the Big Ten with its big-name programs at world-class universities to any other day than Saturday.
Indeed, Ohio State played just two midweek games in over 70 years after joining the Big Ten. The first came in 1917, which is a questionable inclusion in this list. The Buckeyes concluded the 1917 season with what was effectively a Thanksgiving exhibition against Camp Sherman, an Ohio Army National Guard training site in Chillicothe that formed as the United States entered World War I late into that conflict. The game was more of a tribute than a serious contest. The Buckeyes won handily, 28-0.
The most unusual game in this list of non-Saturday games might be the 1959 tilt in the Coliseum against USC. This Friday night clash saw the No. 11 Trojans host the No. 14 Buckeyes for the first game since the 1955 Rose Bowl that saw Ohio State beat USC en route to Woody Hayes' first national championship. The choice of Friday was unusual for both programs. Neither the Buckeyes nor the Trojans typically played on any day other than Saturday. Further, this was not the season-opener for either program. This was USC's third game on the season and Ohio State had beat Duke to open its season the preceding Saturday. USC manhandled the Buckeyes in what might have been Woody Hayes' most decisive loss to that point in his career.
All regular season games Ohio State played since that was not on a Saturday are clear marquee season-opening attractions. The Buckeyes participated three times in the Kickoff Classic, a defunct season-opening contest pitting big-name programs against each other in Giants Stadium. Ohio State played Alabama in the 1986 Kickoff Classic, losing 16-10. It beat Boston College in the 1995 Kickoff Classic before getting manhandled by the Miami Hurricanes in 1999.
Other games still fit the bill as attention-grabbing season-opening contests. The Buckeyes played Fresno State on a Monday in Anaheim to open the 1994 season. It also sought to make the most of season-openers against Wyoming in 1997 and Marshall in 2010 by moving those games to Thursday night. More recently, the ACC gave Ohio State a midweek game by making the season-opener at Virginia Tech a Labor Day game.
Two years later, the Big Ten is giving Ohio State its first ever midweek conference game and Ohio State's first conference game as season-opener since 1976. This is a stark departure from Ohio State's scheduling practices since joining the Big Ten in 1913. However, Ohio State's football history is replete with midweek games. Ohio State will revisit its distant past as it breaks new ground in Bloomington next month.
Ohio State should hope for a better result than its distant history suggests. The Buckeyes are 0-2-1 all-time against Indiana on Thursday, though those contests were held before the Buckeyes joined the Big Ten.
