Tress: 8-5 in night games at OSU
Maybe I'm just a grumpy old man, but I can't say I'm looking forward to this season's schedule. The conference released a portion of its TV lineup this week and it looks like our green offense will play three night games on the road within a five game stretch including another trip to Happy Valley October 27th. The 17-10 loss to the Nittany Lions back in 2005 is still the most viewed BigTen game ever on ESPN netting 4.435 million households. Besides PSU, the Buckeyes will travel to Minnesota for an 8pm kick September 29th and to Purdue October 6th. The Buckeyes are just 8-5 in night games under Coach Tressel including 2-1 last year.
I understand the supposed benefits of playing at night from an exposure standpoint, but I would much rather play day games for various reasons. First, it's torture enough to wait a week between games but it's even worse when you have to sit around all day coming up with tasks to help kill time in anticipation of kickoff. Seriously, it looks like I will have the most organized sock drawer in the history of mankind with three night games in 29 days. More importantly, the risk of losing at night seems to increase as the home teams draw a more rowdy (ie. drunk) crowd creating a much more hostile environment. The crowd at Beaver in '05 clearly reinforces this fact. I'm too lazy to do the research but it just seems that upsets occur more frequently at night because of the escalated 'big game atmosphere'. Lastly, I think every blue chipper knows about OSU. I'm not sure a night game helps recruiting/visibility as much as I've heard it argued. It's a shame that the BigTen BigWigs and Disney are forced to showcase the same handful of schools because the conference has so few teams with any star power. In any event, what's your take on the night games? Do you love 'em or loathe 'em?
