“In the end, it was the [Saturday] afternoons he couldn't cope with, and that terrible listlessness which starts to set in at about 2:55, when you know that you've had all the baths you can usefully have that day, that however hard you stare at any given paragraph in the papers you will never actually read it, or use the revolutionary new pruning technique it describes, and that as you stare at the clock the hands will move relentlessly on to four o'clock, and you will enter the long dark teatime of the soul.”
– Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe, and Everything
Schedules are out! Kind of! At the very least, this week we learned a few of the times of several marquee games that Ohio State will be playing in the 2017 season. The Michigan game will be at noon, as it should be (and more on this later), there are some very dumb night games, including, of course, the opener against Indiana, some less dumb night games (Oklahoma), and then three games rendered interminable by the fact that they take place in that long dark teatime which Douglas Adams so aptly described.
Matchups against Penn State, Maryland, and Army will all occur in a window of time designed for maximum malaise, as they will all start in the 3:30ish timeframe, a section of the day in which you're unable to get anything worthwhile done either before or after said game. I'll elaborate more on my Unified Theory of College Football Start Times in a bit, but don't forget: this isn't just for me, this is for all of those players out there who understand the inherent limitations in having to play a contact sport in the yawningest part of the day.
Nah 3:30 perfect https://t.co/CShqvKBlwJ
— QB KILLA (@JayHolmes_) May 31, 2017
Aw whatever Jalyn! You don't know what you're talking about! You don't understand the pain that my colleagues and I face, sitting on various couches and chairs to write about football, sometimes when we'd rather be jumping in piles of leaves or bobbing for apples or roasting pumpkin seeds.
Because really, if we're getting down to why a 3:30 start in college football is so toxic, we have to start with the premise that fall in Ohio is both fleetingly short and completely awesome.
In truth, my falls are all about clever time management as much as they're about football and anything else that you might want to do. Apple picking, picking out pumpkins, hay rides, haunted houses, various pie-related festivals and all the other trappings of fall in the Midwest are not optional. Like an enjoyment of football, they are federally mandated requirements that all must partake in. The problem arises, as it has every autumn in my adulthood, when Ohio State football and the closest thing that we really have to a unique culture begin to overlap and I have to start making decisions about how I'm going to spend the three or four Saturdays in central Ohio a year that are neither too hot, too humid, or too filled with bugs.
That's fall in Ohio. A beautiful pastiche of farmer's markets and iso running plays, and unfortunately one will always sacrifice time to the other. And that's fine, but I can't deny the pull of the apple orchard even as J.T. Barrett is kicking some ass in Ohio Stadium.
Plus, you know, a lot of these midseason games just suck out loud.
October 8th, 2016 in Columbus was an incredible day. 66 degrees, partly cloudy and a slight breeze as around 3:30 that afternoon, over 107,000 people in Ohio Stadium watched a wet fart of a game against Indiana in which the Buckeyes sleepwalked through the entire game and still won by three touchdowns. Urban Meyer dubbed it "awkward," and that's probably a generous assessment of well over three hours of constant boredom occasionally broken by a nervous sweat as you realize that time is linear and you couldn't go back and start the day over by hiking in Hocking Hills or something instead.
The thing is though, football itself is not the problem here, it's simply the timing. Like Liz Lemon eating a giant sandwich before meeting her boyfriend at an airport terminal, you really can have it all. And if you're smart, you will face no regrets over choosing a stomping of Maryland or Rutgers over two dollar popcorn and mulled cider bought at a petting zoo/farmer's market. But a 3:30 game doesn't help.
So below is my football starting time clock of maximum endeavor, which in the future, Gene Smith/Urban/Delany/whoever else has input on scheduling should definitely check out in an effort to make my fall Saturdays as convenient as possible.
Clearly the optimal times are earlier and later in the day, no shock there. But everyone knows the utility of a well-placed night game (away openers against Indiana absolutely do not count), so I want to extol the virtues of early morning games for a second:
- Early start times force fans and player alike to pretend to be functional human beings before noon on a weekend, a healthy endeavor
- Fun way to reinforce rare positive stereotypes about Midwest grit and hard work and just a couple of farm boys, milking cows and bailing hay and blah blah blah
- Really pisses off people in the SEC
- A mythical 11 am game leaves you with four or five perfectly good hours of sunlight with which to make a homemade Joey Bosa Halloween costume or learn how to cook a turkey
Avoid the red, powers-that-be. Any start between 2ish and 5 is too early to give any self respecting person enough time to really enjoy a morning of kayaking in one of Ohio's many rivers or lake-esque reservoirs, and too late to allow for the nap that will be necessary to want to go out and do anything else for the rest of what remains of the vanishing sunlight.
A 3:30 start is a slap in the face, because the games are too often interminable, end right as dinner is about to start, and kill any momentum that you might've had going on the best day of the week during the best season of the year. There are no replacements. Fridays are for high school football and trying to figure out which teenagers you could beat in armwrestling. Sundays are for mourning the fact that you're still somehow emotionally invested in the Browns and Bengals.
So that puts the burden on Saturday, as it alone can bear both our hopes and dreams for Ohio State football while also satisfying our desire to gawk at half-ton gourds. The solution? 3:30 is right out. Noon, night, or nothing.
It is my most fervent hope that through careful scheduling, Ohio State fans can become enriched by all of the wondrous fall activities that this state has to offer while also enjoying their beloved Buckeyes at their leisure. In doing so, we avoid the long dark teatime of the soul, and maybe catch on to a little of what even Jim Harbaugh seems to have realized.
