ANN ARBOR — The groans could be heard up and down I-96. When Saturday’s Michigan-Michigan State football game was announced as a night game, it didn’t seem like anybody was happy.
This is the third straight year the battle for the Paul Bunyan Trophy will kick off under the lights (7:30 p.m. ET). With both teams 4-3 overall and 2-2 in the Big Ten, it doesn’t feel like a typical primetime matchup. A major network didn’t pick it up; BTN will broadcast.
Michigan, as a school, does not like night games for a variety of reasons: concerns about excessive alcohol consumption; late-night commutes for fans; potentially poor weather; long hours for Michigan Stadium staffers. Kickoff times, however, are decided by conferences in conjunction with their TV partners.
“We have no say,” Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel told MLive last week. “I’ve been on the record and I still feel this way: For our fans, we prefer noon or 3:30 at the latest for kickoff times. We said we’d commit to two night games at home. As a good colleague to the Big Ten we will honor that. It’s not easy on our fans.”
Michigan’s season opener, at home, was at night. Although that was a nonconference game, Manuel is under the impression that Saturday should be Michigan’s final home night game of the year. The following week’s game against Oregon is set for 3:30, leaving only the Nov. 23 game against Northwestern in need of a start time.
Saturday will be Michigan State’s sixth night game of the season. “I’m not here to try to paint that this is the best experience for everyone involved with this number of night games,” Michigan State athletic director Alan Haller said, “and I don’t think it is.”
As for the Michigan-Michigan State game in particular being at night, Haller shrugged: “We’ll play that school anywhere, anytime,” he said.
Manuel had a different opinion. “It does matter (that Michigan State is one of the night games),” he said. “For our fans or their fans, there is a lot of travel and a lot of partying — things happening before and during the game. The later the game, the more concerns with drinking. We don’t expect issues, but there is more time for consumption and that leads to a heightened concern.”
Michigan head coach Sherrone Moore, who has more pressing concerns than kickoff times, dismissed any notion of a night game vs. Michigan State being a problem. He called it the “state championship” where “everything is on the line.”
The first night game at Michigan Stadium was 13 years ago, and they’ve become more common over the years. But Big Ten country, and Michigan especially, has an old-school mindset. For a game that will kickoff a few days before Halloween, the Michigan administration appears to be afraid of the dark.
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