UPDATE: Fox sideline reporter Bruce Feldman said the Ohio State-Northwestern game is now set for a Big Ten Network broadcast.
With a Game 4 postponement today in the ALCS between the Yankees and Astros, Mother Nature lays a smackdown on Friday night’s TV schedule, and the Northwestern-Ohio State game seemingly gets hurt most.
Game 5 of the ALCS now has a start time of 7: 08 PM EST. Because of the new WWE Smackdown agreement with Fox, that creates a lack of space for Ohio State against Northwestern in the same time slot,according to Jimmy Traina. WWE’s agreement with the network puts Friday Night Smackdown on from 8 – 10 PM on Fox which moves Game 5 of the ALCS to Fox Sports 1. WWE’s deal with Fox kicked in two weeks ago after a long stay on the USA Network. This Friday night represents the show’s third episode since the move to Fox.
Options included the Big Ten Network, Fox Sports 2 or the Fox Business Channel, which not ideal for a Big Ten Championship rematch. Fox quickly made the decision to move the game to the Big Ten Network after the ALCS snagged the spot on Fox Sports 1.
The Big Ten’s move of certain games to Friday nights received criticism in the past because of the way it competes with high-school games for many fans. Ohio State coachRyan Daycommented on the situation yesterday, saying “I hadn’t really got much feedback from the guys on that. Just one-on-one in my conversations with high school coaches, I’m sure they don’t appreciate it, but that’s out of our hands, out of our control and not much we can do about it.
“… I try not to worry about that. When the schedule comes out, we’re going to go play wherever they tell us to play. I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about that because it’s not really under my control or something that I can worry about. So we just – when the schedule comes out, we’ll go figure out where they’re at and we’ll go play them. ”
Day and his players are completely locked in on the Wildcats even as 28 – point road favorites.
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“This week we’ve talked about having a white belt mentality, which is a mentality that you’re starting right from scratch and that you don’t take anything for granted, you don’t make any assumptions, and if we do that, then we’ll be fine. If we start to look ahead or start to let our egos get in the way, then we’re in trouble. ”
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