Could Ohio State Football have more late kickoffs?

The addition of USC and UCLA to the Big Ten has added a lot of questions for the Ohio State football team and the rest of the conference. One of the questions that seems to be not brought up as much is the kickoff time for some of these conference games once those two programs join.

Primetime games for USC and UCLA are 7 pm or 8 pm local. That’s 10 pm or 11 pm local time for the majority of the rest of the conference. Does this mean that the Ohio State football program is going to have some late kickoffs where games don’t end until 1:30 am?

More often than not, I’d say no. Ohio State still draws more eyeballs than either one of those two programs, so TV executives are going to want to keep kickoff times earlier than that. I could see them getting more 7:30 and 8 pm kickoffs though.

Is that fair to the new teams though? What if they want to have some primetime kickoffs at home for their fans? It’s a tough situation. If you look at what happens now with the Pac 12, most of those big-time matchups are in the 7:30 to 8 pm window now. I wouldn’t expect that to change.

The goal of adding these two programs to the Big Ten is to increase viewership across the country. You don’t increase viewership by having marquee programs playing until 1 am. I think that this is an issue worth monitoring once 2024 rolls around, but not one that should be a huge deal.

It won’t be a big deal for the Buckeyes, but it might be for other Big Ten teams. I could see IU, Purdue, or Northwestern having to deal with some late kickoff times. None of those programs draw big eyeballs to TV screens.

I’m interested to see how the Big Ten handles this issue down the road.