Ohio State Football: Gene Smith keeps tired narrative about night games

The Ohio State football team will play a night game in November this season against Michigan State. It is extremely unlike them to do so, as Gene Smith has been vehemently against doing so for a long time. The Buckeyes are only doing it to keep networks happy under this Big Ten TV deal fiasco.

Smith, talking to Eleven Warriors, said that the Ohio State football team will not host a night game in November anymore after this season. He has said this before and remains steadfast in his opinion. What I don’t get is the rationale behind his thinking.

Smith has long cited the safety concerns of playing a game in the cold weather at night. That directly contradicts the fact that the Buckeyes put turf into the stadium 15 years ago which has been scientifically shown to be much more dangerous for the athletes than natural grass.

It’s also not hard to winterize the Shoe. What happens when the CFP expands to 12 teams next season and the Buckeyes could potentially host a playoff game? The Shoe will need to be ready by then. His safety concerns don’t line up with the action that’s been taken.

Ohio State needs to be able to host some night games whenever they want. Except for The Game, every other game time should be up for debate. Until the Buckeyes put grass back into the Shoe, I will not accept his excuse of player safety for not playing night home games that late in the Fall.

This is a narrative that clearly will not go away anytime soon. He is clearly dug in at this point. From a fan’s perspective, I don’t think having a night home game is that big of a deal that late in the year. In fact, to me, it’s no different than having it at the beginning of the season. You’re going to get home late either way.