College football has been trying to become an almost everyday product for a while. The Group of 5 conferences feature matchups in the middle of the week once the calendar turns to November. Of late, the Big Ten has tried to appeal to a wider audience by scheduling some of its matchups on Friday Night to get eyes on games that would otherwise be overlooked by a national audience.
For the 2024 season, Fox‘s Friday Night schedule will broadcast 12 games over a 13-week timeframe, skipping November 1. Of those 12 games, nine will feature Big Ten conference games.
FOX Sports Friday night college football schedule pic.twitter.com/G1nzNqjHWe
— FBSchedules.com (@FBSchedules) May 22, 2024
Fox Announces Friday Night Broadcast Schedule, Nine Big Ten Games Featured
Big Ten After Dark
It was a popular meme on Twitter that a day of college football isn’t over until #Pac12AfterDark. Now that the Pac-12 is down to two teams with very little national pull, the Big Ten has capitalized. Of the nine matchups, four will take place in the Pacific Time Zone.
On October 4, Michigan State will travel to Eugene, Oregon to take on the Ducks. This matchup will be the eighth time these two programs will face off and the seventh in the regular season. The last time Oregon and Michigan State played, it was the 2018 RedBox Bowl and the Ducks won, 7-6. All time, Oregon owns a 4-3 lead in the series. In those six regular season games, three games were at Oregon and three were at Michigan State. The home team won each.
Then on October 25, Rutgers gets to travel nearly 2,800 miles to visit USC. For the first time in the long histories of these two programs, Rutgers and USC will face off. The Scarlet Knights get to face off against three of the new four West Coast programs but their bout with the Trojans is the lone away game. USC’s game against Rutgers is one of the program’s five home Big Ten games. Additionally, they’ll get Notre Dame at home, UCLA is just up the road in the classic Rose Bowl, and LSU in Las Vegas.
Two weeks later, Iowa returns to the Rose Bowl for the first time since January 1, 2016. This matchup also marks the first time longtime head coach Kirk Ferentz will face the Bruins as these two teams haven’t met since 1986. That matchup was a Rose Bowl in itself. Unofficially, UCLA leads Iowa 7-3 in head-to-head matchups. Officially, that number is 6-3 as the Bruins forfeited the win as part of punishment for playing ineligible players.
The final Big Ten Friday Night showdown on the West Coast will feature a pair of Pac-12 defectors. On November 15, UCLA gets to travel to Washington in a battle of programs under new leadership. This will be the 77th time these two teams will face off and, officially, the Bruins own a 41-33-2 lead in the all-time series. UCLA has won 15 of the last 20 against the Huskies.
Frequent Fliers
Of the 18 Big Ten teams, 12 will be featured under the Friday Night lights. Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Minnesota miss out on the festivities.
Every former Pac-12 program will be featured at least once; Oregon, Washington, and UCLA actually join the group of six who have two Friday Night games. Rutgers, Purdue, and Michigan State will each get one home and one away game.
In addition to these, there will be one Black Friday game in the Big Ten, just not on Fox. This year, Nebraska travels to Iowa and the time and network are currently TBD.
When the Big Ten announced its intention to expand to Friday Night, Ohio State was opposed. An OSU representative went to far as to say the Buckeyes did not want to go head-to-head with the rich tradition of high school football in the state.
