The Big Ten and Fox have been adamant about making Friday night football into a big thing.
Certain member schools have tried to make it abundantly clear they are not interested in that thing.
This season, the conference will have at least nine Friday night football games on Fox properties. It makes a lot of sense now that USC, UCLA, Oregon, and Washington call the Big Ten home and their West Coast locales lend themselves to late-night viewing. The conference has been playing Friday night games since 2017 but only select programs have been featured, with Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State sharing their reluctance and Michigan outright refusing to take part.
The thought was that given the new media rights deal and the possibility of playing high-profile West Coast schools in primetime, some or all of those programs would come around, creating a special opportunity for Fox.
During an appearance on the Conqur’ing Heroes podcast, Michigan AD Warde Manuel reiterated once more that he has told the conference and Fox UM will “absolutely not” play on Friday nights.
“We are not having a Friday night game,” Manuel said. “I’ll just leave it at that.”
“Absolutely, absolutely not to Friday night,” he added.
The 2024 schedule calls for nine Big Ten games on Friday nights, starting with Illinois vs. Nebraska. 12 different Big Ten teams will play at least one Friday night game while six of them will be doing so twice. Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State are the only schools that weren’t (or wouldn’t allow themselves to be) added.
Manuel noted that while he understands the appeal from Fox’s side and the value that kind of primetime coverage could offer, the Wolverines don’t require any help in that department.
“I understand television would like us to do it, I understand primetime gets a lot of coverage, but also Big Noon (Kickoff) gets a lot of coverage and we’re happy with that. And when we’re on at 3:30 on CBS, they get a lot of coverage,” he said. “In other words, our fanbase is important to me, important to Sherrone, and to our staff, our student-athletes. We want (to make sure) our fanbase has an opportunity to see us in person.”
