Fox is expanding Big Noon Kickoff to two hours, despite no Big Ten games this fall

Despite a schedule that will consist of the Big 12 and Big 12 alone, Fox is expanding Big Noon Kickoff to two hours. It will premiere on September 12th, Week 2 of the college football season.

The network announced the expansion on Tuesday, while also revealing its early season college football schedule.

Friday, September 11th
SMU at TCU, 9 PM, FS1

Saturday, September 12th
Louisiana Tech at Baylor, 12 PM, Fox
Eastern Kentucky at West Virginia, 12 PM, FS1
Arkansas State at Kansas State, 3:30 PM, FS1
Coastal Carolina at Kansas, 10 PM, FS1

Saturday, September 26th
Kansas State at Oklahoma, 12 PM, Fox
Texas at Texas Tech, 3:30 PM, Fox

Saturday, October 10th
Texas vs Oklahoma, 12 PM, Fox

Early season matchups across college football aren’t ideal, but aside from the Red River Shootout Rivalry, it’s going to be difficult to get fans excited for some of these games.

In the announced Week 2 slate, Fox gets two windows all to itself (the Friday night game, and the rare late kickoff at Kansas), though the two early windows are loaded with games, as you’d expect. The Big 12 is taking a powder on Week 3, so Fox has no games to air (and who knows if Big Noon Kickoff will even air that week). In Week 4, the SEC returns with a vengeance across ESPN’s platforms (and on CBS, which announced some of its schedule today). However, kickoff times haven’t been announced for roughly half the games on September 26th, so the exact competition for Fox’s two games is up in the air.

I’m somewhat interested in seeing whether or not Fox is able to retain the momentum for their pregame show from last season. A year ago, Big Noon Kickoff was a tight hour long program, and it flowed quite nicely. This year, the show will have an extra hour…and fewer games to talk about. Will the spark still be there, or will Big Noon Kickoff become more bloated with segments designed solely to kill time.

I think that this year, we’re going to find out how many people watched Big Noon Kickoff because they truly liked it, and how many watched because of the game airing immediately after the show.

[Fox Sports]