[NU Sports] Turkey and Big Ten football ...

[SjT (Stephen J. Truog)]

Saw on ESPN that the Big Ten approved an additional
bye week to the football schedule, allowing games to
be played after Thanksgiving next year.

It's probably a good move - you could see the need for
it with the week after Thanksgiving and the title game
week making a season that ended before then long
forgotten. It helped this year, but this was an
extraordinary year in many respects. Without a title
game, the league needed to do something like this.

This will likely hurt the ACC and Big East, who used
to use our absence to get on ESPN (NU alum had that
great line in his SI column the week after
Thanksgiving this year about dreaming of a Saturday
morning and finding nothing but ACC football on TV ...
then waking up to find it a reality :) ). Maybe the
Big Ten will move times (and days?) around a bit for
BTN or other TV options. Maybe a Thanksgiving night
game? Friday game?

I know some fans won't like it, but I can remember two
post-Turkey day games. The NU-Illinois 2001 game was
probably the "case against" the move, with the game in
Champaign on a Friday, with the Illini playing for a
Big Ten title, and half the seats empty. It was fun to
have family in town for turkey, wake up the next
morning and pack the tailgate gear for a short (yet
dull:) ) drive down to Champaign for the game - but
the atmosphere left a lot to be desired.

The "case for" was in 1997 (or 98?) when we went out
to Happy Valley to visit my brother for Thanksgiving
and saw the PSU-MSU game. Turkey Day itself was
bizarre as State College was a ghost town with dorms
closed and no one in town. But things picked up by
Saturday and as usual, State College was buzzing for
game day and it was a perfect place for some holiday
weekend fun, festivities and football (but then again,
any gameday weekend at PSU seems like a little holiday
event).

We'll see how it works. We pretty much had to do it
and I'm sure the coaches and teams will appreciate the
bye week again during the season to rest up. Plus,
another weekend of Big Ten football can't be a bad
thing, right?

GO CATS!!!
-SjT

* * * * * * * * *
STEPHEN J. TRUOG
sjtruog at yahoo.com
GO CATS!!!


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