By Jim Naveua

jnaveau@civitasmedia.com

 

COLUMBUS — When Ohio State played Virginia Tech on Saturday night, it was the 15th time OSU had played under the lights at Ohio Stadium and the first of five night games on the Buckeyes’ football schedule this season.

Ohio State’s first home game at night was on Sept. 14, 1985 when it beat Pittsburgh 10-7.

Nine of the Big Ten’s 14 schools played their first night home football in the decade of the 1980s. But the first night game on a Big Ten campus came much earlier than that and it came from an unexpected team.

And the reason it was moved to night time might be the most unbelievable part of the story.

The first Big Ten football game under the lights was on Oct. 5, 1935 when Purdue played at Northwestern.

Northwestern athletic director Tug Wilson moved the game from its traditional afternoon kickoff to a night start. He brought in lights and attached them to telephone poles around the playing field.

Why did he do this? Because the Chicago Cubs – yes, the Cubs – were playing a World Series game against the Detroit Tigers that afternoon in Wrigley Field, just seven miles south of Northwestern’s Evanston campus.

Wilson thought going up against the World Series would mean almost no one would come to the football game.

Purdue won the game 7-0. Northwestern played another night game against Indiana in 1943, then didn’t play at night at home again until a Sept. 4, 1988 game against Duke. Ironically, that game came less than a month after the Cubs played the first night game at Wrigley Field in history on Aug. 8, 1988.

When college football was in its infancy before the Big Ten was even established, Northwestern also played an exhibition game under the lights at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, which began at 9 p.m.

The game was scheduled to start at 8:30, but Northwestern was late. Traffic must have been tough on Lake Shore Drive even in horse and buggy days.

One of the Big Ten’s two newest teams, Maryland, was also one of the earliest to play a night game. The Terrapins’ first evening game was in 1944 against Hampden-Sydney.

Michigan was the last holdout. The first night game at Michigan Stadium didn’t happen until Sept. 10, 2011 when the Wolverines beat Notre Dame 35-31.

That was 19 years after the next most recent convert to night football in the Big Ten.

Here are the years the Big Ten’s teams played their first home game at night: Northwestern (1935), Maryland (1944), Minnesota (1982), Indiana (1982), Illinois (1982), Ohio State (1985), Penn State (1986), Purdue (1986), Nebraska (1986), Wisconsin (1986), Michigan State (1987), Iowa (1990), Rutgers (1992) and Michigan (2011).

For decades a 1:30 p.m. kickoff at Ohio State was almost as much a tradition as Script Ohio.

But those days are gone. Gone forever.

So far, the times have been announced for five of OSU’s seven home games. There will be two 8 p.m. kickoffs, one 6 p.m., a 3:30 p.m. and a noon start. Times have not yet been selected by the television networks for the Indiana game and the Michigan game.

Two of the Buckeyes’ road games will kick off at 8 p.m. – at Penn State and at Michigan State.

Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith has said he doesn’t think the Michigan game will ever be played at night and that he doesn’t expect future schedules where every game would be at night.

But the trend certainly has been toward more night games, not fewer. And it’s probably going to continue to move in that direction.

Ohio State has averaged three night games per season the last eight years and the last time it didn’t play at least one night game during the regular season was in 1996.

That’s a long way from the novelty that the first night game at Ohio Stadium was back in 1985. And an even longer way from those temporary lights fastened to telephone poles at Northwestern 79 years ago.