Michigan State Football: Almost everything about the Penn State game is wrong

Sometimes switching the day and the time of a game makes sense. In certain instances, switching the location of a game makes sense. Every once in a while, doing something that benefits the conference that your school belongs to, makes sense. The scheduled game for Michigan State against Penn State for this upcoming season makes nearly zero sense and the reasons why that is will be given.

First below is a quote from a famous movie that approximately sums up in some way or another the vast majority of Michigan State football fans’ passion and attitude regarding their opinion of the game being moved from Saturday to Friday, to a possible 3:30 start to at 7:30 start, and the move from Spartan Stadium to Ford Field for the Penn State and Michigan State game this season.

“I’m gonna take a stand. I’m gonna defend it. Right or wrong, I’m gonna defend it.”
Cameron Frye from the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

Now, here are some tweets that show specifically what Spartan fans are so worked up about.

To summarize, the Big Ten when they signed their new media rights deal promised NBC a certain amount of games in prime time which the network decided on the time of kickoff being 7:30 pm EST. Depending on what reports you believe are true or not, NBC did not want, with no disrespect to certain Big Ten teams, Rutgers at Indiana at 7:30 pm EST on the Friday after Thanksgiving for example. The conference knew that Ohio State and Michigan would not agree to switch the day they play and the time at which they play their game. This brings us to the game between Michigan State football and Penn State.

For a long time, the Big Ten had a policy of not playing conference games at night in the month of November. But with the new media rights deal, networks like NBC were promised primetime games as part of their agreement with the Big Ten conference. Certain Big Ten teams more than others were willing to help the Big Ten fulfill the obligations of their media rights deal with CBS, NBC, and Fox to play certain games at night and especially later on in the season.

Michigan State appears to be one of the more high-profile teams in the conference willing to do the Big Ten a favor this season. The Spartans and their athletic department led by athletic director Alan Haller worked out some type of agreement with the Big Ten conference and agreed to play on Friday as opposed to Saturday, play the game at night at 7:30, and also move the game from Spartan Stadium to Ford Field. Many Spartan fans went to social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook to disclose their displeasure. Michigan State football fans in general are not happy with many aspects of this season’s schedule.

It was announced that the Spartans will be playing Ohio State at night in November.

Michigan State fans were not thrilled about playing Ohio State at night but it is a road game and many Spartan fan’s believe that rather the game is played at noon, 3:30, or 7:30, the outcome will not change. However, the Penn State game is different for many reasons and Michigan State fans have some strong opinions on the game. Here are some of the reasons why playing at Ford Field as opposed to playing at Spartan Stadium is not a good idea at all.