Many (read here most) of us have heard that the 2017 home opener for tOSU has been moved from it's typical Saturday time slot to a Thursday time slot. Why in the hell are they opening up on a Thursday anyways, we may have asked ourselves?

Allow me to share a couple of lines that I found helpful when asking these types of questions:

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Move over, SEC. The Big Ten wants a piece of the college football opening night action.

The SEC has played a conference game on the first Thursday night of the college football season in four of the last five years. The 2017 season will be the Big Ten's turn to get some of that shine, with Ohio State and Indiana announcing on Tuesday that they'll play next year's season opener in Bloomington, Indiana on Thursday, Aug. 31.

This is new territory for the Big Ten, and Ohio State.

So this isn't something new, at least not for the SEC but who follows the SEC anymore anyways, the B1G is where it's at baby, right?!

The B1G is definitely on an upward trajectory when it comes to all things CFP but this Thursday thing is a little different, you see? We all remember that tOSU opened it's season last year on Labor Day instead of playing on Saturday so what's the big deal you might ask, Well, this isn't VT or some OOC game we're talking about, this is B1G against B1G!

Last year Indiana and Minnesota each opened on the first Thursday of the season, but those were non-conference games. We've seen other Big Ten programs open up with non-conference opponents on non-Saturdays in the past. That includes Ohio State, which started the 2015 season on Labor Day night at Virginia Tech.

Playing a Big Ten conference game on the opening night of the college football season is different.

"It's part of the Big Ten's initiative to get some of our conference games earlier in the year. They ran it by us and Indiana, and we agreed to do it," Martin Jarmond, Ohio State's Deputy Director of Athletics told cleveland.com.

 

The article goes on to discuss other B1G schools that are jumping on the emerging trend and delves further into playing a nine game conference schedule as well as the hot button topic of Friday night games in the B1G:

The 2017 season will be the Big Ten's second playing a nine-game conference slate, and some of those games are moving up in the calendar. No more waiting until the end of September or the beginning of October for a Big Ten game.

The Buckeyes and Hoosiers will play in Week 1 next season. Purdue and Northwestern are scheduled to play in Week 1 in 2018. Not every Big Ten team will be playing conference games in the first two weeks of the season, but this is a minor tweak to the schedule that will be a little different, and perhaps jarring to old school Big Ten fans.

The conference's decision to start playing some games on Friday nights next year and beyond as part of its new TV deal with ESPN and Fox was met with mixed reaction and concern about what it would mean for high school football in the Big Ten footprint.

The article further breaks down how this Thursday game between tOSU and Indiana came about and how other schools in the B1G are reacting to some of the scheduling changes being made.

The Big Ten views this as changing course to catch up to the rest of college football. Eight Power 5 teams opened on Thursday night last year.

"This is an unbelievable platform for the Big Ten," Jarmond said. "Ohio State sees the big picture and is very in lockstep with the Big Ten for what's best for the conference."

Jarmond said the Big Ten approached Ohio State and Indiana in recent weeks about changing the game, which was originally scheduled to be played on Sept. 2. Had either side not been for it, the change wouldn't have occurred.

We saw when the Big Ten's Friday games were announced earlier this year that Michigan refused completely to play on Fridays, home or away. Penn State said it won't play Friday night home games. Ohio State said it's up for playing Friday night road games, and will play a Friday night home game every three years but only during the university's fall break.

The article really delves into quite a bit of information concerning a couple of different things the B1G is doing and how it affects the players, the fans, the schools and their football schedules going forward.

Here's a link for the full read. We'd love to hear your take on Thursday/Friday night games and how you feel about it happening in the B1G and at tOSU.