Friday Night Games

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MNfootballfan

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Now that it has come and gone I want to go on record saying I loved the Friday night game. Only drawback was lack of tailgating time, but I think the U should press to get a home game on Friday night the week of MEA or the week after (traditional 6A first round night). I liked the idea thrown out on here of the U embracing it and making it a big deal. I am sure they never would, but it would be fun to have parent's weekend (like it is this weekend), have a random day off of classes for parent's weekend, and get the weekend started with a Friday night game.
 

Talked with my father who is a high school ref in Wisconsin. Mentioned the high school coaches were not happy when Wisconsin played Friday night. They didn’t want to play the same night so they had to reschedule games. I’m all for one a year
 

Hated it. Son was playing a playoff game, so I had to go there. Can't go to the Gopher game, need to avoid anyone at the game so I don't hear any updates, and stay up way to late watching the game.
 

For someone like me that just watched it on TV, I didn’t mind it.
 

Absolutely HATE it. Yet another sell out that diminishes the experience of going to a game in favor of TV.

Wrecked tailgate time. Scramble and fight traffic at rush hour on a work day. Conflict with HS football. Etc. etc.

There are reasons college and pro football picked weekends for their games. It is easier and more fun for fans to go. But now it is all about TV.

In semi-related news - also sad to see the Big Ten Network no longer automatically can be counted on to be showing a game Sat night. I always liked being able to count on a B1G game on Sat night if the networks were showing SEC or ACC. So on some Saturday nights it is now volleyball. I like Volleyball (really enjoy Gopher volleyball) but Saturday is football time.
 


Schnauzer said:
Wrecked tailgate time. Scramble and fight traffic at rush hour on a work day. Conflict with HS football. Etc. etc.
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For what it’s worth. I drove up from Lakeville. Left our house at 4:30, stopped for pizza in St Paul, and was parked by 6:00 on campus.
 

I hate it.

It is a pain to get to the stadium on a Friday, it doesn't guarantee any kind of attendance or anything.
 

I'd stick with Saturday's. However High school was playing also this past Saturday so you can't avoid it 100% as to the two competing with each other for bodies.
 

#2Gopher said:
I'd stick with Saturday's. However High school was playing also this past Saturday so you can't avoid it 100% as to the two competing with each other for bodies.
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For comparison, yesterday their were over 90 high school football games in Kinnesota compared to 15 on Friday night...
 



3 ours to tailgate is not good. By the time we got set up and ate, it was time to put everything away and head to the stadium.
 

I was actually super against it, but when it came down to it, I enjoyed it.

I live out of town and only make it to a handful of games per year now, so part of my dislike for it was selfish. That said, I happened to be in town for work and I thought it was fun. It would have been ideal to get another hour or so of tailgating, but the whole thing was kind of fun, felt more like a happy hour than a college football tailgate.

If it's once a year, I'm for it.
 

I think all college FB games should kick off at 1:00pm on Saturdays. And Keith Jackson should be doing the play-by-play. But that's just me.
 




Fine with me. It was our loyalty upgrade to outdoor club game. It worked out well.
 

MNfootballfan said:
For comparison, yesterday their were over 90 high school football games in Minnesota compared to 15 on Friday night...
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90 Minnesota High School games on Saturday vs. 15 on Friday night, yet some have been whining since the schedule came out about this Friday night game. Talk about an non-issue, and completely dishonest or uniformed point to hitch your wagon to.

I thought it was great and I drive in rush hour traffic every day and found getting to the game and tracking down a free parking spot up by towards KSTP to be as easy as ever.

Other than ruining the tailgate for some, and if I was not in a permanent spot, I'd just go the East River Road Flats for one week, I thought it was great. At least it was not a 6PM game.

The TV exposure is probably a lot better as well, with not much other competition for the hard core non-Gopher connected football fan and the game FS1 with prominent Cable/ Satellite placement.
 
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MNfootballfan said:
For comparison, yesterday their were over 90 high school football games in Kinnesota compared to 15 on Friday night...
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This is dumb by state high school league and should be changed. The MsHl should no longer manage football in my opinion. They are an embarrassment.

The majority of those 90 games outside of the metro.
The 15 games Friday are the 30 largest metro communities involved in a game. Who is most likely to go to a Friday game? Maybe people from the metro?
 

Some guy said:
This is dumb by state high school league and should be changed. The MsHl should no longer manage football in my opinion. They are an embarrassment.

The majority of those 90 games outside of the metro.
The 15 games Friday are the 30 largest metro communities involved in a game. Who is most likely to go to a Friday game? Maybe people from the metro?
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You realize there is a reason for this right?

The sectional games often involve quite a bit of traveling, especially for people from outside of the metro. They are simply trying to allow those folks more time to travel, on the weekends.
 

I think Fleck said it best in his press conference previewing Indiana. He mentioned something along the line of wanting to play college football on Saturday, but TV dictating what happens. Just the times we're living in I suppose. If it were up to me I'd want the Gophers to play on Saturday, but I'd be a bit of a hypocrite because I watch every other college football game that's broadcast on Friday (and Tuesday-Thursday with the Group of Five) nights.
 

If it's just 1 game every other year, I am ok with it. Like the Thursday night season openers, I work downtown Mpls, so I can hop on the light rail back and forth without any issues.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
You realize there is a reason for this right?

The sectional games often involve quite a bit of traveling, especially for people from outside of the metro. They are simply trying to allow those folks more time to travel, on the weekends.
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That is one reason given. The real reason is because they play the Tuesday before (what I have a bigger issue with)
 

It worked out better than I expected. I was worried about traffic, but left the Western suburbs at 3:15 and was parked in the tailgate lot by 3:50. Not sure when they actually opened up the lots, but there were others already set up when we arrived. There were definitely fewer tailgaters and more late arrivals, but the lot was as full as normal by gametime. Crowd was small, but lots of folks in the concourse to dodge the rain. Stayed for the whole game and tailgated afterwards until about 11:45 and back home a little after midnight. Prefer Saturdays, but I can live with this once in a while.
 

Unfortunately, we will be stuck with more if these games because our athletic director refuses to advocate for us the way Michigan's does with the conference.
 

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