College football community rips Big Ten, Fox Sports over 'bad pick' for Big Noon Kickoff

Zain Bando

College football community rips Big Ten, Fox Sports over 'bad pick' for Big Noon Kickoff image

Big Noon Kickoff hits the road once again this Saturday for a Big Ten matchup between the Oregon Ducks and Northwestern Wildcats from Evanston, Ill. While it's a game between two marquee brands, it isn't one to circle as a must-watch game during a packed college football Saturday slate.

Upon Big Noon Kickoff confirming their plans to bring the show to Evanston, social media, particularly 'X', was not pleased with the show's decision for several factors. The biggest, though, is rather obvious: its potential lack of competitiveness.

The defending Big Ten champions currently sit as a 27.5-point favorite against the Wildcats, which is not exactly what the community expects from a headlining game in the noon ET window.

Among dozens of replies, one user put it simply: it's a "bad pick."

While college football fans have a point, it was the only conference game that made sense considering the other television designations in the rest of the conference and given that the Ducks are a top-five team.

Nonetheless, Wildcats coach David Braun's message was clear: home-field advantage is a major key.

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"The lakefront needs to be packed with purple... these are days you dream of when you dream of playing college football," Braun said during his weekly press conference.

Zain Bando

Zain Bando is a freelance writer for The Sporting News. He is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism. Over the years, Bando has written about various beats surrounding Illinois, Northwestern, and Kansas State Athletics but sticks to the Big Ten as his primary expertise. Outside of collegiate reporting, Bando covers MMA and boxing for MMA Knockout On Sports Illustrated and hosts/co-hosts two podcasts as part of the Empty The Bench Podcast Network – Bando's Breakdowns and The MMA Outsiders, which air weekly on YouTube and are distributed on all podcast platforms Wednesday nights and Friday afternoons. Bando is a Chicago Suburban native and a member of the FWAA and USBWA, continuing to hone his professional skills as a sports journalist and media personality. Since June 2019, Bando's byline has been featured in numerous media outlets, including MSN, Yardbarker, Deadspin, FanSided, BJPenn.com, Bridge Media Network (Sports News Highlights), Mike Farrell Sports, Reuters, and more. When Bando is not writing, he binges on old UFC fights, spends time with family and friends, memorizes every Super Bowl, and manifests all the places he still has to travel to (even while bringing his laptop).