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The official Wisconsin Badgers football Twitter account announced on Thursday afternoon that the home opener for the 2020 football season would be a night game! Wisconsin opens the year on Friday, Sept. 4th against B1G adversary, and #NotQuite9WINDIANA, the Indiana Hoosiers.
Camp Randall just hits different at night
— Wisconsin Football (@BadgerFootball) January 9, 2020
Can't wait to open the season on Sept. 4 against the Hoosiers #OnWisconsin https://t.co/toZB4qokA5 pic.twitter.com/WTAzeZmEzv
The official kick time and TV network have not been announced yet, but at least you’ll be able to make it to the Friday night season opener on time if you work a normal 9-5 and also live in Madison and can also cut out a little early. Friday games are stupid, but at least this one isn’t kicking off at 11 a.m., right?
This game was originally scheduled to be on Saturday, Sept. 5th when the conference schedules for 2020 and 2021 were announced a few years ago, but apparently that has changed now. Here is an interesting thread from a Dave Heller interview with Barry Alvarez in 2016:
#Badgers AD Barry Alvarez to me in a 2016 interview: "You know what, we’ve put a lot of talk into that and that’s one reason I was adamant we would not play other than Labor Day weekend, that Friday of Labor Day weekend. ...
— Dave Heller (@dave_heller) January 9, 2020
Per UW’s press release: This will mark the fourth time in the last 10 years (and third time in the last four) that UW has opened a season with a night game at Camp Randall (2011 vs. UNLV, 2017 vs. Utah State and 2018 vs. Western Kentucky). It is also the first time since 1982 (vs. No. 12 Michigan) that Wisconsin has started its season with a conference game.
Indiana is one of four teams that played in bowl games in 2019 that will visit Madison in 2020. In addition to the Hoosiers, Appalachian State (Sept. 19), Minnesota (Oct. 10) and Illinois (Oct. 31) come to Camp Randall next season. The home schedule also includes Southern Illinois (Sept. 12) and Nebraska (Nov. 21), who, in case you missed it, did not play in a bowl game last year.
curious why Michigan or Ohio State haven't been picked 3 of the last 4 years to start the season with a Friday night home game like Wisconsin has?
— Owen Riese (@RieseDraft) January 9, 2020
What do y’all do for these Friday kickoffs? Do you go? Do you even try and sell your tickets? Does the game being against a B1G team make it more palatable? As someone who used to have season tickets but hasn’t lived in Madison for nearly a decade, these games would infuriate me.