EDITORIAL: Keep football on the weekends
The Central Michigan Chippewas are in to Muncie, Ind. to take on Ball State. It will be under the lights in prime time, airing on ESPN 2 on a school night.
What would normally be one of the busiest days of the week for a student is now being replaced by a football game for student-athletes.
Football players, coaches and support staff, which are also comprised of students, travel the day before away games to get settled in and sometimes acclimated to the new timezone. This happens not just with football, but other sports including men's and women's basketball.
Because of this, students miss two of the five busiest days of the week for school. Those are classroom hours that are unused.
The NCAA issues scheduling to try to get more Division I football teams on nationally televised games. This is ironic because for the past decade, while the NCAA has been cracking down on universities, they claim students come first in the student athlete balance. So why not adjust scheduling to better serve these students?
Ball State is receiving the short end of the stick. Not only do they face the Chippewas this today, but next week they have to travel to Northern Illinois to face a ranked opponent at 8 p.m — on a Wednesday.
Attendance is another factor when it comes to paying on a week day. The national spotlight isn't so good when the student section is busy studying or in their night classes.
If classes weren't enough to keep students out of the stands, the weather and the fact that they can just watch the game in the comfort of their own home is.
We've seen it here at Kelly/Shorts Stadium and other Mid-Major schools around the country. ESPN comes to town and all the students see on the their TVs as they watch the games at home is an empty stadium.
Mid-week ESPN games started out great and gave the smaller schools some exposure, but that has run its course.
These games get players excited to play on national TV, but that's it. They do more harm than good.
It looks bad on the school to have an empty stadium on ESPN, it hurts because people aren't buying tickets, merchandise and concessions and, most of all, it's grueling on the student-athletes. It's time to re-evaluate this practice and keep in mind the student obligations of student-athletes.