Big Noon Kickoff

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Big Noon Kickoff
Big Noon Kickoff logo.png
GenreCollege football pre-game show
Presented byRob Stone
Reggie Bush
Matt Leinart
Brady Quinn
Bob Stoops
Charles Woodson
Clay Travis
Tom Verducci
Bruce Feldman
Tom Rinaldi
Urban Meyer (2019–2020)
Opening themeFox CFB Theme
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons3
No. of episodes38 (as of September 25, 2021)
Production
Production locationsFox Network Center
Los Angeles
Various NCAA stadiums (for road shows)
Running time60 minutes (2019, November 7th, 2020 show)
120 minutes (special on–location broadcasts, 2019; full–time, 2020–present)
Production companyFox Sports
DistributorFox Corporation
Release
Original networkFox
FS1 (weekly simulcasts)
Original releaseAugust 31, 2019 (2019-08-31) –
present
Chronology
Related showsFox College Football
Fox NFL Sunday

Big Noon Kickoff is a college football studio show broadcast by Fox, and simulcast on sister network Fox Sports 1 (FS1). Premiering on August 31, 2019, it serves as the pre-game show for Fox College Football, and in particular, Big Noon Saturday—the network's new weekly 12:00 p.m ET/9:00 a.m PT kickoff window.

It is hosted by Rob Stone, and features former USC Trojans teammates, running back Reggie Bush and 2004 Heisman Trophy winner quarterback Matt Leinart, former Notre Dame Fighting Irish quarterback Brady Quinn, and former Oklahoma Sooners head coach Bob Stoops as panelists, with Bruce Feldman acting as Fox's CFB insider, as well as Tom Verducci, who usually does baseball for Fox, and Tom Rinaldi, both working on feature reports. Fox also uses Clay Travis, host of and panelist on , as a special correspondent for games down in the South, and 1997 Heisman Trophy winner and former Michigan Wolverines cornerback Charles Woodson will also join the show on select weeks, most notably if Michigan is featured.

Former Utah, Florida, and Ohio State coach Urban Meyer was on the show as an analyst for the first two seasons, but left after the 2020 season to take the Jacksonville Jaguars head coaching job, and was replaced by Stoops.

Throughout the fall, Big Noon Kickoff de facto pre-empts Weekend Marketplace, a little-known two-hour block of paid programming managed by Fox and aired in some of the network's markets.

History[]

In the 2013 season, Fox aired a college football pre-game show on its Fox Sports 1 channel, Fox College Saturday. The program was unable to compete with ESPN's popular and established College GameDay, with Fox only being able to sustain an average viewership of 70,000. The show was cancelled after a single season, and its role was supplanted by the Friday-night edition of Fox Sports Live.[1][2]

Fox introduced the Big Noon Saturday window for its college football coverage in the 2019 season; the network had aired occasional noon kickoffs during the season before (including, after having acquired the Big Ten's primary football rights in 2017, the Michigan–Ohio State rivalry),[3] and they were among Fox's top-viewed games in the 2018 season. Fox has positioned the timeslot as featuring one of its flagship games of the day.[4] Fox made that decision in order to boost their ratings by avoiding competition with CBS that has their featured SEC game of the week in the 3:30 p.m. timeslot, and ABC with their featured game in primetime.[5] Big Noon Kickoff was henceforth introduced as a pre-game show for the new window.[6][4]

Sports Illustrated described the show as being "built around" Urban Meyer (who retired as head coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes at the end of the 2018 season, and had previously been an ESPN analyst). Meyer stated that he had prepared for the role by studying clips of Fox's NFL pre-game show Fox NFL Sunday, and Alex Rodriguez (who joined ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball in 2018),[7] as an example of another player-turned-television analyst. Fox executive producer Brad Zager explained that his presence was meant to help provide "intelligent dialogue" to the show.[4]

For the 2020 season, the program was expanded to two hours.[8] On November 4, 2020, for undisclosed reasons citing CDC and Los Angeles County Department of Health Services guidance, Fox announced that the November 7, 2020 edition of Big Noon Kickoff would not feature the program's usual panel, and that the program would be shortened to one hour. The guest panel was led by Fox NFL Kickoff host Charissa Thompson, joined by Fox NFL Sunday analysts Terry Bradshaw and Howie Long, and Emmanuel Acho from Fox Sports 1's Speak for Yourself.[9][10] On November 12, Meyer revealed that he had recently recovered from a COVID-19 infection.[11]

Reception[]

The Big Lead felt that Big Noon Kickoff showed promise, but that the show's "formal" and "corporate" atmosphere (in comparison to the "casual fun" of College GameDay) led to most of the panelists seeming "stiff" on-air, and exacerbated their relative lack of broadcasting experience. Quinn was considered to be a stand-out among the panelists in its premiere broadcast, considering him the most "comfortable" on-air, and noting that both him and Meyer were well-versed at leveraging their past experience to provide insights.[12]

The decision to move the network's featured game to the 12:00pm was met with heavy criticism for substantially diminishing the fan experience at marquee games as those are typically played at night or the late afternoon, and is widely viewed as a money grab. This also forced some games in the Pac-12 to kick off in the morning at the network's choosing, kicking off at either 9:00am or 10:00am local time, another highly criticized consequence of the network's decision.

Viewership[]

During the first episode, the show garnered 838,000 viewers, which amounted to a 0.8 rating.[13] A special two-hour edition of Big Noon Kickoff leading into the Michigan-Ohio State game on November 30, 2019 received a series-high 1.6 overnight rating, beating College GameDay (which drew a 1.54 rating) in its time slot for the first time in the program's history.[14]

On-site broadcasts[]

Unlike College GameDay or SEC Nation, Big Noon Kickoff does not regularly do remote broadcasts, preferring to originate from the Fox Sports studio in Los Angeles. However, the show has occasionally done on-location broadcasts, particularly as a lead-in to major games.[15] On November 23, 2019, the show scheduled an on-location edition from Columbus, Ohio for the Ohio State/Penn State rivalry game, which ESPN also chose as its site for College GameDay that week.[15] Fox scheduled 4 road shows for Big Noon Kickoff in 2020, only 3 happened, as their scheduled visit to USC was canceled due to Fox holding their crew out that weekend due to COVID-19 protocols, which Urban Meyer later revealed that he dealt with a COVID infection. The first 6 weeks of the 2021 season featured the crew going on the road, a Big Noon Kickoff first.

Date Host Visitor Venue City Notes
2019 season
September 20 USC 30 No. 10 Utah 23 Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Los Angeles, CA First Big Noon Kickoff road show, game on FS1, 9 ET/7 MT/6 PT kickoff
October 12 No. 11 Texas* 27 No. 6 Oklahoma 34 Cotton Bowl Dallas, TX Red River Rivalry, 2-hour show
October 26 No. 3 Ohio State 38 No. 13 Wisconsin 7 Ohio Stadium Columbus, OH
November 23 No. 2 Ohio State 28 No. 8 Penn State 17 Ohio State–Penn State rivalry, 2-hour show
November 30 No. 13 Michigan 27 No. 1 Ohio State 56 Michigan Stadium Ann Arbor, MI The Game, 2-hour show (Also live from Michigan on November 29, before Texas Tech-Texas)
December 7 No. 8 Wisconsin* 21 No. 1 Ohio State 34 Lucas Oil Stadium Indianapolis, IN Big Ten Championship Game, 8 ET/7 CT kickoff, 1-hour show
2020 season
October 24 No. 5 Ohio State 52 Nebraska 17 Ohio Stadium Columbus, OH 2020 Big Ten season opener
November 21 No. 3 Ohio State 42 No. 9 Indiana 35
December 19 No. 4 Ohio State* 22 No. 15 Northwestern 10 Lucas Oil Stadium Indianapolis, IN Big Ten Championship Game
2021 season
September 2 Minnesota 31 No. 4 Ohio State 45 Huntington Bank Stadium Minneapolis, MN 2021 Big Ten season opener, 8 ET/7 CT kickoff, 1-hour show
September 4 No. 12 Wisconsin 10 No. 19 Penn State 16 Camp Randall Stadium Madison, WI
September 11 No. 3 Ohio State 28 No. 12 Oregon 35 Ohio Stadium Columbus, OH 2015 CFP National Championship Game rematch
September 18 No. 3 Oklahoma 23 Nebraska 16 Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium Norman, OK Nebraska–Oklahoma rivalry/50th Anniversary of the Game of the Century
September 25 No. 12 Notre Dame* 41 No. 18 Wisconsin 13 Soldier Field Chicago, IL Shamrock Series
October 2 Wisconsin 17 No. 14 Michigan 38 Camp Randall Stadium Madison, WI
October 9 No. 3 Iowa 23 No. 4 Penn State 20 Kinnick Stadium Iowa City, IA 4 ET/3 CT kickoff
October 30 No. 8 Michigan State 37 No. 6 Michigan 33 Spartan Stadium East Lansing, MI Michigan–Michigan State football rivalry
November 13 No. 13 Baylor 27 No. 8 Oklahoma 14 McLane Stadium Waco, TX
November 20 No. 13 Oklahoma 28 Iowa State 21 Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium Norman, OK
November 27 No. 5 Michigan 42 No. 2 Ohio State 27 Michigan Stadium Ann Arbor, MI The Game (Also live from Michigan on November 26, 1-hour show before Kansas State-Texas)
December 4 No. 13 Iowa* 3 No. 2 Michigan 42 Lucas Oil Stadium Indianapolis, IN Big Ten Championship Game, 8 ET kickoff, 1-hour show

Winners listed in BOLD
* denotes a neutral site host
Rankings from AP Poll and CFP Rankings (once released) released prior to game

On-site appearances by school[]

Appearance(s) School Hosted Record Win Pct. Last appearance Last hosted
10 Ohio State 5 8–2 .800 November 27, 2021 September 11, 2021
5 Wisconsin 3 0–5 .000 October 2, 2021 October 2, 2021
4 Oklahoma 2 3–1 .750 November 20, 2021 November 20, 2021
5 Michigan 2 3–2 .600 December 4, 2021 November 27, 2021
3 Penn State 0 1–2 .333 October 9, 2021 N/A
3 Nebraska 0 0–2 .000 November 6, 2021 November 6, 2021
1 Michigan State 1 1–0 1.000 October 30, 2021 October 30, 2021
2 Iowa 1 1–1 .500 December 4, 2021 October 9, 2021
1 Oregon 0 1–0 1.000 September 11, 2021 N/A
1 Baylor 1 1–0 1.000 November 13, 2021 November 13, 2021
1 Notre Dame 1 1–0 1.000 September 25, 2021 September 25, 2021
1 USC 1 1–0 1.000 September 20, 2019 September 20, 2019
1 Minnesota 1 0–1 .000 September 2, 2021 September 2, 2021
1 Texas 1 0–1 .000 October 12, 2019 October 12, 2019
1 Iowa State 0 0–1 .000 November 20, 2021 N/A
1 Utah 0 0–1 .000 September 20, 2019 N/A
1 Northwestern 0 0–1 .000 December 19, 2020 N/A
1 Indiana 0 0–1 .000 November 21, 2020 N/A

References[]

  1. ^ "Fox Sports 1 launching new Friday night college football pregame show". Awful Announcing. 2014-08-16. Retrieved 2019-11-22.
  2. ^ "FS1 already giving up on Fox College Saturday?". Awful Announcing. 2014-06-02. Retrieved 2019-11-22.
  3. ^ Landis, Bill (2017-05-16). "Ohio State vs. Michigan football rivalry to be televised on FOX during 2017 season". cleveland.com. Retrieved 2019-09-03.
  4. ^ a b c "Three keys for Urban Meyer, Fox's Big Noon Kickoff". SI.com. Retrieved 2019-09-03.
  5. ^ "College football fanbases aren't happy being stuck with noon ET kickoffs". 8 November 2019.
  6. ^ "Watch: Trailer for FOX College Football Pregame show featuring Urban Meyer". Buckeyes Wire. 2019-08-14. Retrieved 2019-09-02.
  7. ^ Finn, Chad. "Alex Rodriguez added to ESPN's 'Sunday Night Baseball' crew". Boston Globe. Retrieved 2019-09-03.
  8. ^ "Fox is expanding Big Noon Kickoff to two hours, despite no Big Ten games this fall". Awful Announcing. 2020-09-01. Retrieved 2021-02-06.
  9. ^ "Fox Sports' 'Big Noon Kickoff' crew won't be at USC-Arizona State because of CDC guidelines". Los Angeles Times. 2020-11-05. Retrieved 2021-02-06.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  10. ^ Marchand, Andrew (2020-11-05). "Fox Sports' 'Big Noon Kickoff' crew out due to COVID-19 protocol". New York Post. Retrieved 2021-02-06.
  11. ^ Kaufman, Joey. "Former Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer reveals he had coronavirus". USA Today. Retrieved 2021-02-06.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  12. ^ "Big Noon Kickoff Filled With Ups and Downs in Regular Season Debut on Fox". The Big Lead. 2019-08-31. Retrieved 2019-09-16.
  13. ^ "Big Noon Kickoff and College GameDay Week 1 Viewership". The Big Lead. Retrieved 2019-12-03.
  14. ^ "Ohio State-Michigan matches ratings from last year, Big Noon Kickoff earns biggest audience ever". Awful Announcing. 2019-12-01. Retrieved 2019-12-02.
  15. ^ a b "College GameDay's duel with Big Noon Kickoff from Columbus is most interesting chapter in Fox-ESPN rivalry in some time". Awful Announcing. 2019-11-22. Retrieved 2019-11-23.

External links[]

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