COLUMBUS, Ohio –– A lot has changed for Ohio State ahead of the unconventional fall football season this year, but head coach Ryan Day was happy that one more irregularity wasn’t added to that list this week.

It was announced Monday that this season’s Ohio State-Michigan game, scheduled for Dec. 12, will be played at noon once again, as The Game will be featured on FOX’s Big Noon Kickoff show. The news was a relief for the Buckeyes’ head coach, he told 97.1 The Fan Thursday.

“That’s a noon game. It’s just tradition,” Day said. “There’s been enough changes to the season, let’s just try to keep it as normal as we possibly can.”

When the Big Ten announced its Version 2.0 schedule in August, prior to the postponement of the season, the Ohio State-Michigan matchup had been moved from it’s typical final week slot of the regular season to Week Eight of the 12-week slate.

Order was restored when the Big Ten announced its new schedule following the reinstatement though, as the Buckeyes will now square off during the final week of Big Ten games that precede the “Champions Week” matchups that pit the mirror seeds of the East and West divisions against each other on Dec. 19.

The season’s delay does however mean that The Game will take place much later than its traditional late-November slot, but Day said that’s all the more reason to keep the game at noon, as opposed to a primetime kickoff.

“And by the way, playing at night in December isn’t exactly the most ideal situation,” Day said. “Let’s try to play in the time period when it’s warmest.”

The rivalry game has not always been played at noon, though. It usually does, but there have been four occasions since 2000 that The Game has kicked off at 1 p.m. or later, including the Game of the Century in 2006, when the No. 1 Buckeyes and No. 2 Wolverines saw a 3:30 p.m. start time.

Since then, each subsequent edition of the rivalry has been played at noon, with Ohio State claiming victory in all but one of those contests –– a 40-34 loss on the road in 2011.

For Day, a noon kickoff is preferable no matter who the opposing team is in a given week.

“I love the noon start. Waiting around is not fun to play a game,” Day said. “It creates anxiety and all you’re doing is thinking about different things. It’s great to get a good night’s sleep, start early in the morning and get going, and hopefully enjoy a win at night.”

Luckily for Day and the Buckeyes, their season opener against Nebraska is a noon start as well when things finally kick off for Ohio State and the Big Ten slate on Oct. 24.