Football Buckeyes On TV

Ohio State will likely have each of its 11 regular-season games televised this season, but the Big Ten has released a preliminary schedule with five of the Buckeyes' games on the official conference TV slate.

The Buckeyes will kick off the season Sept. 4 against Cincinnati beginning at noon Eastern. That game is slated to be an ESPN Regional telecast, available through the ESPN GamePlan package.

The following week, OSU makes its first appearance on ABC, hosting a regional game against Marshall. That game kicks off at 3:30 p.m. Eastern.

The Buckeyes' first road game of the season will also be an ABC affair when they visit North Carolina State on Sept. 18. That game is also slated to kick off at 3:30 p.m. Eastern.

Perhaps the most unusual game will be Ohio State's Big Ten opener at Northwestern on Oct. 2. After an open week, the Buckeyes will travel to Evanston for a night game at either 7:45 p.m. Eastern on ESPN or 9 p.m. Eastern on ESPN2.

And, of course, the traditional Ohio State-Michigan game, set for Nov. 20 in Ohio Stadium, will be telecast by ABC. But it has a very un-traditional 1 p.m. Eastern kickoff.

OSU's other six games on the schedule will undoubtedly be on a combination of the ABC and ESPN networks. The networks will determine which games will be televised (and when) once the season begins.