Ohio State will play a rare non-Saturday game this week when they travel to Evanston to face Northwestern.
It will be the first time the Buckeyes have played a regular season game on a week night since the season opener at Indiana on a Thursday in 2017.
It’s also the first Friday regular season game for Ohio State since 1959.
Both teams are coming off an idle week. The Buckeyes are 6-0, 2-0 in Big Ten play. Northwestern is 1-4 overall, and 0-3 in conference. The Cats’ only win of the year came against lowly UNLV.
Ohio State has not played in Evanston since the 2013 season. The last meeting between the teams was the 2018 Big Ten Championship Game in Indianapolis, which the Buckeyes won, 45-24.
Northwestern is 1-31 against the Bucks since 1971, with their only win coming in 2004.
Ohio State leads the series 62-14-1 all-time.
Here’s everything you need to know to watch the Buckeyes and Wildcats.
Kickoff Time
The game kicks off Friday, October 18 at 8:30 pm Eastern.
TV & Streaming
This game was originally scheduled for FS1, but a rainout in the American League Championship Series means that the Yankees and Astros are taking that spot.
The game will now appear on Big Ten Network.
You can stream it via FoxSports.com or the FoxSportsGo app. Joe Davis, Brock Huard, and Bruce Feldman are on the call.
Radio
The game will be carried live on the Ohio State Football Radio Network. Find your local Ohio State Football radio station here.
Weather
Friday night may not be the tradition time to watch a college football game, but if you’re going to be there, get ready for absolutely perfect college football weather.
The high for Friday is projected at just 60 with a zero percent chance of rain and winds around 10-15 MPH.
The temperature should be somewhere in the mid-to-high 50s by kickoff time.
You can find an updated weekend forecast for the Evanston area here.
Point Spread
The Buckeyes are a 27.5-point favorite against the Wildcats. The Over/Under for the game is 48.5.
That line opened at 25.5 and was almost instantly bet up by a couple of points.
If you want to combine those numbers, that means Vegas is expecting something in the neighborhood of a 38-10 win for Ohio State.
Tickets
Virtually every Ohio State trip to Northwestern has a few things in common. One is that at least half of the people inside the stadium will be Buckeye fans.
The other is that, yes, tickets are available. The game itself is sold out, but there is a ton of inventory on the secondary market as Northwestern fans try to cover the cost of most of their season tickets in one day.
Like OSU, Northwestern sells their tickets through Ticketmaster, and the resale market and direct purchase market are blended together. This week, that link has intermittently worked and then returned a “Tickets for this event are currently not available on Ticketmaster” message.
If you can’t get that to work, secondary outlets like StubHub are another option.
The get-in price is around $75, and will probably drop as game day approaches.
You can sit between the 40s in the lower deck starting at prices around $130.
If you haven’t been to Ryan Field before, it’s one of the smallest venues in major-conference football, and the view from most seats is pretty good.
You can find a Ryan Field seating chart here.
Gates at Ryan Field will open at 5:30 pm, two hours prior to kickoff. That is 30 minutes earlier than a normal Northwestern home game to accommodate the large number of visiting fans.
Ryan Field Bag Policy
You may bring one (1) clear bag into Ryan Field.
From the Northwestern website: Each ticket holder can bring in one large clear bag, either a one gallon Ziploc-style bag or the 12” by 6″ by 12″ clear bag, plus a small clutch no bigger than 4.5″ by 6.5″. The larger clear bag must be a standard 12″ by 6″ by 12″ bag made of clear PVC vinyl and easily searchable.
You can find the full bag policy here.
Parking
There’s no use beating around the bush: parking at a Northwestern game can be a flaming pain in the butt. That’s going to be doubly true for a Friday evening game.
Northwestern is holding classes as normal on Friday, and will continue to enforce their normal weekday parking policies until 4:00 pm on Friday.
After 4:00 pm, parking will be available.
From the Northwestern website: Free day-of-game parking can be found on the Northwestern campus, after 4 p.m. A campus map can be found here. Day-of-game parking also is available at the Canal Shores Golf Course at the East Golf Lot. The lot entrance is located off Isabella Street just west of Girard Avenue and just east of the canal on the south side of the street. This lot will accommodate, on a first-come first-serve basis, persons looking for parking or tailgating, and opens at 3:30 p.m.
And just in case you missed it above, you can find a campus parking map, information on mass transit and more here. Just click on the topic you want to see more about, and it will expand.
If you are staying at a hotel downtown, the CTA’s Purple line or Metra’s UP-N line are both highly recommended.
PROTIP: If you are driving from Ohio, try to make it through Chicago by 3:00 pm at the latest. Yes, you will have tons of time to kill in Evanston, but sitting on the perpetually-jammed Chicago highway system on a Friday afternoon is going to make you question a lot of your life choices.
Have Other Questions?
You can find the rundown of all Ryan Field policies, services, and procedures here.
This page will be updated throughout the week with additional information about this week’s game.
