As far as the national media is concerned, the Michigan State-Ohio State rematch is, at least on paper, the biggest game of the 2014 Big Ten slate.
Appropriately enough, said rematch will, as expected, have a national stage and a prime-time audience to match the preseason hype.
The Big Ten announced Thursday that the Nov. 8 game pitting Ohio State against Michigan State will kick off at 8 p.m. ET. The game will be played in Spartan Stadium, with the school noting that it will be the first-ever November night game in Spartan Stadium history.
Back in early December of last year, the Spartans handed the Buckeyes a 34-24 loss in the Big Ten championship game and, in the process, halted OSU’s nation’s best 24-game winning streak while simultaneously spoiling any shot it had at Florida State in the BCS title game. The upset tossed both football programs off in vastly different postseason directions as well.
On New Year’s Day, MSU held off Stanford for a four-point win in the Rose Bowl. Three days later, OSU watched as Sammy Watkins ran over, through and around its overmatched secondary for 224 yards receiving and a pair of touchdowns in Clemson’s five-point Orange Bowl win.
Both teams, however, are expected to be inside the Top 10 in the preseason rankings when they’re released next month.
