ESPN Under Fire For 'Misleading' College Football Game Kickoff Times

Ohio State and Texas were “scheduled” to kick off at 7:30 p.m. E.T. on Saturday night, the game airing on ABC.

But, by the time the Buckeyes and the Longhorns actually kicked off, it was close to 8 p.m. E.T. Why advertise the kickoff time as 7:30 p.m. E.T. if you’re not going to start the game for another 30 minutes or so?

College football fans are starting to get fed up with it.

“Why are kickoff times being delayed for no reason? Ohio State at Texas says 7:30, then why is it kicking off at 7:50?? When the Bama at Kentucky game ended perfectly on time, that is ridiculous,” one fan wrote.

“That’s 20+ more minutes of commercials. They do this for most OSU games. It drives me nuts,” one fan added.

“Just make them 8:10 starts for prime time Saturday night game,” one fan added.

“It’s so misleading,” one fan added.

The NFL doesn’t have this problem

The NFL, meanwhile, doesn’t really do this.

When a game is scheduled to start at 1 p.m. E.T., it starts at 1 p.m. E.T. When a game is scheduled to start at 4:25 p.m. E.T., that’s when it starts. You’ll never really see an NFL game kicking off 20 to 25 minutes past its TV start time.

But it happens all the time in college football.

It’s annoying for fans and it’s understandable that many would be complaining about it, two weeks into the 2026 college football regular season.

Hopefully, it’s something that can get figured out.

This story was originally published by The Spun on Sep 13, 2026, where it first appeared in the College Football section. Add The Spun as a Preferred Source by clicking here.