Michigan has plenty of time to prepare for prime-time football game

Michigan has 18 months to prepare for its first night home football game, Sept. 10, 2011, against Notre Dame. But the Wolverines already are versed on some of the logistics that come with a later start.

“We know how to string lights and we know how to work traffic in those conditions,” athletic director Dave Brandon said Thursday. “This will be a little bit of a different wrinkle, but the operations team is prepared to get this done and everybody is appreciative of the fact that we obviously have lead time here. We’ve got plenty of time to plan and educate and test and prepare, and so we’re going to be fine.”

While Michigan has never hosted a prime-time football game, many 3:30 p.m. starts end after dusk.

Typically, networks provide lights for those games, as ESPN will do next year, and while some parking areas around the stadium are lit, the university rents lighting towers for other nearby lots.

There are no plans to install lights at Michigan Stadium.

“Those things aren’t going to be as difficult as some people have made them out to be because we’ve already been doing that,” Michigan spokesperson Bruce Madej said. “We already play games after 3:30.”

Brandon said he spent a few weeks ironing out other logistical issues before finalizing the game. He met with Michigan president Mary Sue Coleman and members of her executive staff, and had conversations with Ken Magee, executive director of the university’s Department of Public Safety, and E. Royster Harper, vice president for student affairs.

Diane Brown, public information officer for DPS, said it’s too early to know what extra measures the department will have in place for a night game.

“This is 18 months away,” Brown said. “We have (President Barack) Obama coming (for commencement) in six weeks and we’ve got to get through a season and brand new environment, and we’ve got (an outdoor) hockey game after that. We’ll tackle the night game eventually. It’s a very big deal for the athletic department, but we’ve got a lot of other things coming up between now and then.”

Brown said department officials visited Wisconsin to see how police handled the outdoor hockey game there last month in preparation for the Michigan-Michigan State game scheduled for Michigan Stadium this December.

Because Michigan’s parking, tailgating and traffic situations are unique, the department may or may not travel to a night football game this fall, Brown said.

Another area of concern is excessive tailgating. Brown said any discussions on how early to open parking lots or how best to monitor tailgating “are a long ways off.”

“I think it’s pretty common knowledge that there is an increase in issues pertaining to drinking when we play later games than when we play earlier games in the afternoon,” Brown said. “We kind of have watched other colleagues around the country as they’ve dealt with night games, so I’m sure those will be issues to be factored in and factored in in a variety of ways as it pertains to any activities student affairs might be able to help with.

“And fan behavior issues often are somewhat of an issue with high-profile rival games, so we just want to ensure that all visitors, whether they’re rooting for U-M or the opponent, are treated with respect and safety.”

Dave Birkett covers University of Michigan football for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached by phone at 734-623-2552 or by e-mail at davidbirkett@annarbor.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.