Iowa State’s football team won’t play their first regular season Friday game since 1959 next season, after all.

The ISU athletics department announced Thursday that they had rejected an offer from ESPN to televise their September game at Northern Illinois on ESPN2, a move that would have moved the game from a Saturday afternoon to a Friday night and paid the Cyclone athletic department more than $400,000.

The game will be played as scheduled on Sept. 27 in DeKalb, Ill., two weeks after the Cyclones take on Iowa in Ames.

The Cyclones last played a regular season game on a Friday when they won 28—12 at Denver with 1959’s “Dirty Thirty” squad under coach Clay Stapleton.

ISU athletics director Bruce Van De Velde and head football coach Dan McCarney both said the decision was made with respect to the long-standing tradition in Iowa of Fridays being reserved for high school games.

“I have been in this state a long time and have a full appreciation of all that goes into a high school football Friday night in communities all around our state,” McCarney said.

Van De Velde said ESPN approached both schools about moving the game to Friday and making it a national telecast. Both schools would have received large sums of money from the network.

“Dan and I spoke with a lot of different people to get the best perspective and we feel this is the best decision. It was a lucrative opportunity,” he said.

Van De Velde said neither school had accepted ESPN’s offer prior to the ISU decision to play the game as originally scheduled.

“Ultimately, this was about respect for Iowa high school student-athletes, their coaches and communities,” he said. “Northern Illinois was also considering the issues and had made no commitment to a Friday night game.”

The decision leaves the Cyclones with three scheduled television games, although many games are selected for telecast on a weekly basis during the Big 12 Conference season.

Iowa State’s home game against Iowa Sept. 13 will be televised by Fox Sports Net, and TBS will televise the Oct. 4 home date with Oklahoma. The regular season will conclude Nov. 29 against Missouri, televised on ABC.