The TV schedule for the week of Sept. 25 & 27, and the Oregon St. at USC game will be the night-cap contest, with kickoff from the LA Coliseum coming after 7:30 PM PDT. At least it will be on ESPN, and be the featured late game.
It will mark the 3rd consecutive 7:30 PM start Corvallis time for the Beavers, and it will mean at least 4 of 5 (with a 7 PM start for the Utah game) games in a row in a late time slot.
The weekend starts in the Pac-12 with the Thursday night South Division showdown between UCLA and Arizona St. from Tempe, in the showdown of 2 undefeated ranked teams with quarterbacks who were knocked out of the game with injuries in their teams' wins last Saturday. Fox Sports 1 will have that game.
Saturday's conference schedule is another one of overlaps, and troublingly, no game in the prime 4 PM time slot.
Colorado visits California at 1 PM, and that game is relegated to the Pac-12 channels, and shortly thereafter, Stanford visits Washington, for a 1:15 PM kickoff. That game's on FOX, which means fans can expect to again miss much of the game, with FOX baseball coverage likely to over-run the start, though hopefully not to the disastrous degree that happened last Saturday for the Huskies' home game against Illinois.
A Yankees-Orioles game that lasted well over 4 hours (which is about 7 hours longer than it should have encroached into College Football coverage) wiped out access to half the game, as while in a few markets the game was switched to satellite channel Fox 2, in most markets, the baseball game was simulcast on that channel as well, and then it went to UFC replay, which meant after post game and commercials some viewers got to join the halftime show in progress, by which time the score was 38-12, and the game was essentially over.
Chalk that up to inadequate contract negotiations that didn't get any guarantee of access; the conference would have been imminently better off handing the coverage off to the Big Ten Network.
The other game of the day is an 8 PM MDT start in Salt Lake City (something Beaver fans know all about) for Washington St. at Utah. This is another game relegated to the Pac-12 channels.
Here's hoping the Beavers and Trojans put on a good show for those who stay up to see it!
Andy_Wooldridge@yahoo.com