After announcing earlier this month that the Pac-12 would move to a conference-only football schedule this fall -- as most of the Power 5 leagues have now followed as well with varying nuances -- the conference officially announced that revised 10-game schedule Friday.
USC will open its season Sept. 26 at UCLA, moving the traditional late-season rivalry game to the start of the schedule.
The rest of the schedule has the Trojans hosting Cal (Oct. 3), playing at Stanford (Oct. 10), home vs. Colorado (Oct. 17), at Arizona (Oct. 24), followed by a bye week, and then home vs. Washington State (Nov. 7), at Oregon (Nov. 14), home vs. Arizona State (Nov. 21), at Utah (Friday, Nov. 27) and home vs. Washington (Dec. 5).
USC's first two games can be converted to bye weeks if needed, and there is also an open date the weekend of Dec. 12.
"It's been exhaustive, to be quite honest, because of the fluid nature this COVID-19 situation has put us all in a situation where, for the most part, day in and day out we didn't have control, and most of us have those kind of personalities and have had careers where we have had a lot of control. Well, this situation took that away from us," Arizona State athletic director Ray Anderson said on the Pac-12's virtual news conference. "It's been exhaustive, sometimes extremely frustrating. ... Under the circumstance, the conference really came together I think in impressive fashion and we got to a place where despite all the craziness of COVID-19, it's a good place for us driven by the flexibility. ...
"We got to a schedule today that gives us a lot of comfort that we will be able to be nimble and adaptive as this situation goes on."
Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott also emphasized "a lot of built-in flexibility" with the alignment of the schedule, which is the main reason for the USC-UCLA game coming so early.
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"One of the aspects of the thinking that went into USC-UCLA being early -- in this case the first week -- that went into Arizona-Arizona State being early -- in this version the first week -- is we realize at the moment those are real hot spots, and the requisite authorities and approvals necessary are not there yet," Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said in a virtual news conference. "By putting them the first week, in the event that these two teams in each of those two markets playing against each other winds up not being possible they become very easy to reschedule. Each of those could reschedule into the bye week that you'll see on the calendar a few weeks later, or to the Dec. week that we left. So we're going in eyes wide open.
"We're going in contemplating that it's possible not all of our schools can start on Sept. 26, and for those that can't the way we've scheduled -- particularly in these two markets that at the moment are hot spots -- they're very easily rescheduled to a bye week or the Dec. week, which is when you'd find a traditional rivalry game, by the way. So we're contemplating the possibility."
Later in the day, USC athletic director Mike Bohn sent an email to Trojans boosters/donors indicting that game with UCLA would likely be flexed out to a later date. (We have more on that here). Bohn and Bruins AD Martin Jarmond also put out this joint statement.
The Pac-12 championship game is targeted for the weekend of Dec. 18-19 and will be played on a campus site and not in Las Vegas as initially planned.
In moving from a 9-game to 10-game conference schedule, USC added Washington State as its extra game.
Decisions on how many -- if any -- fans will be allowed to attend the games will be left up to the schools and dictated largely by local government/public health decisions.
The Pac-12 announced that programs can begin training camp as soon as Aug. 17, though it's expected USC will need further approval from LA County on that matter. Teams can also move next week to allowing coaches 20 hours a week around the players (for conditioning work, film study or walk-throuhs), up from the current 8-hour-a-week model.
Scott was asked plainly what his confidence is that the season will be played.
"I'll approach the answer to that question with a lot of humility, and I don't know. I think we are all trying to take a step at a time. We are cautiously optimistic sitting here today. ... There are elements outside our control that are going to have a lot of influence on that question -- what's happening in our communities, what's happening on our campuses? A lot of that's got to do with mask wearing, social distancing, other things, what happens when thousands of students come back to our campus? None of us have the answer to that question," Scott said. "We feel a tremendous obligation, however, for the health and well-being of our student-athletes -- including their mental health -- to provide every opportunity possible to be able to play. ...
"That's what we're determined to do -- to create the opportunity, to preserve the opportunity -- if the health conditions and the community conditions allow us to go forward, and if the public health authorities allow us to go forward. So that's our mindset, but I can't make a prediction."
**All key comments from the news conference are being transcribed on Trojan Talk**
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