Tag: Fox Big Noon Saturday

USC-Michigan football not on Fox Big Noon Saturday this September

CBS, not Fox, will air USC’s highly-anticipated football game against Michigan in Ann Arbor on Sept. 21.

Life is full of surprises. Here’s the latest one: USC football will not play on Fox Big Noon Saturday when it visits the defending national champion Michigan Wolverines on Sept. 21 in Ann Arbor. The game has been picked up by CBS and will air in the mid-afternoon 3:30 p.m. Eastern time slot. That’s 12:30 p.m. in Los Angeles and the rest of the Pacific time zone.

Fox is the main Big Ten football television partner, with NBC getting second choice and CBS third. It is therefore quite surprising that CBS gets the big USC-Michigan game this September. USC’s move to the Big Ten — for a lot of television dollars — was something Fox wanted. If television doesn’t want something, it generally doesn’t happen. There is no bigger USC road game this year than the visit to the Big House in Ann Arbor in September, an early-season showcase between two glamor teams in college football. It was widely expected that Fox would pounce on the chance to show this game in the Big Noon Saturday window, but that did not happen.

There is a somewhat reasonable explanation for this: Fox announced it would air Texas at Michigan on Sept. 7 and Michigan at Ohio State on Nov. 30 as its first selections for Big Ten games this season. That might have given NBC and CBS a chance to choose some high-end games for their own schedules. However, one of Fox’s other early-season selections was Alabama at Wisconsin, a game which is clearly not as big as USC-Michigan.

Trojan fans won’t complain about this surprising move, though. They won’t have to get up especially early to watch this game. USC’s team also won’t have to get up early to play this game, either.

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Will the body clock factor be a problem for USC on Big Noon Saturday?

USC will play a lot of these 9 a.m. Pacific games in the Big Ten, but this is new. It could throw the Trojans a curveball.

Wakey wakey! USC will be up early to stretch and prepare for action this Saturday in Boulder, Colorado. Journalists will be in the press box at Folsom Field by 7 a.m. local time. The game will start just after 10 a.m. local time. That’s just after 9 a.m. Pacific time.

When USC moves to the Big Ten next year, the Trojans will play a few 9 a.m. Pacific time games each season on Fox Big Noon Saturday. This particular Big Noon game probably came as a surprise to some people inside the USC football program. A game starting just after 10 a.m. local time? That’s very rare.

Also keep in mind that USC hasn’t played a game this season which started before 3:30 p.m. Pacific. That’s the earliest kickoff USC has had through four games. Also, USC’s last two games were both late-night (7:30 p.m. Pacific) kickoffs.

The body-clock question is real. It has ambushed other Pac-12 teams playing early in the morning in other time zones. Is USC ready for this? We asked our Pac-12 football panel:

Breakfast with the Buffs in Boulder: USC-Colorado is a Fox Big Noon Saturday game

USC had to agree to the early kickoff, which will be 9 a.m. Pacific time and 10 a.m. in Boulder. Have breakfast with the Buffs, Trojan fans.

Breakfast football will be a regular part of life for USC fans in the Big Ten. When the Trojans visit Ohio State or Michigan or Penn State in future years, they will play on Fox Big Noon Saturday at 9 a.m. Pacific time.

The Trojans, in their last year as a Pac-12 member, had to agree to an earlybird kickoff with the Colorado Buffaloes if they were going to appear on Fox Big Noon Saturday against Deion Sanders. They agreed, and so it is now official: USC at Colorado on September 30 will be a breakfast football game. The game will air at 9 a.m. Pacific time, and will start just after 10 a.m. on site in Boulder, Colorado, at Folsom Field.

This is smart by USC. The Trojans need to get used to these early kickoffs. Lincoln Riley and his staff need to learn how to adjust to body-clock games, figuring out what works in terms of preparation and planning.

This will be Colorado’s third Big Noon Saturday game of the month of September, a clear sign of how much publicity and exposure Colorado has generated as a result of having Coach Prime on the sidelines. CU is the big story in college football this year. Television networks can’t get enough of him. You’ll want to follow Buffaloes Wire for complete Colorado coverage.

Let’s see how USC and Colorado fans, and other college football fans, are reacting to this news that USC will play a body-clock game early in the morning: