Tag: pac-12 network

How bad have things gotten for USC football? Trojans are on Pac-12 Network vs. Cal, and no one cares

How’s this for an unexpected plot twist?

The 2023 college football season has gone from promising to painful in a very short time for USC.

A team that was 6-0 is now 6-2. A team with College Football Playoff aspirations probably will not even make the Pac-12 Championship game. USC has gone from prominent to irrelevant in one fortnight.

The two-week crash-and-burn sequence has led to a very unexpected development: The Trojans will appear one last time on Pac-12 Network this weekend in Berkeley against the California Golden Bears. If USC had been 7-1 or 8-0, the team would not have been relegated to the Pac-12 Network. Given how bad the Trojans are right now, their game against Cal simply doesn’t rate as a featured attraction on the Pac-12 slate.

What’s also notable: There has been no outrage from USC fans about the Pac-12 Network game assignment. If anything, being on Pac-12 Network this weekend gives USC fans a reason to not watch a bad football team. It’s a relief.

When USC was thriving under Lincoln Riley last season, playing Oregon State on Pac-12 Network was outrageous and a reminder of how bad Larry Scott was as the former commissioner of the conference. This season, a Pac-12 Network game in late October is drawing no real reaction. This is because USC fans are fed up with this coaching staff and want Alex Grinch fired as soon as possible, alongside strength coach Bennie Wylie.

What a time at USC. A Pac-12 Network game is a non-story for a lot of fans.

That’s a very unexpected story for us here at Trojans Wire.

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Follow Fighting Irish Wire for more on Notre Dame.

Follow Buffaloes Wire for complete coverage of Deion Sanders and Colorado.

Follow Ducks Wire for coverage of Oregon football.

Oklahoma fans were right about Lincoln Riley, at least for this specific season.

USC assistants need to be coaching for their jobs.

Lincoln Riley did not assemble an elite 2023 roster, which surprised us and a lot of other observers.

Is USC ready to win in 2024 with Miller Moss or Malachi Nelson at quarterback? Lincoln Riley has to be honest about how he answers that question.

Brent Venables is coaching Oklahoma far better this year than Lincoln Riley is coaching USC. It’s up to Riley to change that reality.

Best Pac-12 football game of Week 6 is on Pac-12 Network

It is depressing but hardly surprising.

The biggest Pac-12 football game of Week 6 is easy to identify. It’s not USC versus Arizona, a game in which the Trojans are favored by 21.5 points. The featured game for the Pac-12 in Week 6 is obviously Washington State at UCLA. Wazzu is unbeaten, and UCLA is searching for a season-saving win. The dynamics of the Pac-12 race will be significantly affected by the outcome of this game.

Unfortunately, WSU-UCLA will be on Pac-12 Network at noon, giving this game minimal visibility in spite of its importance. It’s another black mark on the Pac-12 Conference in a year when the league’s long-term existence was destroyed.

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Follow Buffaloes Wire for complete coverage of Deion Sanders and Colorado.

Follow Ducks Wire for coverage of Oregon football leading into the big game against Washington on October 14.

USC win over Colorado feels hollow because Alex Grinch isn’t doing his job.

Experts think Alex Grinch will prevent USC from making the Pac-12 Championship Game.

The coach who ripped Jordan Addison for transferring to USC is now staring at a humiliating season in Pittsburgh.

How Pac-12 Network continues to hurt USC

USC’s bad game in Week 5 was on Fox. Oregon’s and UW’s bad games were on Pac-12 Network. More people are doubting USC.

The USC Trojans did not play well — not a complete game, at least — against Colorado on Saturday. They played a good first half and a bad second half. Their defensive implosion in the second half changed the narrative surrounding this game.

Because USC’s game was on Fox Big Noon Saturday, a lot of eyeballs were watching. The national narrative was prominent because this was a centerpiece event for national and regional media. The chorus was loud and clear after the game: USC can’t be taken seriously. Oregon and Washington are better.

Yet, as Saturday continued, something interesting happened: Oregon and Washington did not play markedly better games.

Oregon was shut out in the first quarter at Stanford and led the lowly Cardinal by a meager 14-6 score at halftime.

Washington played its worst game of 2023 and barely beat Arizona, 31-24.

Yet, everyone is talking about how concerned USC should be (which is fair and fine). Few people are talking about how concerned Oregon and Washington should be. That’s the point we are trying to amplify here.

Why the difference? Oregon and Washington played their games on Pac-12 Network. The lack of visibility for those games compared to Fox Big Noon Saturday has shaped a narrative in which USC is catching a lot more heat than the Ducks or Huskies.

We talked about this at The Voice of College Football in the YouTube video below:

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Follow Buffaloes Wire for complete coverage of Deion Sanders and Colorado.

Follow Ducks Wire for coverage of Oregon football leading into the big game against Washington on October 14.

USC win over Colorado feels hollow because Alex Grinch isn’t doing his job.

Experts think Alex Grinch will prevent USC from making the Pac-12 Championship Game.

The coach who ripped Jordan Addison for transferring to USC is now staring at a humiliating season in Pittsburgh.

Kickoff time set for Oregon’s road game at Stanford

Oregon and Stanford are scheduled for an afternoon kick on the Pac-12 Network.

Oregon hasn’t made its final appearance on the Pac-12 Network after all.

The Pac-12 Conference set kickoff times for Week 5, and Oregon is scheduled for a 3:30 p.m. PT start at Stanford.

This will be the Ducks’ conference road opener. It shouldn’t be a surprise that one of the top teams playing the conference cellar dweller would be on the Pac-12 Network.

Stanford is 1-2 and coming off an embarrassing 30-27 loss to Football Championship Subdivision Sacramento State. The Cardinal host Arizona this week before the Ducks come to town.

As for the Ducks, they host No. 19 Colorado before going to Palo Alto. They have a bye week following the Stanford game.

In other notable Pac-12 games, Utah goes to Corvallis to take on the Beavers for a Friday night showdown on Fox Sports 1. But the big game will occur in Boulder: USC goes to Colorado for a 10 a.m. local start on Fox.

 

How to watch, listen, stream Hawaii at No. 13 Oregon

Can’t make it to Autzen for the football game? Here’s everything you need to know about tuning in on Saturday night.

Oregon finishes its nonconference season on Saturday night as the No. 13 Ducks host Hawaii out of the Mountain West.

It would be easy for Oregon to look past the 1-2 team whose only win came last week over Albany, but the Ducks need to look good before an up-and-coming Colorado team comes to Autzen next week.

The rest of the television schedule hasn’t been announced yet, but this could be the last time Oregon appears on the Pac-12 Network. The entire state of Hawaii will most likely tune in not only to watch their team but to see some Hawaiian natives who play for the Ducks.

For those not going to the game, here’s how you can watch, listen and/or stream.

USC fans and college football viewers bury Pac-12 Network in landmark broadcast

The Nevada game was the final #USC home football game on Pac-12 Network. Fans were angry, but also glad this is ending.

It is over. The last USC football home game to air on Pac-12 Network is over.

It has been oppressive and annoying and frustrating for the Trojan fan base over more than a decade. The visibility of USC football has been negatively affected by Pac-12 Network. Not being able to easily watch USC has been a constant and legitimate source of irritation. This year, not being able to see Caleb Williams play football has been infuriating for USC fans who live outside the Western United States and the Pac-12 geographical footprint. Larry Scott’s legacy, and the network he stood by in spite of its commercial failures, is forever connected to this network, even though Scott hasn’t officially led the Pac-12 Conference for two years.

Memories run deep, and the Pac-12 Network has made it harder for USC fans to cling to memories of the Trojans on the gridiron.

Here’s how USC fans and the larger football-viewing public reacted to the last USC home football game to air on Pac-12 Network. Early-game glitches did not improve anyone’s mood, but everyone is glad this association with the network is coming to an end:

USC vs Nevada likely to be Trojans’ last football game on Pac-12 Network

#USC fans are planning to celebrate the end of Pac-12 Network. That’s the big milestone attached to the Nevada game.

We know this for sure: Saturday’s USC football home game against the Nevada Wolf Pack will be the Trojans’ last home game ever shown on Pac-12 Network. We don’t yet know as an absolute certainty that it’s the last USC football game to be on Pac-12 Network, but it’s more likely than not. This probably will be the last time any USC fan will have to endure Pac-12 Network’s limited visibility and accessibility.

We want to be very clear: The problem with the network is the lack of distribution and accessibility. The actual on-air product of Pac-12 Network is and has been very good.

We wrote:

“One of the especially sad dimensions of the Pac-12 Network story is that the product itself — what you saw on the screen, getting beamed into your home, if you did have access to the P-12 Net — was really very good.

“The problem with Pac-12 Network was never the production quality of a game or studio broadcast. All the people who were responsible for putting a good product on the air did an absolutely fantastic job. The network’s daily work gained industry respect.”

It’s important to make that clear.

Having done that, we turn to the reality that this will be USC’s final home football game on Pac-12 Network. USC fans will be throwing a party to celebrate this occasion. No, really: Tim Prangley, co-host of Trojan Conquest Live and part of the USC postgame show at The Voice of College Football, told us earlier this summer he would be marking the occasion at the Nevada game. It’s a goodbye bash for USC’s liberation from this national burden which has limited the program’s exposure.

See how other USC fans are reacting to the end of the Pac-12 Network reign of error, which is in many ways one more step out of the shadows created by Larry Scott and the Pac-12 CEO Group:

USC goes on Pac-12 Network this weekend while small schools are on ESPN

Want to watch #USC this weekend? You have to have Pac-12 Network. Want to watch UMass? Turn on ESPN. This is so dumb.

It is bad that the Pac-12 has died. USC playing Oregon, Washington and Utah is fun and interesting. So many of us who are fans of USC and fans of college football grew up with these West Coast rivalries and the familiar regional matchups against particular opponents.

Going to Corvallis to play Oregon State is regularly a challenge for USC.

Going to Seattle to play the Washington Huskies often felt like a main event for the Trojans going back to the late 1970s against Don James’ teams.

USC’s comeback win over Arizona State in 2005 is one of the most memorable games of the Pete Carroll era.

USC’s close win over Stanford in 2004 kept that perfect season alive.

We’re going to miss the Pac-12 in terms of the football memories and the Saturday nights against schools who might have hated the Trojans, but certainly enjoyed the challenge of playing USC as a fellow Western institution. We didn’t wish the Pac-12 died, but we — as USC bloggers at Trojans Wire — have expressed solidarity with USC fans who saw how amateurish and unprofessional the Pac-12 CEO Group was. Decisions were made that did not serve USC’s and the conference’s best interests, as everyone else in America now understands on a deeper level.

We all wished the Pac-12 made good decisions, but it didn’t. That’s why USC and its fans wanted to leave for the Big Ten.

In this final Pac-12 football season, USC fans can remind everyone else how bad this conference’s leadership truly was over the past several years. Just look at the Week 0 football schedule as a example:

Two months from today, USC fans will celebrate one specific thing

On September 2, #USC will play the last Trojan home game on Pac-12 Network. Fans are already planning celebrations.

Today is Sunday, July 2. That means we are two months away from a very special day for USC football fans.

On Saturday, September 2, USC hosts Nevada at the Los Angeles Coliseum. The game will be shown on Pac-12 Network. Because the Pac-12 television policy stipulates that a team must appear on Pac-12 Network as many times as the number of nonconference home games it plays, USC will fill its allotment of Pac-12 Network games on Sept. 2 against Nevada. That will be the Trojans’ second and last nonconference game of 2023. Their nonconference game against Notre Dame is a road game this year.

Maybe there is a slight chance that USC’s Sept. 23 road game at Arizona State or the Oct. 28 road game at California in Berkeley will be picked up by Pac-12 Network. ESPN and Fox might pass. However, it is unlikely that either game will be relegated to Pac-12 Network. Viewers want to see USC play this year. The Trojans will be loaded with talent and will be a preseason top-10 team. The Sept. 23 game at Arizona State will be a big game for the Sun Devils. That game probably won’t be stuck on Pac-12 Network.

The Oct. 28 game at Cal is a little more interesting. If USC has picked up a couple of losses by that time, the Trojans’ TV value could be diminished, in which case Pac-12 Network might pick that game up. However, if USC has no more than one loss heading into late October, the Trojans will still be in the College Football Playoff hunt. It’s hard to see a major network passing up the Trojans that late in the season.

It’s very likely that September 2 will be the last USC football game ever shown on Pac-12 Network. The guarantee is that it will be the last USC football home game ever shown on Pac-12 Network. This is because the October 7 home game versus Arizona has been picked up by ESPN/ABC/Disney. 

No other USC home game is a realistic candidate for Pac-12 Network.

September 2 will mark the end of an era to some degree, if not for all time.

USC fans are already planning parties for the occasion. We at Trojans Wire have talked to fans who will mark the milestone with great happiness.

If that doesn’t tell you how eager Trojan fans are to go to the Big Ten, nothing will.

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Significant USC and Pac-12 football game notes for 2023 schedule

The TV networks filled the first 4 weeks of the 2023 schedule. We have details on that for #USC and the #Pac12, plus other notes.

We have already noted one significant development from the revelation of early-season college football start times and television assignments. USC football is likely to be done with Pac-12 Network before Labor Day.

We wrote:

“This year, with Notre Dame hosting USC in October, USC is playing only two nonconference home games. The Trojans will have to appear on Pac-12 Network only twice, not three times.

“So, given the news that USC’s first two football games of the season will be on Pac-12 Network, the Trojans’ last-ever game on P-12 Net is likely to be on Saturday, Sept. 2 against Nevada at 3:30 p.m. Pacific time.”

That was hardly the only notable piece of news for USC fans and for Pac-12 football fans. With all the early-season television announcements, there’s a lot to keep track of.

We’re not going to list every Pac-12 team’s early-season games. We won’t mention the cupcake games against UC Davis or the Little Sisters of the Poor. We will, however, point to national television games or games versus SEC and other Power Five conference opponents.

Here are the details you need to know about USC’s and the Pac-12’s early-season football schedules in 2023: