USC versus UCLA in Week 1: smart move by the Pac-12

This is wise.

The Pac-12 Conference listened to Trojans Wire! Mirabile dictu, as older Men of Troy might have said in their native Latin.

We urged the Pac-12 — back on July 12, when none of us knew what the 2020 conference schedule looked like — to put USC-UCLA and other rivalry games early in the season rather than late. It made all the sense in the world:

Why not make sure that the biggest game of the season is played? Why not make sure that in the early portion of a season — when uncertainty about COVID-19 is especially high — teams within the same state get to play each other, which makes it easier for governors and other local officials to not have to worry about cross-state travel? This makes total sense, and the Pac-12 took these points of advice to heart with its newly-released 2020 football schedule.

Yes, it’s real: USC and UCLA will play in Week 1 of the adjusted schedule on Sept. 26.

Now, Angelenos won’t have to worry (as much) about whether the Battle for Los Angeles gets played in late November. Yes, if an outbreak occurs, this game could be postponed, but that’s part of the point as well: The league is giving the rivalry games a better chance of being played, because the act of putting them at the front of the schedule provides more chances to be made up at a later date. If the game was left to its normal late-November slot, there would be fewer chances to make it up in the event of a postponement.

This is the forward-thinking approach we don’t often see from the Pac-12. The league has displayed amateur-hour levels of incompetence and ignorance in crafting its football schedules over the years. At least in this one specific instance — putting rivalry games at the start of the schedule and not the end — the Pac-12 got it right.

Sometimes, life actually offers a pleasant surprise. How’s that for a 2020 plot twist?