Pac-12 TV Deal: Is Cal-Stanford Big Game Week Potentially Moving Even Earlier?

I don’t care when we play anyone.

I’m getting so depressed reading all these stories about scheduling changes that I think I will just wait until the schedules come out and be surprised.

Our fight song is played by someone else? Sure, why not.
We start wearing uni colors that have nothing to do with our school colors? Great idea!
We play our traditional end-of-season BIG GAME in September? Make it happen.

So, when do we change the team name from Golden Bears to something more TV and consumer friendly? How about just go with “Bay Area School Sports Team.”

Works for me.

I’m sorry, but some things need to stay the same to keep me sane

no stadium
short weeks
higher pricing to penalize alums who will actually show up when the Bears are down but don’t have the big money
no bench

if Larry Scott can realize the Big Game isn’t happening on a Thursday, he can realize its not leaving the end of the schedule

besides it felt weird having a game against Washington after Big Game pace——really weird. Didn’t help we lost a ton of people to Thanksgiving.

Maybe in time I might get accustomed to having the game scheduled for sometime in October (retch), but it would be very upsetting. My earliest memories of Big Game include crisp November air, occasional rain, and a certain excitement that seemed to be the culmination of the regular season.

All of that is part and parcel to The Big Game.

Avi, using Texas-Oklahoma as an example of a big rivalry game scheduled for October is just wrong. I might accuse you of intellectual dishonesty if I thought you really understood the history of the Red River Shootout. Texas-Oklahoma hasn’t been played in any month other than October since 1923, which was also the last year in which the series was played on either school’s campus (Nov. 17, 1923; Texas 26, Oklahoma 14 in Austin, TX).

The only longstanding rivalry games that I can think of that are consistently played early in the season are Iowa-Iowa State and Colorado-Colorado State. When you say that SEC rivalry games take place in October and early November, which rivalry games are you talking about?

Florida-Georgia has always been played in either October or early November; only one time as late as November 13 (in 1920). Otherwise, never later than November 11.

Georgia’s rivalry with Georgia Tech has typically been played on or after Thanksgiving Day; this is the Bulldog’s traditional end of regular season rivalry.

Alabama-Auburn has had a similar history. The Iron Bowl is typically played the Saturday before Thanksgiving.

The Egg Bowl (Ole Miss-Mississippi State) is always played around Thanksgiving Weekend.

Florida-Florida State hasn’t been played as early as October since 1976, and it’s either the Saturday before Thanksgiving or Thanksgiving Weekend.

Tennessee-Vanderbilt is always played late November.

What SEC rivalries do you see being played in October or early November?

For whatever reason, Cal and Stanford fans remain adamantly opposed to playing Big Games on Thanksgiving weekend, because heaven forbid they have to book earlier flights to return the Bay Area from their SoCal trips. So in all likelihood, our regular season will not be ending in the Big Game on a regular basis anytime soon.

You seem sarcastically confused as to this. It seems pretty straight forward to me. It’d ruin the Big Game Week tradition (its not just 1 game, its a whole week of stuff). Itd prolly mean a less than packed house. We had 44K people at Cal-UW this last year. Im sure if it was Big Game, wed have more, but 20K more?

I don’t see any reason to put the Big Game right after Thanksgiving besides kowtowing to some sort of “tradition” that hasn’t existed for a while. I see a lot of reasons why it’d be terrible.

Take a cue from some of the SEC rivalries and schedule certain Pac-12 intra-division rivalries at a certain time in the schedule.

For instance, Cal vs. Oregon State could be scheduled within 3 days of Halloween every year (between Oct. 28 and Nov. 3). Stanf*rd vs. Washington could be scheduled at the same time. Or maybe, just maybe, there might be a whole slew of intra-divisional games that would fit into a scheduling model we haven’t even considered.

Maybe that’s one of the purposes for fitting all of the Pac-12 non-conference games into September (exc. Notre Dame vs. USC and Notre Dame vs. Stanf*rd). Maybe Larry Scott knows that you don’t devalue the product by moving rivalry games around.

Kids are out of school and all, so there will be plenty of time for weekday activities.

Is there similar talk about moving the other rivalry games into Oct or Sep? I mean, are Scott and the league considering playung UW – WSU in the 2nd week of Oct, and SC – Ucla in the 3rd? Will UA-ASU be the last game in Sep, while Oregon & OSU get to line up to start October?

Or is it just that for some reason the league seems to sense a level of apathy and nonchalance regarding tradition among the furd & Cal fanbase that doesn’t exist among real college football fans?

Why not have Big Game in the middle of the season when the weather in the Bay Area is at its best? That is a tradition worth establishing.

I don’t understand the importance of having Big Game as the last game of the season.

Is the game any less significant if we play it in October? or the first week of November? To Twist’s point, I totes agree that it can’t be the week of Thanksgiving because of the week of activities and events leading up to the game, but any other week seems fine by me.

Additionally, to ensure each game gets plum viewing, you might see games move to their own exclusive slots to ensure guaranteed interest in Pac-12 matchups week-by-week.

While it doesn’t satisfy the weekly thing, exclusive time slots during Thanksgiving Weekend is really easy to solve. In years where Stanford ends at home against Notre Dame, potentially five rivalry games could end on Thanksgiving weekend, each with their own exclusive time. Two on Friday (one day, one night) and three on Saturday (one at noon, one at 3:30, and one at 7PM). Big Game would be the biggest game the week earlier, assuming the conference doesn’t schedule a marquee game as well that week, like this year’s UO-USC matchup against Big Game. Of course, the downside to this is that Cal would need to either schedule a bye during Thanksgiving weekend (meaning playing 12 straight weeks in seasons that only have 13 Saturdays), request a waiver to play an out-of-conference team that weekend, or beg one of the other rivalries to move their rivalry game back a week as well and shift the burden of an out-of-conference game or bye that weekend on another school.

In years where USC ends it’s season against Notre Dame on Thanksgiving weekend, Big Game would HAVE to go against USC-UCLA if both schools went with a pre-Thanksgiving week rivalry game. The pros to this, though, are 1) an All-California rivalry weekend, 2) Stanford can end its season against it’s old rival of SJSU and 3) Cal ends its season against UCLA during Thanksgiving week. If you don’t consider that a pro, though, then perhaps you can take solace in the fact that because of the three week thing specified in the new media rights contract, Stanford would probably have to open conference play against USC in September when no students are on campus — every year.