ESPN has released its slate of 20 games of their games to be played on its family of networks, particularly the national telecasts. Two we already knew about--the consecutive week Thursday night football games in Autzen Stadium against the Oregon Ducks, and at home in AT&T Park against the USC Trojans. Both will be national telecasts with 6 PM PT local start times. We've received another additional broadcast: Our final regular season game against the Arizona St. Sun Devils will be broadcast on Black Friday (day after Thanksgiving) at 7:15 PM PT/10:15 PM ET (8:15 PM local time in Tempe).
This could be a blessing or a curse in disguise--ASU is generally not known as a football rowdy crowd, and if the team isn't that good next year and Dennis Erickson is on the hot seat as expected, then it could be a pretty subdued home field, even with the late home start. However, if they are good, and are in competition for the Pac-12 South title, then this could be a nightmare contest, since we will be coming off Big Game wounds and they'll be pumped up in a night-time atmosphere.
ABC/ESPN still has four more regional contests, but we're probably going to have to wait for the Fox Sports Net/FX/Versus games to be announced next month to see how many games Cal will be provided with a national telecast.
Discuss the Black Friday matchup in the comments. Do you like the short week to play this game?