Sonny Dykes on the Cal short week against USC: “It’s a travesty.”

Sonny Dykes again reiterated his frustrations with the Pac-12 after Cal lost to USC, saying that the Bears were a "tired, beat up football team" because "they were".

Cal had only six days to rest before turning around to face USC on the road. The Bears played a double overtime game on Friday night in Memorial, narrowly edging Oregon. The Trojans spent last week resting their wounds on the bye week, and looked like the fresher and faster team for much of the game.

Regardless of whether Cal lost because of the rest or not, it doesn’t really do the Pac-12 much of a service to have these Thursday night games where one team is getting a disproportional amount of rest compared to the other squad, and even more so when that team is at home. It gives that one team a significant competitive advantage.

It certainly doesn’t do Cal any favors to have a Thursday night game follow a Friday night game. For two straight weeks Cal (which definitely has the most rigorous academic standards of any of the Pac-12 programs) has had to have their student-athletes adjust schedules, skip class, and adjust midstream in midterm season to accommodate the Pac-12.

There was a pretty easy solution: The USC game should have been played first off of a bye, then the Oregon game come next. Cal would’ve gotten an extra day of rest for each successive week to prepare, and both Oregon and USC get their byes.

Instead, stupidity. And another dull Thursday night game at which Cal faced every disadvantage and a pretty standard beating from their Trojan adversaries.

Commissioner Larry Scott had this to say before the game.

"Given our obligations to television, and all the other things that we have to work around, situations like this happen from time to time," Scott said. "There's a great appreciation our schools have for the challenges of scheduling."

...

"That happens from time to time," Scott maintained. "We've got a long list of scheduling parameters that have been heavily vetted, from our athletic directors and others and the parameter clearly states that you can't bring back a team on five days. Six days is OK. You couldn't play a Saturday gam and then be asked to play on Thursday. You'll never see that. But, Friday to Thursday is OK. Thursday to Thursday is OK. There are conferences that will go Saturday to Thursday, but our conference doesn't."

Cal has played twice as many night road games in conference as the average of the other 11 teams in the past four seasons, but Scott touted the late times as being good for East Coast, late-night viewing.