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The California Golden Bears open their season in just over two weeks. And though we don’t yet know what time of day they’ll be playing their home and season opener against the Washington Huskies, we do now know what time they’ll be taking on the Stanford Cardinal.
November 27 is the date of the 123rd annual Big Game — and we now know it will kickoff at 1:00 pm local time, 4:00 pm ET, and will be televised by Fox.
Cal returned The Axe after a 24-20 victory over Stanford last season, ending a nine-year drought, the series’ longest winning streak.
This year’s contest will be the Friday after Thanksgiving, and due to the partnership with ESPN and Fox Sports, the Pac-12 announced all Friday game times this week.
The announcement released also announced that the remaining Cal (and Pac-12) football game times will be announced either six or 12 days prior to the specific games.
It’s also interesting to note that the Big Game is the only Friday Pac-12 game that will take place in the afternoon, or at least it is for now. There’s a chance that ESPN moves one of their two ‘Friday Night’ broadcasts on November 27 to either 12:30, 4:00 or 7:30 pm as they have broadcast rights to the Oregon vs Oregon State and Washington vs Washington State games on that same Friday.
The overall Big Game series record still stands heavily in Stanford’s favor, 59-44-10 and Cal hasn’t beaten Stanford in Berkeley in over a decade.
Unfortunately, at this time, there will be no way to watch The Big Game unless you’re watching it on television as the state of California has yet to rule in favor of allowing any fans in the stands at amateur events, though California Governor Gavin Newsom did just allow some leniency in professional sporting events in specific counties without hot spots, Santa Clara County being one of those in a ‘moderate’ zone for the San Francisco 49ers. It’s important to note that Santa Clara County, despite Gov. Newsom’s tentative approval, has said they will not allow fans at the 49ers games, yet.
Either way, the Big Game is set. And after a long, arduous offseason, that seemed like it wouldn’t be this year.
It’s nice to have something to look forward to again.