Cal vs UCLA announced for Sunday, November 15

The California Golden Bears will make their long-awaited and seemingly doubtful season debut, a day later but perhaps actually six days earlier than expected. While their originally scheduled Week 2 game against Arizona State is still canceled, the Pac-12 conference saw an opportunity once the Utah vs UCLA game was also canceled, and moved swiftly to take action.

Cal will now travel to UCLA to take on the UCLA Bruins after it was Utah who couldn’t make enough players on roster for their originally scheduled meeting with UCLA. That now makes five games for the conference instead of just four, and leaves only Utah without a game played, if all five games go according to plan this weekend.

Cal will face UCLA on Sunday, November 15, at 9:00 am PT on Fox Sports 1. The Pac-12 released this statement:

“The Pac-12 announced today that Cal will now play at UCLA on Sunday, November 15 at 9:00 am PT. The scheduling of this game is consistent with the Conference’s commitment to provide opportunities for student-athletes through maximum scheduling flexibility while still prioritizing health and safety. The announcement follows the cancellation of each of the Cal at Arizona State game and the Utah at UCLA game earlier today. The Cal at UCLA game will air on Fox Sports 1.

In light of the Sunday scheduling of this game, the Conference has rescheduled the UCLA at Oregon game currently scheduled to take place on Friday evening, November 20 to Saturday, November 21, with the exact game time to be announced as soon as confirmed. The game will air on the ESPN family of networks.”

Cal Director of Athletics Jim Knowlton had this to say:

“We have known from the beginning of this pandemic that there could be challenges this season and that we would need to remain flexible and find ways to be creative while still keeping the health and safety of our student-athletes as our No. 1 priority,” Director of Athletics Jim Knowlton said. “This has certainly been an emotional rollercoaster for those in our program, particularly our student-athletes, but we need to remain as diligent as ever and proceed within federal, state and local protocols. We are appreciative of the work from all involved to be able to play this game on short notice.”

And head coach Justin Wilcox added this:

“We have known since the pandemic began that the 2020 college football season would be different from any other,” Cal football coach Justin Wilcox said. “As I’ve told our team many times, the one thing we have learned is to expect the unexpected. We appreciate all of the hard work that everyone has done on so many levels to allow us to play this weekend, and we are thankful the opportunity has arisen to play at UCLA.”

We’ll finally get to see our beloved Bears in action in their first game of the season. Have your coffee ready for this one, folks. It should be fun!