OK, let’s try this again.
The Arizona Wildcats are scheduled to begin their 2020 season with another afternoon kickoff, this time at home against No. 20 USC.
The Cats and Trojans are slated to meet at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at Arizona Stadium. The game will be televised by Fox.
The contest marks the fourth UA opener that’s been scheduled at one point or another this year. The first three were canceled, including this past Saturday, when Arizona was supposed to open the season at Utah.
The Utes requested that the game be called off after a COVID-19 outbreak struck the football program.
Utah’s game against UCLA this weekend has been moved from Friday to Saturday, presumably to give the Utes an extra day to deal with their issues.
Two Pac-12 opening games were canceled because of the novel coronavirus: Arizona at Utah and Washington at Cal. Four games proceeded as planned, although Washington State coach Nick Rolovich said after his team’s 38-28 victory over Oregon State that 32 Cougars were unavailable to play for various reasons – COVID-19 being one of them.
USC kicked off the Pac-12 season with an improbable 28-27 victory over Arizona State that began at 9:08 a.m. in Los Angeles. The Trojans trailed the Sun Devils 27-14 and faced fourth-and-13 from the ASU 26-yard line with 3:05 remaining.
At that point, ESPN analytics gave the Sun Devils a 99.9% chance to win the game.
But Kedon Slovis threw a touchdown pass to Bru McCoy, the Trojans recovered an onside kick and Slovis threw another TD pass, to Drake London, to complete the comeback.
USC, the preseason favorite to win the Pac-12 South, opened as an 11-point favorite. The line was bet up to 13 by late Sunday afternoon.
The Trojans have defeated the Wildcats seven straight times, including a 41-14 triumph in Los Angeles last year. Four of the seven games were decided by eight or fewer points, but three of the past four had margins of 14 points or more.
Arizona ended the 2019 season with seven consecutive losses.
