On Wednesday, four of the Arizona Wildcats 12 games in 2016 had their kickoff times set. Unfortunately, none of them will start before 7:30 PM local.
Game times/TV announced by Pac-12:
BYU – 7:30 pm (FS1)
Grambling – 7:45 pm (P12N)
Hawaii – 7:45 pm (P12N)
ASU – 7:30 pm (ESPN)#OurHouse— Arizona Football (@ArizonaFBall) June 1, 2016
Arizona opens the season against the BYU Cougars on September 3rd at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale. It’s the nightcap of a truly ridiculous day of college football. It makes sense to not go head-to-head with some of those other games, but having a game indoors in Arizona would have been a nice excuse to start the game earlier. It also would have allowed fans in Tucson to not have to drop money on a hotel. Now, with the game starting at 7:30 local, you’ll probably need to do that.
The other two non-conference games are in Arizona Stadium this year, will start at 7:45 PM local, and will both be broadcast on Pac-12 Network. Arizona is the only school in the conference that will play after 10 PM ET in each of the first three weeks of the season.
The Wildcats close the season with the only non-Saturday game of the year when the Arizona State Sun Devils travel down to Tucson on Friday, November 25th. That game will be at 7:30 PM local on ESPN the day after Thanksgiving.
I find it funny that the Pac-12 is cutting down on late-night time slots and Arizona literally only has the late-night slot so far. So much for appeasing Rich Rodriguez.