USC Football: Game times announced for first four games of 2018 season

Over the last few years it has been a hassle trying to figure out game times for the upcoming games and has frustrated a lot of people. On Thursday we finally got game times and networks for the first four weeks of the season.

USC released the game times for the first four weeks of the season on Thursday afternoon. The schedule includes UNLV, Stanford, Texas, and Washington State. The schedule news came via USC Twitter and Pac-12 news release. Pac-12 also announced that the conference championship game at Levi’s Stadium will be held on Friday, November 30th at 5 PM PT. This will be the third straight season that the Pac-12 Championship Game is played on a Friday night.

The Trojans will open the season on September 1st with a 1 pm kickoff time against the UNLV Running Rebels. The game is set to air on the Pac-12 Network, which won’t make many people happy due to some cable providers not carrying the Pac-12 Network. The 1 PM kickoff time also won’t make very many fans happy, especially after last season’s opener against Western Michigan where the temperature at game time reach 102 degrees and energy in the Coliseum being down due to the heat. The next two weeks will be a very challenging for the Trojans.

September 8th USC go to the Bay Area for a primetime Pac-12 Championship rematch against Stanford. Stanford will have running back Bryce Love and quarterback KJ Costello and are one of the favorites to win the conference championship this season. Last season the Trojans swept the Cardinal by defeating them in last season’s Pac-12 opener and the Pac-12 Championship game. Palo Alto has been very unkind to USC over the last few years. The Trojans are 1-3 in the last 4 meetings with the last victory coming in 2014. A week later USC will make the trip to Austin, Texas for a primetime battle against the Texas Longhorns. This will be the Trojans first trip to Austin Texas since 1966. This will be a rematch of last season’s double overtime thriller where USC defeated Texas inside the Coliseum.

USC will return back to the Coliseum for another Friday night game against Washington State. The Cougars will get the Trojans on a short week and coming off of two rough road games against Stanford and Texas. Last season the Trojans traveled to Pullman on a Friday night and was handed their only conference loss against Washington State. This time USC will look to avenge that loss from Mike Leach’s squad that arguably hurt USC’s chances at making the College Football Playoffs.