ASU Football: Kickoff time, television arrangements announced for Arizona State-USC game

It took a while, but we finally have a kickoff time for next Saturday’s Arizona State Sun Devils game against the USC Trojans.

The team’s first contest at the LA Memorial Coliseum since the Jael Mary will kickoff at 5:45 p.m. Pacific and be broadcast nationally by FOX, just one hour later and on the same network as that game two years ago that fans of the Maroon and Gold will never forget.

FOX took advantage of the delayed six-day selection on their primetime slot, with the other options being Oregon-Washington State and Arizona-UCLA. But after the Ducks were upset by Colorado and the Bruins blew a late lead against Stanford yesterday, Arizona State-USC became the most attractive choice.

That’s because the Sun Devils are still the only undefeated team in that group, nailing down their first FOX-televised game since last year’s upset at UCLA with a 51-41 victory over California late on Saturday night.

The Trojans and Arizona State enter this week on very different paths as Clay Helton’s team is coming off a fourth quarter collapse on Friday night at Utah. That loss dropped USC’s record to 1-3 to start the season, although that is a little deceiving since the team has already played three ranked opponents away from home.

The Sun Devils are 12-7 in evening kickoffs dating back to the start of the 2014 season.

This year’s Sun Devils have played four night games to start the season, and while that number will rise to five after Saturday’s game in the Coliseum, the matchup with the Trojans will be the team’s earliest contest of the year to date.

Only two other kickoff times (Nov. 10 vs. Utah and Nov. 25 at Arizona) are known for the rest of the season. Both are weekday games and are scheduled to start at 7:30 p.m.