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Pac-12 coaches give thumbs up to 9 a.m. PT kickoff idea
Utah's Kyle Whittingham, Colorado's Mel Tucker and UCLA's Chip Kelly are among those interested in the idea.
collegefootballtalk.nbcsports.com
LOS ANGELES ā Breakfast and Pac-12 football might go together better than fans in the Pacific Time Zone might like at first blush. At least thatās the feeling when talking to the leagueās coaches at the conferenceās media day.
Earlier on Wednesday, commissioner Larry Scott noted that the Pac-12 has engaged in discussions with Fox about possibly kicking off a limited number of games at noon ET/9 a.m. PT as soon as this season. That would be in the networkās new marquee TV window they are trying to build and would also bring the conference additional exposure on the East Coast.
While many fans have recoiled at the thought of waking up before dawn to make it to the stadium for a game, the coaches in the Pac-12 appear relatively enthusiastic about trading a late kickoff for a very early one.
āI know thatās part of the plan. Weāre talking about that,ā Coloradoās Mel Tucker said. āBut for me as a coach, I just want to play ball. Put the ball down and letās go play. So whatever the schedule is, the timing, the kickoff time, the opponent, itās really not an issue for me. I just need to know when weāre going to kick off, and then Iāve got to get my guys ready to go.ā
āAs great as our atmosphere is at Rice-Eccles in a night game, as electric as it is, itās tough to sit around all day,ā said Utahās Kyle Whittingham, noting heās 100% behind the idea. āIām not saying play one every week but we wouldnāt mind playing at 10 a.m. once or twice a season.ā
Things would be much easier to accommodate in those two Mountain Time Zone-based schools and is not too far off from the 11 a.m. MT TV window on Pac-12 Networks that has been used on occasion. Theyāre not the only ones behind it though, as UCLA and Chip Kelly have broached the topic as well with the conference according to a source.
āWhen you wake up ā if youāre a college football player or coach, you want to wake up and you want to play football. The hardest thing with Saturdays is when you wake up and then youāve got to wait until 7:00 at night,ā said Kelly. āIf they want us to play at 9:00, weāll play at 9:00; if they want us to play at 7:00 at night, weāll play at 7:00 at night. Want us to play at 6:00 in the morning, weāll play at 6:00 in the morning. That part, thatās ā we always talk about control the controllables, and we donāt have the control over kickoffs. So they tell us when to play, weāll play.
āBut we practice in the morning, so weāre morning people. Weād love to do things in the morning. I donāt know if our fans would, but again, I donāt have a vote, so I donāt care. Just tell us when weāre kicking.ā
The way things are trending, it may not be long before Kelly gets that notice of an early kick as the Pac-12 experiments with something completely out of the box.
