2020 football schedule: Arizona will open up season against ASU

The Pac-12 Conference released its updated 10-game, league-only schedule for the upcoming 2020 season Friday and the revised slate will match up Arizona against in-state rival Arizona State in the annual Territorial Cup Game meeting. The season is currently set to open Sept. 26 and that is when the two teams are scheduled to meet in Tucson at Arizona Stadium to kick off their respective seasons.

It is the first time the two teams have met to open a season since 1946, and it is being done to help give the conference and teams some more flexibility to maneuver amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

USC and UCLA are also set to square off to open the season as the Pac-12 opted to put both rivalry games much earlier in the schedule than in previous years. Commissioner Larry Scott said the reason for the change is all four programs reside in "hotspots" for the coronavirus and scheduling the games this way will allow the meetings to be moved to a bye week or pushed to later in the season without much hassle.

"In the event that these two teams in each of those two markets playing against each other winds up not being possible they become very easy to reschedule," Scott said during a virtual webinar with conference reporters Friday afternoon. "So, each of those could reschedule into the bye week that you'll see on the calendar a few weeks later or a week that we left open."

Currently both Arizona and Arizona State have a bye week scheduled for the fourth week of the season on Oct. 17 in addition to a league-wide open date set for Dec. 12 that could be utilized to serve as a makeup date should either the Wildcats or Sun Devils not be prepared to play in time for the Sept. 26 kickoff.

The original 2020 schedule called for the Wildcats to host ASU in their usual late-fall matchup on Nov. 28. UA lost last year's meeting 24-14 in Tempe and has lost four of the last five contest against the program's in-state rival.

UA's revised 2020 conference-only schedule (home games in bold)

> Sept. 26: ASU

> Oct. 3: at Washington

> Oct. 10: Colorado

> Oct. 17: BYE

> Oct. 24: USC

> Oct. 31: at Utah

> Nov. 7: at Oregon State

> Nov. 14: Cal

> Nov. 20: Oregon (Friday)

> Nov. 28: at UCLA

> Dec. 5: at Stanford

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