ASU, UA ’21 football schedules are all set
Arizona State football enthusiasts already knew their dates and opponents for nonconference games for the coming season and they knew the majority of their conference foes. But now they know in which order they’ll play those schools.
There were several versions of the schedule which was voted on by the member school athletic directors with a majority needed for approval.
“The main thing for the conference was to make sure there was great competitive balance throughout the schedule,” Senior Associate Commissioner for Football Operations Merton Hanks said. “We wanted to sure there was certainly great competitive matchups early, in the middle of the footprint as well as late and we had to do our very best to assist a number of our institutions that have a tough road early from a scheduling standpoint, make sure they have an opportunity to compete.”
The Pac-12 released conference football schedules Tuesday in a special Pac-12 Network broadcast. The announcement has been a long time coming with all other Power 5 conferences and even the Sun Belt, detailing their schedules earlier.
ASU has nonconference games at home Sept. 4 against Southern Utah and on Sept. 11 against UNLV and a road game at Brigham Young on Sept. 18.
The Sun Devils will start Pac-12 play on Sept. 25 at home against much-improved Colorado, a team ASU did not play last year due to COVID-19 issues. It will get perennial South Division favorite USC at home on Nov. 6 but will have to travel to Utah.
Coach Herm Edwards was diplomatic as usual. “We’ve got 12 games, that’s all I’m looking at,” he said. “Hopefully, we can get to all 12 of them. We didn’t last year at all so that was tough on us. Hopefully we got this thing figured out, how to navigate the course of a 12-game season. I think like all coaches in the Pac-12 we’re excited about the opportunity to try and do that.”
The tough stretch might be the back end with games against North Division foes Oregon State and Washington at the end of the season, which could potentially be played in poor weather.
Edwards has never focused much on those factors so the way he addressed that was not surprising.
“I’m not big on that, I’m really not,” he said. “I don’t really go down that road, weather, or where you play people. I don’t get into all that. As long as you get to play with 11. You just go play. I don’t make a big deal out of weather, conditions, altitude, I don’t talk about all that. That’s just wasted talk. You just got to be prepared to play regardless of what the conditions are.”
This will mark the third straight year ASU has traveled to Corvallis late in the season. It had a regularly scheduled road game there in 2019. The game this year was the one added at the end of the season based on finish in the division and ASU registered a 46-33 victory in game played in the cold and a steady rain.
That quirk was addressed by Hanks in the Pac-12 broadcast. He said that it was important to stay in line with future schedules.
“Because schedules are planned so far in advance it makes sense do do your darndest to stay on schedule as far as who you’re playing, from a conference standpoint,” he said. “As you can imagine our friends at ASU are not thrilled about going to Coravallis for a third year but we needed to stay on schedule.”
The Sun Devils, coming off a 2-2 showing in the shortened 2020 campaign, open spring practice at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday.
ASU 2021 football schedule
Sept. 4: Southern Utah Sept. 11: UNLV
Sept. 18: at BYU
Sept. 25: Colorado
Oct. 2: at UCLA
Oct 8 (Fri.): Stanford
Oct. 16: at Utah
Oct. 23: Bye
Oct. 30: Washington State Nov 6: USC
Nov 13: at Washington Nov. 20: at Oregon State Nov 27: Arizona
Arizona 2021 football schedule
Sept. 4: vs. BYU (at Las Vegas) Sept. 11: San Diego State
Sept. 18: NAU
Sept. 25: at Oregon
Oct. 2: Bye
Oct. 9: UCLA
Oct. 16: at Colorado
Oct. 22 (Fri.): Washington
Oct. 30: at USC
Nov. 6: California
Nov. 13: Utah
Nov. 19 (Fri.): at Washington State Nov. 27: at Arizona State