After months of uncertainty, the Colorado Buffaloes are set to open the 2020 football season at home on Nov. 7 vs. UCLA.
The CU-UCLA game is of seven games announced by the Pac-12 Conference as part of a amended schedule due to the Coronavirus pandemic. CU will play all five of its South Division opponents, along with Stanford and a possible team to be determined from the North Division a day after the Pac-12 Championship.
UCLA joins Arizona State and Utah as the teams to visit Boulder this year. The Buffs hit California twice with games at Stanford and USC in November. They close out the road portion of their schedule against Arizona on Dec. 5
Colorado was originally set to open the season on Sept. 5 at Colorado State. It would’ve been the first time in two decades the Rocky Mountain Showdown was scheduled to be held in Fort Collins.
“We’re excited that we finally have something in concrete to look forward to,” CU head coach Karl Dorrell said in a statement. “We’re all excited, coaches, players. We’re also looking forward to starting the season at home.”
According to CU’s Dave Plati, “Dorrell, CU’s 27th full-time head coach, will be the first to have his CU opener at home since Dan Hawkins in 2006, and only the second since Bill McCartney had his first career game at Folsom against California in 1982. In all, 12 of the previous 26 had their openers in Boulder, with six coming in Denver, three against Colorado State with the other three in the early 20th century against assorted opponents. Only two coaches in CU history opened with conference games, Myron Witham in 1920 at Denver and William Saunders in 1932 at Colorado Mines, both of which were by 31-0 scores.
Entering its 10th season as a member of the Pac-12, Colorado will still open Pac-12 league play at home for the fifth time in the last seven years in hosting the Bruins, as defending conference champion Oregon was set as the original conference opener, with Washington State to visit Folsom in the first revised schedule. As is always the case for games this far into the fall calendar, kickoff times will be known after the conference’s television partners make their weekly selections usually twelve days in advance. CU athletic director Rick George has indicated that he is open to the Buffaloes playing a home game at 10 a.m. to be featured in the Noon window in the Eastern Time Zone.
This will be Colorado’s latest season opener in 102 years, or since Nov. 16, 1918; that year the start of the season was also delayed to an influenza pandemic at the end of World War I, brought back to the states from returning servicemen. CU lost that game at home to Colorado State Teachers College (now Northern Colorado), 9-0. The only other season that started later was CU’s first in 1890 (a 20-0 loss at the Denver Athletic Club on Nov. 15). The last time a conference opponent was the foe in a season opener was in 1961, when CU defeated Oklahoma State in Boulder, 24-0.”
2020 Colorado Buffaloes Updated Football Schedule
NOV. 7 UCLA
Nov. 14 at Stanford
NOV. 21 ARIZONA STATE
Nov. 28 at Southern California
Dec. 5 at Arizona
DEC. 11 (Fri.) UTAH
Dec. 18 Pac-12 Championship Game Campus Site
Dec. 19 North Division Opponent TBD
Let’s Go pic.twitter.com/k0dC2qJqeX
— Darrin Chiaverini (@CoachChev6) October 3, 2020