Five Utah football kick off times and TV announced

Ok fans, you can now start planning for your tailgates and house parties as we now know when Utah will be kicking off in 2018 for five games, and which channel they will be on.

First up, the opener against Weber State will kick off at 6pm on Pac-12 Network on Thursday, August 30th at Rice-Eccles Stadium. I love Utah’s tradition of opening the season on Thursday, it gets the season started a bit sooner, and then we can really enjoy all of Saturday to watch games without being stressed out over a Utah game.

Game No. 2 against NIU will kick off at 5:30, on the road, and it will be broadcast on ESPNews. Yes, ESPNews... I thought they just did, well, news. This is such a puzzling matchup for me, and one that has seemed strange since the day it was announced, but at least we know when and where we can watch it.

Utah opens Pac-12 play in week three against Washington at Rice-Eccles, and #Pac12AfterDark is getting started early in the season as Utah will kick off at 8pm. Late games are the way things go in the Pac-12, and I guess we’ll get used to it early in the season.

The next time we have on the books is against Arizona on Friday, October 12th. The Utes and Wildcats will kick off at 8pm on ESPN. Being late night on a Friday night isn’t the worst, since you can sleep off the game the next morning and enjoy a full game of football.

Two weeks later, the Utes will travel to LA to take on Chip Kelly and UCLA in the Rose Bowl. That game will kick at 8:30 pm on ESPN, and it will be another Friday night game. Going from a Saturday game at home against USC to a Friday night game against UCLA on the road will be a tough swing.

So there you go, plan away. I’m guessing the rest of the games we’ll learn about the week before the game, as TV people make their picks and slot games onto their channels.