Pac-12 Announces 2017 Football Schedules

BOULDER — The Pac-12 Conference released its schedule for conference football games for the 2017 season Wednesday, and the University of Colorado will host both the defending Pac-12 Conference champion as well as the Rose Bowl winner this coming fall.

Colorado will open the season for the second straight year against Colorado State on Friday night, once again in Denver in the Rocky Mountain Showdown at Sports Authority Field on Sept. 1. CU is the home team for the game and worked with the Pac-12, CSU and the Denver Broncos' Stadium Management Company to move the date off of Saturday to likely gain better television exposure, as was the case last fall.

The Buffaloes will then have their home opener at Folsom Field against Texas State on Saturday, Sept. 9, the first-ever meeting between the two schools, and then will host Northern Colorado on Sept. 16 in the first game between former Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference rivals in some 83 years.

All three non-league games were previously announced; Texas State replaced San Jose State who had asked out of a three-game series, and UNC was scheduled after a previous home-and-home with Oregon that was to start this fall turned into conference games when CU joined the Pac-12 Conference.

The Buffaloes, defending Pac-12 South Division champions, will open conference play at home on Sept. 23 against the defending league champion Washington Huskies; the two met in the Pac-12 Championship game this past December with UW pulling away in the second half for a 41-10 win. CU finishes up its September slate with its first game outside of the state's borders, traveling to Pasadena to play UCLA on Sept. 30.

Colorado opens and closes the month of October with home affairs against Arizona (Oct. 7), which will be CU's Family Weekend, and California (Oct. 28), which has been slated for Homecoming, with road games in-between in the Pacific Northwest at Oregon State (Oct. 14) and at Washington State (Oct. 21). The Homecoming game against Cal will mark to the day the 50th anniversary of CU's live buffalo mascot, Ralphie, leading the team out onto the field.

Colorado will close the regular season with three games in November, heading southwest to Tempe to play Arizona State on Nov. 4, which will be followed by the home finale against defending Rose Bowl champ Southern California on Nov. 11. The bye in CU's schedule comes at the tail end of the year, just prior to the finale at Utah on the Saturday after Thanksgiving (Nov. 25). The Pac-12 Championship game will be played either Dec. 1 or 2 and once again at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif.

Television game selections and start times for the first three weeks of the season will be known by the end of June, with all remaining games from Sept. 23 through the final week of the regular season to be made 12- or six-days in advance per contractual agreements with the Pac-12's television partners, ESPN, FOX and the Pac-12 Networks.

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