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UCLA football finds late game times are more distraction than abstraction

On Saturday, the UCLA football players and coaches will spend most of the day in a hotel room in Tempe ahead of their 7:30 p.m. game against Arizona State.

“Probably wake-up time around 11; some of the guys wake up earlier,” receiver Kazmeir Allen said. “We’ll probably just watch games throughout the day.”

Instead of watching those afternoon games, most of the Bruins would rather be playing in them. Daytime games are preferable to many because of the exposure they offer as well as a more physically friendly schedule.

Coach Chip Kelly has not minced words about late kickoff times, saying he sees “zero benefit” in them aside from a potential monetary television gain.

“I don’t think any player or coach wants to say, ‘Hey, what do you want to do tomorrow? Well, let’s sit around all day and do something tomorrow night,’” Kelly said. “That’s not what competitors want to do. They want to play.”

Players’ schedules are calculated down to the minute during the season and game times influence what that schedule looks like. Practice times throughout the week can be altered. On game day, there is a time for everything, including wake-up, shake out and how much time is needed to digest dinner.

Downtime during the day can be used for watching more film, getting treatment from a team trainer or, if you’re Raiqwon O’Neal, a midday nap.

“There’s so much time in between,” the redshirt junior offensive lineman said. “You have the whole day to prepare, to make sure you get your body right. Our bodies are on a time schedule, so when night starts to come, our bodies start to get more sleepy, so we have to be able to adjust to that and be able to have our bodies awake when nighttime comes.”

O’Neal said he perfected his night game schedule his sophomore year and that the day’s process is contingent upon each player’s needs.

Saturday will mark the Bruins’ second consecutive 7:30 kickoff time. Although players say that they’re ready to play at any time, others see a benefit to week-to-week consistency.

“It’s important to try to keep everything the same,” offensive lineman Duke Clemens said. “Usually meeting times will be the same. We kind of know the routine, going into away games, going into home games – it’s the same schedule. We try to keep it consistent so the game feels consistent.”

UCLA has won both its 7:30 contests this season – against Washington and Stanford.

Even though the Bruins put themselves in the best position they can using their own success, night games still limit exposure for the players.

The UCLA-Stanford game drew 1.26 million television viewers on ESPN, according to sportsmediawatch.com, making it the ninth-most viewed college football game of the week. Four weeks earlier, 1.7 million televisions were tuned into the UCLA-Washington game on Fox. That game ranked 11th in viewership for the week.

The two 12:30 p.m. games featured on Fox had significantly higher viewership. UCLA-Oregon had 3.34 million viewers and UCLA-Utah had 2.65 million viewers. Both were the seventh-most watched games of their respective weeks.

“That’s one of the issues you have with the West Coast and that’s why I’ll commend our administration about the move to the Big Ten,” Kelly said. “The main thing has to be about our student-athletes and the more exposure we can get our student-athletes by moving to that league is a really cool deal.”

Prior to assuming the UCLA head coach position, Kelly was a studio analyst for ESPN for a year, so he’s familiar with how televised games work from the coaching and television perspectives.

He knows Saturday night viewership can be low. As a result, players are less likely to make the highlight reels the later they play in the day. Then, on Sunday, the attention switches to the NFL.

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Any exposure can help a player come awards season. Quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson and running back Zach Charbonnet are on multiple watch lists and rattle off plays every weekend that could increase their stock.

But if Charbonnet breaks multiple tackles and barrels his way for a 37-yard touchdown at the end of the third quarter against Stanford after 10 p.m. Saturday on the West Coast – let alone after 1 a.m. Sunday on the East Coast – does it make a sound?

“That’s just the nature of if you play late games on the West Coast,” Kelly said.

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