ARLINGTON, TX, Sporting Alert — The at AT&T Stadium in Arlington will host the college football game between defending College Football Playoff champion Alabama and No. 20 USC on Saturday night.
Live streaming of the AdvoCare Classic is on WatchESPN, while ABC will provide live television coverage of the game, starting at 8pm ET, with Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbstreit and Samantha Ponder doing the call. LISTEN LIVE STREAMING | FOLLOW LIVE STATS AND PLAY-BY-PLAY TEXT
Saturday night’s clash contest at the neutral site in Texas, should be very interesting and Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban is “excited” about meeting the Trojans in what he believes will be a “bowl-like atmosphere”
“Well, we’re excited for game week, and we are excited and our players are excited as well to have the opportunity to play a great program with great tradition like the University of Southern California,” Saban said.
“This is always sort of a bowl-like atmosphere when you play in these first neutral-site games, and I know our players are very excited about it.”
USC is expected to have a very solid overall squad this season and Saban is well aware that the nation’s No. 1 ranked team must be ready for a tough test.
This will be the first meeting between the two powerhouse programs since 1985.
“Southern Cal has an outstanding team,” the veteran coach said ahead of the battle. “Clay Helton has been there for a good while, and they have been very productive offensively under him.
“They have nine starters back on offense, which makes them a very good offensive team.
“They have good runners, JuJu Smith-(Schuster) is one of the best receivers we’re going to play against all year.”
Meanwhile, an undefeated run in season openers will come to a halt after Saturday’s game, as USC puts its 17 game win streak in season openers on the line and Alabama will have its 14 game run in season openers tested.
The Trojans also head into the clash with the Crimson Tide looking to improve their seven victories over No. 1 teams, something they haven’t done since 1984.
Saban thinks this will be a challenging encounter for his team.
“I think this game will be a challenge for us in many many ways in terms of who we are playing as well as who we are, in terms of what we need to do,” he said.
