UCLA vs. Washington 2017 live stream: Start time, TV channel, and how to watch online

Chris Petersen got his wish — the No. 12 Washington Huskies (6-1) finally get an early afternoon game when they host the UCLA Bruins (4-3) at 3:30 p.m. ET on ABC or ESPN2 (check local listings, live stream at WatchESPN). The bad news is that the Huskies are coming off an upset loss to Arizona State, putting a huge dent in their College Football Playoff hopes.

Washington had a bye week to think about all the things it did wrong in the desert, where the Sun Devils shut down Jake Browning and company in a 13-7 loss. It pushes the Huskies out of the Playoff race, possibly for good — they still lack a strong quality win, and won’t really get the chance for one until the closing stretch of the season (at Stanford, vs. Utah, vs. Washington State). Strange as it sounds, Fresno State might be Washington’s best win so far.

On the bright side, the conference standings don’t care about strength of schedule, so Washington is alive and well in the Pac-12 North. They can potentially clinch a berth in the conference title game by beating the Cardinal and Cougars, which would put them in the running for a New Year’s Six bowl spot. But first thing’s first — they have to get back in the win column.

Despite having one of the country’s best quarterbacks in Josh Rosen, UCLA hasn’t had any real consistency this season. Their defense fell apart in losses to Texas A&M, Memphis, and Arizona, and Jim Mora Jr. could find himself on the hot seat if the Bruins struggle to reach bowl eligibility. With road games against Washington, Utah, and USC still on the schedule — plus home dates with Arizona State and Cal, which have both been better than expected this year — the Bruins could be hard-pressed to find that sixth win down the stretch.

Odds: Washington is favored by 17.5

The biggest threats to UW not getting in involve them competing with several other one-loss conference champions or a one-loss Notre Dame. Considering the fact that we are actually rooting for Notre Dame to have success in taking out some ACC competition (but losing to Stanford), the line we are walking starts to get pretty narrow.

At best, I see the situation for UW looking like a 50/50 proposition right now. It is absolutely true that a number of things have to fall into place for UW to get in. However, if they take care of their remaining schedule, history suggests that a number of things would have to happen to keep them out.

Chris Petersen and Jonathan Smith deserve blame whether play calling has been a problem or not. Jake Browning is developing bad pocket habits, and the coaches need to help him get back on track. Petersen’s passing offense is timing based, and the timing has been lousy on too many occasions. Back to the drawing board. Back to trusting pre-snap reads. Back to basics.

The main point I want to get across here is that it is probably fools gold to believe UCLA’s defense will perform at or above this level with any consistency going forward. There are signs that some adjustments were made after the Arizona game, which I’ll get to down below, but there’s also signs that some big issues remain. Perhaps being embarrassed in that fashion by Arizona turned a collective light on for the defense; it’s hard to say. So we’ll go with a conservative C+ for the defense this week, because they did play better than last week, but it would have been hard not to do.

An angry Washington team at home coming off their bye spells bad news for the Bruins, who haven’t won a game on the road this year. Things could get ugly if the Husky defense forces Rosen into early mistakes. Washington wins comfortably and stays in the hunt for the Pac-12 Championship.