Lincoln Riley’s first game as USC football head coach will be on Saturday, Sept. 3. It was announced on Thursday that the game will be televised on Pac-12 Network.

A natural fan reaction might be, “Wait a minute! I thought Lincoln Riley was going to increase our national exposure and visibility! This is not part of the plan!”

That’s an entirely understandable reaction.

The response to that point is as follows: Rice is the one true cupcake game on the 12-game USC schedule. The other nonconference games are quality showcases, against Fresno State in Week 3 and then the huge end-of-season battle with Notre Dame in the Coliseum on Thanksgiving weekend.

The Pac-12 Network is certainly going to want at least one USC game, and if you were to pick one of the 12 games on the slate to go on P-12 Net, it’s obviously Rice. That’s the long and short of it.

If USC was playing a non-cupcake opponent, you can trust that it would not have been on Pac-12 Network. So much of life is about picking one’s spots.