Is there anything better than conference play? The rivalries, the games in front of raucous student sections, the fact that we’re getting to the point of the year where if you lose, you’re not able to rally back and still make a convincing case that you deserve to be in a top-tier bowl or the Playoff. Plus it means fall is here, and fall is wonderful. Fall means we get apple cider, and apple cider is the nectar of the gods.
As for this week’s slate of games, we have some in-conference matchups with massive national ramifications. The two best teams in the Pac-12 play on Friday night. Maybe the two best teams in the ACC play on Saturday night. We may get a preview of this year’s Big Ten title game, and we might get a definitive answer on which team is the best team in the SEC East. Also: Ed Orgeron is back, baby. If he is able to work his magic at LSU, then I swear to god someone better give him a head coaching job next year.
Wanna talk football? Let’s talk football.
FRIDAY
9:00 p.m.: Stanford at Washington, ESPN
Louisville vs. Clemson is the game of the weekend. I don’t think there’s a single person who disagrees with that.
Having said that, hoo boy, Stanford vs. Washington is going to be amazing. The team that wins this game is going to win the Pac-12. Sure, it’s a bit of a stretch to make that proclamation for a game that will take place on September 30, but consider:
- These are easily the two best teams in the conference, per S&P+. The Cardinal are ninth, the Huskies are ranked 11th. The third, fourth, and fifth best teams are Oregon (20th), UCLA (27th), and Utah (32nd).
- Of teams 3-5, Stanford has already played and beaten one of them (UCLA) and only has to travel to Oregon. Washington has road trips to Oregon and Utah on its schedule.
- Every other team in the Pac-12 North has two losses, so basically, the team that wins this game is going to be undefeated with a win over easily the best team it’ll play this regular season.
- The Pac-12 South is a bit down this year, and I am willing to bet at least $5 that the winner of the conference comes out of the North.
So put all of those super flimsy arguments together and yeah, this game is going to be huge. Both squads came into 2016 with a ton of hype – Washington was the darling of every college football blogger on the web, while Stanford has Christian McCaffrey and he is wonderful.
Stanford hasn’t looked outstanding this year, but their schedule has been really tough, as the Cardinal hosted Kansas State and USC before traveling to UCLA. Washington, on the other hand, has mostly whooped up on lesser teams. Chris Petersen’s side boasts three home blowouts over Rutgers, Idaho, and Portland State, and last week, the Huskies went to Tucson and beat a tricky Arizona team.
Both squads are going to play tough defense and efficient offense, so look for this game to potentially turn on special teams. By S&P+, Stanford is the second-best special teams squad in the nation, while Washington is ranked 70th. Who would have thought that having really good specialists in the kicking game and McCaffrey returning kicks/punts may be a good thing?
SATURDAY
Early Slate
FRONT AND CENTER
Noon: Texas at Oklahoma State, ABC
Oh my god.
https://twitter.com/SolidVerbal/status/780944291493453824
THIS IS GOING TO RULE SO HARD, Y’ALL. Not only are both passing defenses not great, but both teams have quarterbacks who can straight up spin the football in Mason Rudolph (Oklahoma State) and Shane Buechele (Texas). Plus each offense has a bevy of skill position talent: Oklahoma State has a really impressive wide receiver trio of James Washington, Jhajuan Seales, and Jalen McCleskey, while Texas has a number of solid receivers along with a dynamic running back duo in D’Onta Foreman and Chris Warren III. There will be so many points in this game. The over/under, at least as of Friday afternoon, is 70/70.5. And we’re taking the over.
SECOND SCREEN SPECIAL
Noon: Miami at Georgia Tech, ESPN2
Noon: Rutgers at Ohio State, Big Ten Network
Miami has quietly been really, really good this year. The Hurricanes are the sixth best team in the nation, according to S&P+, behind the always wonderful Brad Kaaya, a dynamic 1-2 punch at running back of Mark Walton and Joseph Yearby, and a defense that has allowed 23 points in three games. Of course, those three games were against Florida A&M, Florida Atlantic, and Appalachian State, so their first real test will come on Saturday against a pesky Georgia Tech team.
Ohio State is going to try and score 100 points on Rutgers. If you like watching unrepentant beatdowns during conference play, you should throw this one on. I like watching one boat race per weekend, and this is probably the one I’ll throw on.
Dog Day Afternoon
FRONT AND CENTER
3:30 p.m.: Tennessee at Georgia, CBS
3:30 p.m.: Wisconsin at Michigan, ABC
This is a bit of an oversimplification, but if the Tennessee team that played in the second half against Florida shows up, the Vols will beat Georgia. If the squad that played in the first half against the Gators shows up, they’re gonna get rolled. It’s weird how sports are that simple sometimes, but really that’s the best way of explaining this case.
I’m looking for whether the Vols’ offense is able to stay hot after it unleashed the wrath of god against Florida for 30 minutes last week, especially because Kirby Smart hasn’t exactly turned Georgia’s defense into the hell on earth unit he had at Alabama (in fairness, they’ve had to play North Carolina and Ole Miss so far, so their defense could be better than the numbers look). If Tennessee can keep Trenton Thompson out of its backfield, then look for the Volunteers to put up some points. And on the other side of the ball, Tennessee is going to try and confuse Dawgs QB Jacob Eason like crazy. Of course, none of this matters if Tennessee can’t stop Nick Chubb, which is never fun, because Nick Chubb rules. (UPDATE: Chubb is out against the Vols, so Eason could be on the verge of either his coming out party or a really rough afternoon)
Oh, and if you want to watch the best Big Ten game of the year that doesn’t involve Ohio State, that’s also happening during this block of games. Wisconsin has come out of nowhere to earn a Top 10 ranking, while Michigan has spent four weeks mauling opponents. The biggest thing to watch is how the Badgers deal without one of their best defensive players, Vince Biegel, who will miss this game (and possibly more).
Still, this Wisconsin defense has been really, really good. The linebacker duo of Jack Cichy and T.J. Watt (yes, you know who his brother is) have given opposing offenses fits, and as a whole, the unit has been stout – Wisconsin is seventh nationally in scoring defense. Of course, Michigan is the best offense they’ve played so far, but considering how last week the Badgers walked into East Lansing and dismantled Michigan State, they deserve some respect.
But on the other side of the ball, things could get a bit hairy. Michigan may have the best defense in the country, one that got better last week when Jourdan Lewis (maybe the best cornerback in college football) came back after missing a few games with an injury. As a fan of a team that played the Wolverines and saw what this defense can do when it’s fully formed, it’s mortifying. The Badgers have a freshman at quarterback in Alex Hornibrook, and while he was solid but unspectacular against Michigan State, he’ll need to be brilliant to beat the Wolverines.
SECOND SCREEN SPECIAL
3:30 p.m.: North Carolina at Florida State, ESPN
5:00 p.m.: Oklahoma at TCU, Fox
Florida State looks like it is hell bent on beating every team by 500,000,000 points after it got rocked by Louisville. Angry teams coached by Jimbo Fisher are so much fun, because they’re usually teams with five-star dudes at every position, and Jimbo is the angriest short dude in college football outside of Nick Saban. North Carolina is a good team with a really good offense that could end up running away with the ACC Coastal, and this could be an entertaining shootout, but the Seminoles may be a team on a mission for the rest of this season.
Oklahoma’s trip to Fort Worth was, in a lot of people’s minds, the de facto Big 12 title game with a potential College Football Playoff spot on the line. But then the Sooners started this year 1-2 and TCU lost to Arkansas, so now, it’s hard to see either team competing for a national title. Still, these are two good teams and it could technically still be a de facto conference title game, so it’s absolutely worth watching.
Under the Lights
FRONT AND CENTER
8:00 p.m.: Louisville at Clemson, ABC
Hell yes.
Let’s face it: this game is going to be awesome, but above everything else, the thing we all want to see is Lamar Jackson vs. Deshaun Watson. Last year, Watson was everyone’s favorite dynamic quarterback and a guy who got to New York City for the Heisman ceremony. He was incredible, a remarkably efficient passer who carved up defenses even though his best receiver got hurt during the first game of the season. Watson also showed off the ability to run when necessary. Clemson didn’t win a national championship, but coming into this year, everyone thought the Tigers were among the favorites to win the title and Watson was the favorite to win the Heisman.
Jackson apparently heard all of this and went “yes, that’s cute.” Dude is just a straight up buzzsaw, and any talk about the Heisman in 2016 goes through Jackson and Jackson alone. Plenty of people questioned if he was a dude who would just eat against lesser teams and crap the bed against better teams. Then he went out and hung 63 points on Florida State and everyone collectively went “this guy is the best college football player in the country.”
But is Louisville the best team in the country? Through four weeks, it has made a pretty convincing case, and it can really cement its status as perhaps the best team in America by going into Death Valley at night and beating the hell out of Clemson. Should that happen, Jackson is going to win the Heisman and Louisville will almost definitely make the College Football Playoff. But at the same time, the Tigers have been sort of underwhelming this year, and Watson could use a huge game to remind everyone that he can ball out.
Watch this game. There have been plenty of big games in college football this season, but this is the first one that you need to drop everything and make sure you watch.
SECOND SCREEN SPECIAL
7:30 p.m.: Missouri at LSU, SEC Network
8:00 p.m.: Michigan State at Indiana, Big Ten Network
Indiana’s delightful brand of chaos against a Michigan State team that may not be as good as we think after it got trounced by Wisconsin at home last week? Yeah, this one may be crazy.
Missouri vs. LSU is going to be worth checking out if only because it’s always interesting to see how teams respond to a coaching change, especially when the coaching change involves someone as big as Les Miles getting canned. And who knows? Maybe this is the first game of the long, prosperous Ed Orgeron era in Baton Rouge. Fly high, DaCoachO.
Late Night
FRONT AND CENTER
10:30 p.m.: Arizona at UCLA, ESPN
I was really impressed by the way Arizona took a punch from Washington last week and didn’t back down. Brandon Dawkins looks like he may be the future for Rich Rodriguez, as he’s completing nearly 63 percent of his passes and leading the team in rushing (dude’s going for nearly nine yards per carry, which is insane). Plus running backs J.J. Taylor and Nick Wilson are capable of breaking one off at any time, too. Whether or not the Wildcats are actually good remains to be seen, and last week’s close game against the Huskies very well could have been an aberration, but there are reasons for optimism in Tucson.
One way to validate that optimism is to beat a UCLA squad that is probably better than its 2-2 record (so far, the Bruins have traveled to Texas A&M and BYU and had to host Stanford, which is a rough slate of three games). The good news for the Bruins is that the schedule eases up a bit over the rest of the season – over the next eight weeks, it plays two teams ranked in the top 40 of S&P+, compared to the first four weeks, when it played three teams with that distinction.
As is usually the case with UCLA, I’m watching to see if Josh Rosen has a big game to remind people why he was viewed as a sure-fire No. 1 pick after his freshman year. He hasn’t quite done that so far in 2016, but against a not great Wildcats pass defense, he may be able to put up some huge numbers. Just get the ball out quickly, Josh, because if there’s one thing Arizona is good at, it’s getting into the backfield: the Wildcats have 11 sacks as a team (tied for 27th nationally) and boast 12 players with at least one tackle for loss, with the standout being linebacker DeAndre’ Miller, who has four on the year.
SECOND SCREEN SPECIAL
10:15 p.m.: Utah State at Boise State, ESPN2
You’ll never believe this, but Boise State is really good. Utah State hasn’t been all that great this year, but if you wanna spend your late night watching the Broncos on the Smurf Turf, no one will blame you.
