It’s elementary my dear Watson – Week 8 NFL TV Schedule

And by dear Watson I mean you fucking dickhead Watson (presumably).  I’m not going to deny Deshaun Watson’s talent as a quarterback.  Top 10 in the league?  You can easily make the argument…when he’s playing.   And now with the trade deadline fast approaching, many are wondering if he will start playing again this season.  He won’t be playing for the Houston Texans, that is for sure.  Miami seems to be the most likely destination but with Stephen Ross, the Dolphins owner, openly asking what the suspension possibilities for Watson will be, once he is eligible to play, puts some of that in doubt.  The other big possibility is Denver, who hasn’t made any outward remarks about trade talk for him but really do need a quarterback.  The chances of him being dealt, in my opinion, are a bit less than 50/50 at this point.  The Texans are terrible and won’t be making the playoffs this season.  After the season is over, there may be more clarity as to what Watson will be facing.  Finally, I think there will be a lot of player movement in the upcoming offseason, which would benefit the Texans hugely.  For these reasons, I lean towards Watson not being dealt.  This means we will get a couple months’ reprieve from all this which will be nice for sure.  Then it will ramp up in a serious way.  But we can deal with that when that day comes.

Alllllllllllllllllllllllright then, here’s the schedule, which definitely does not include Deshaun Watson:

Thursday

Green Bay at Arizona

8:20, FOX, TSN1/4/5, CTV Two

Sunday Early

Pittsburgh at Cleveland	Minneapolis, Cleveland		Winnipeg		Vancouver Island, Alberta, Atlantic
Tennessee at Indianapolis
Cincinnati at NY Jets
Miami at Buffalo	Buffalo, Rochester		Kitchener, Toronto		Ottawa
San Francisco at Chicago		All affiliates (except Detroit & Rochester)	Vancouver, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Montreal, Atlantic	TSN4
Philadelphia at Detroit		Detroit, Rochester	Northern Ontario, Ottawa		London, Toronto
LA Rams at Houston
Carolina at Atlanta

Sunday Late

New England at LA Chargers	Detroit, Burlington, Boston			TSN4
Jacksonville at Seattle	Seattle, Spokane		Vancouver
Tampa Bay at New Orleans		All affiliates	All affiliates (except Vancouver & Atlantic)		Atlantic
Washington at Denver

Sunday/Monday Primetime

Dallas at Minnesota	Sunday, 8:30, NBC, TSN 4/5, CTV Two
NY Giants at Kansas City	Monday, 8:30, TSN 2/3/5

Non-Watson Notes

• When’s the last time the Game of the Week has been the Thursday nighter?  I don’t think that’s ever happened to be honest.  Despite J.J. Watt’s season-ending injury, the Packers-Cardinals game still should be a great one as the Cards attempt to go 8-0 for the first time in franchise history.  Could this be an NFC Championship preview?
• For once, we have a late game not being shown anywhere here.  Usually I would rail against this but it’s the WFT and the Broncos so I don’t really care (unless it’s close…then RedZone can do its thing).
• FOUR games are not being shown in the early part of the day!  That’s quite a few to be honest and it doesn’t help that the Niners and Bears get most of the FOX affiliates at that timeslot.  Shows what a shitty early schedule FOX has.  I mean Rams-Texans and Panthers-Falcons aren’t exactly games that people are clamoring to watch.  The other two games, on the AFC side, are a bit better but have one team that drags it down.  Bengals?  Sure!  Jets?  Ugh.  Same with Titans-Colts.  I still don’t get the continued Carson Wentz hype to be honest with you.
• Good lord this looks like it could be awful.  Monday Night Football seems to be back to having not-so-great matchups and this qualifies.  If you had said that at the start of the season, I would have thought you were high.  But the Chiefs are not good, somehow.  Surprising and disturbing but it true.  Maybe Patrick Mahomes will finally wake up tonight and torch the Giants.  Or it could end in a 7-7 tie.  Either way.
• In contrast, Sunday Night Football….is better.  The Cowboys are actually quite good and should clinch the NFC East on Thanksgiving if not earlier.  And the Vikings aren’t bad although their fans are just waiting for the next way this team will rip their hearts out.  So expect a missed chip shot field goal to allow the Cowboys to escape with the win or something equally agonizing.

We haven’t had a bad weekend of football yet (if you combine college and pro) so let’s not start now!  Fingers crossed this all ends up being good and we go to sleep Sunday night happy with all that we saw.  Enjoy your weekend everyone!

The Fun-Time College Coaching Carousel – Week 9 College Football TV Schedule

OK this happens every year but it feels like it has been jumped up a notch or two.  Like what is being talked about more right now, the coaching carousel and hot seat or the Heisman race?  It’s easily the coaching situations in college football.  Might as well start this with the USC sitch.  The rumour mill is going crazy with potential names to be the next head coach in LA.  The candidates listed since Clay Helton was fired include Luke Fickell, Matt Campbell, James Franklin and Kalani Sitake.  Jeff Fisher was mentioned as a possibility and he fairly quickly refuted it, probably because it would be impossible for him to go 7-9.  Mike Tomlin was also mentioned which is weird since unless the Pittsburgh Steelers are planning to fire him, I don’t know why he’d leave one of the better coaching spots in the NFL to coach at a place with high expectations like USC.  With Franklin getting a new agent, my guess is he has become the odds-on favourite and if Penn State loses badly this weekend, expect that talk to heat up a lot.

So now let’s head to the Bayou and the LSU Tigers.  Ed Orgeron probably doesn’t give a single solitary shit now so is off fucking co-eds and getting drunk instead of fulfilling his head coaching duties at LSU.  I kid, but I’m sure he has been hungover at his desk in the morning at least once since his shitcanning.  So what’s next in Baton Rouge?  Campbell, Franklin and Fickell show up on this list as well but there are other, possibly more intriguing, options.  Like Dave Aranda.  LSU’s former defensive coordinator would be welcomed back with open arms after the job he has done at Baylor.  Billy Napier has been lights out at Louisiana, making them one of the best Group of Five programs around.  And the most intriguing of possibilities, Mel Tucker.  Michigan State is a very unexpected Top 10 team and Tucker is a big reason why.

This will be a story that won’t go away for a while.  For my money, I think it will end up being Franklin going to USC and Aranda heading to LSU.  There will be other openings showing up soon I’m sure and Fickell is almost certain to get one of them.  Matt Campbell, on the other hand, I could see staying at Iowa State for at least one more season, especially if they somehow make their way to the Big XII Championship.  Anyway, enough coach talk, on to the schedule!

Thursday​​

		US	Canada
USF at East Carolina	7:30 PM
Troy at #24 Coastal Carolina	7:30 PM

Very soon we will be at the point where it’s football every day!  It means that the football matchups don’t have to always be fantastic because it’s football every damn day so let’s enjoy it!  What would you rather watch, football or something meaningless like poker?  Other than the NFL Thursday Nighter, nothing else worth watching will be on this night.  It’s a travel day for the Houston Astros and Atlanta Braves so no baseball to distract you.  So unless the pro game is good, you can sit down and watch…let’s see here….oh my….um….well, it’s college football technically.  With Coastal losing last week, neither of these games are really that appealing to be perfectly honest.

Friday

		US	Canada
Princeton at Cornell	7:00 PM
Navy at Tulsa	7:30 PM
UNLV at Nevada	10:00 PM

OK so things don’t get a whole lot better on Friday night.  Saying that, the Battle for the Fremont Cannon is always fun and, two years ago, ended in a massive brawl.  Good times!

Saturday Early​​

		US	Canada
Texas at #16 Baylor	Noon
Miami at #17 Pittsburgh	Noon
Indiana at Maryland	Noon
Rutgers at Illinois	Noon
Bowling Green at Buffalo	Noon
#9 Iowa at Wisconsin	Noon
#2 Cincinnati at Tulane	Noon
Texas State at Louisiana	Noon
#6 Michigan at #8 Michigan State	Noon
Virginia Tech at Georgia Tech	Noon

One game here will get all the attention and rightfully so.  The Michigan-Michigan State rivalry hits a new high with both teams ranked in the Top 10.  That’s not the only game here though as Iowa-Wisky could end up being interesting on the other side of the Big Ten division menu.  Pitt and Baylor try to continue their magical seasons and Cincy has to beat Tulane by a lot to probably keep that lofty #2 ranking.  Finally there is Techmo Bowl to see if one of the coaches coaching in the game get fired during the halftime show.  I give the odds at 10-1.

Saturday Afternoon

		US	Canada
Missouri at Vanderbilt	3:00 PM
Texas Tech at #4 Oklahoma	3:30 PM
Minnesota at Northwestern	3:30 PM
Florida vs. #1 Georgia (in Jacksonville)	3:30 PM
Louisiana Tech at Old Dominion	3:30 PM
Florida State at Clemson	3:30 PM
Purdue at Nebraska	3:30 PM
TCU at Kansas State	3:30 PM
Colorado at #7 Oregon	3:30 PM
Boston College at Syracuse	3:30 PM
Duke at #13 Wake Forest	4:00 PM

I’m sure Brad Nessler would love to have an open bar for the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.  Dealing with Gary Danielson and blowouts every week has to be gnawing at him and I think he might snap, despite the fact he is very professional.  I know I would.  The SEC Network going with some odd timeslots this week and I don’t know if this is a test for going forward or they had to do so because of other programming.  I’m going with the former until I can find something concrete that HAD to be on from Noon until 3:00.  Other than that there’s not much of note here.  Maybe watch Wake keep their undefeated streak going until the second quarter once they pull away from Dook or Texas Tech pretend they can stay with Oklahoma for more than 10 minutes if you want.

Saturday Primetime​​

		US	Canada
Boise State at Colorado State	7:00 PM
#10 Ole Miss at #18 Auburn	7:00 PM
#19 SMU at Houston	7:00 PM
Arizona at USC	7:00 PM
#12 Kentucky at Mississippi State	7:00 PM
#20 Penn State at #5 Ohio State	7:30 PM
Louisville at NC State	7:30 PM
North Carolina at #11 Notre Dame	7:30 PM

Penn State-Ohio State was going to be a huge game for ABC.  Then last weekend’s nine-overtime clusterfuck happens and this game doesn’t mean nearly as much.  It’s almost the same thing that happened last year as PSU lost to Indiana the week before tOSU.  It’s like they’re looking ahead to the Buckeyes and taking their eye off the ball (or Franklin is checking his email every few minutes for something from a certain west coast school).  And there’s no guarantee they get the most viewers in this timeslot, especially if it becomes a blowout.  You have Ole Miss-Auburn which should be a dandy and SMU trying to stay undefeated, mostly for Cincinnati’s gain.  You could also watch North Carolina who is way worse than some thought they would be (*AHEM* me *AHEM*), travel to South Bend and hopefully not get beaten up by the Irish.

Saturday Late Night​​

		US	Canada
UCLA at Utah	10:00 PM
Virginia at #25 BYU	10:15 PM
Fresno State at #21 San Diego State	10:30 PM

Late night college football returns this week after last week’s odd scheduling.  The biggest match will happen in San Diego Carson, California where the Aztecs hope to remain undefeated against a very good Bulldogs team.  CBS Sports Network really lucked out with getting this one.  We also have the return of Bronco as Mr. Mendenhall brings his Cavaliers to Provo to face his old team.

Games to set your eyeballs on

Michigan at Michigan State (Noon, FOX) – Put up your hands if you figured both teams would be undefeated coming into this one.  Absolutely no hands should be up right now, not even Spartans and Wolverines fans.  One of these teams will have a legitimate shot at the College Football Playoff after this coming weekend.  That sounds absurd but it’s very true.  The winner here will have Ohio State later on in the season for what will probably be a winner-take-all game for the Big Ten East crown.  Michigan is considered the slight favourite to win here.  I would wonder about Sparty’s chances though.  They really will all come down to what Kenneth Walker III does in this game.  Walker has vaulted himself into the Heisman race and really if the season ended now he should get strong consideration to win the damn thing.  Really, this should be a solid Game of the Year candidate so let’s hope it’s not a blowout…otherwise we get Sad Gus Johnson which never sounds good.

Ole Miss at Auburn (7:00, specialty pack) – Will either of these teams usurp Bama at the top of the SEC West?  Not likely but this year there is at least a tiny sliver of hope.  The winner of this one is in the driver’s seat to have that opportunity, especially if it’s Auburn who still has a game against the Tide.  And with Lane Kiffin coaching in this game, the interviews, along with the offense, should be fun.

Penn State at Ohio State (7:30, ABC/TSN2) – If this was in State College I probably move it up to the number two spot on this list.  Tough to move them up farther with neither team undefeated and Penn State suffering a horrible loss to Illinois.  As I mentioned above, the Nittany Lions had the same fate last year, losing the game before the Ohio State one.  Yes it was their first game of the year so take it with a grain of salt.  They did end up losing to Ohio State last year (and the three games after that).  Can’t see that kind of losing streak from this team this year but you never know.  Either way, the winner here will face the winner of the Michigan-MSU game later in the season for the division crown and the rest of the teams will battle for the slight chance at a New Year’s Six spot.

SMU at Houston (7:00, specialty pack) – Yes SMU is undefeated but the Cougs are undefeated in the conference as well.  This game pretty much determines who gets to face Cincinnati in the AAC Championship in December.  This could also be the beginning of the end of Sonny Dykes in the Metroplex as there are rumours he will end up as the head coach at Texas Tech.  Wouldn’t surprise me at all, what with his dad coaching there years ago.

Fresno State at San Diego State (10:30, CBS Sports Network) – Another surprising team shows up on the list here.  Somehow, the Bulldogs are 6-2 and in the driver’s seat in the Mountain West West Division with a win here in Carson.  Kalen DeBoer has done a fantastic job in the Valley for a team that many (myself included) wouldn’t even get to .500 this season.  And look who is doing a great coaching job at SDSU.  Brady Hoke is back, baby!  He has proven to be a great coach at the Group of Five level and he’s doing it once again.  The Aztecs somewhat surprising run to, hopefully, a NY6 spot hinges on winning games like this (and hoping Cincinnati loses at least once before the end of the season).

Honourable mention: Texas Tech at Oklahoma (3:30, ABC); Florida vs. Georgia (3:30, CBS); Virginia at BYU (10:15, specialty pack)

Wanna bet?

OK at least I got one upset pick right.  I thought Air Force could somehow come back and beat San Diego State but sadly, for me, it did not happen.  As for the rest of my picks, yeah there were a couple bad ones there as well.  Look, let’s forget that and just move forward, OK?

Houston over SMU (let’s start with an upset)

Michigan over Michigan State

Ohio State over Penn State

BYU over Virginia

Georgia over Florida

Auburn over Ole Miss

San Diego State over Fresno State

Oklahoma over Texas Tech

Buffalo over Bowling Green

Louisiana Tech over Old Dominion

Coastal Carolina over Troy

Will I watch the approximately 24 hours of college football being served up over the next few days?  It will be pretty close, not gonna lie.  It’s mostly a free weekend so add in about 11 hours of NFL football and we get to the 35-hour mark.  I am such a fucking degenerate when it comes to football.  Kind of glad I don’t do the recaps anymore since it usually cut into in my NFL watching time.  Honestly, I struggle with that kind of multi-tasking.  Anyway. enjoy the games everyone!

A new kind of post and some realignment discussion

To start with, yes, I am not doing a recap post.  You will not see recaps like you did before.  What I am thinking of doing though is putting my Top 25 on Monday morning along with, starting now, a few bowl projections (with the goal to get to full bowl projections in a few weeks).  I might add something else to this post when I see fit, like I am with this one.

Take a look at the map above.  Yeah, Conference USA is in a serious bit of trouble.  Let’s recap what has happened over the past couple weeks.

• It was always known that the AAC would try to do something after losing three of their members to the Big XII (Cincinnati, Houston & UCF).  Interestingly enough, they looked to Conference USA.  SIX TEAMS!  Charlotte, Florida Atlantic, North Texas, Rice, UAB and UTSA are moving to the American Conference, probably for the start of the 2023 football season.  Interesting choices but choosing Charlotte, Rice and UTSA gives them three more big metropolitan areas to become popular in and allow conferences to gain a good foothold in recruiting.  This dropped Conference USA to 8 teams.  Tough, but they can deal with it in the immediate future and look at what they could do for expansion in a year or two.
• Oops.  Make that they have to look at figuring things out immediately.  Reason for that is that the Sun Belt, which has gained ground on all the Group of Five conferences in the past few years, has invited four teams to join, three from Conference USA.  Those three teams are Marshall, Southern Miss and Old Dominion.  The Golden Eagles have already accepted their invitation and it is expected the Herd and Monarchs will accept theirs in the next day or two.  The other invitee is James Madison.  It was just a matter of time for when the Dukes moved up to the FBS.
• OK so now Conference USA is down to five members.  FIU, Middle Tennessee, Louisiana Tech, UTEP and Western Kentucky were not invited to either the AAC or Sun Belt…yet.  Remember, the Big XII has hinted that they might invite two more schools and Memphis and Boise State seem to be at the top of that list.  If they do do that, it makes for another domino effect that will translate to more changes at the G-5 level.  Also, Liberty has made it known that they are not interested in joining Conference USA.  So that is not an option.

So now what?  There are rumours that Middle Tennessee and Western Kentucky could get invites to the MAC, which would essentially doom Conference USA.  Some keep saying UTEP could go to the Mountain West but I don’t see that happening.  LaTech is probably destined for the Independent route since they have somewhat burned a bridge with the Sun Belt, and ULM in particular.  Conference USA is already looking at FCS schools like Sam Houston State and, get this, Tarleton State to restock the conference.  Tarleton State?  They’ve been D-1 for two seasons in football.  At least we know how desperate the conference is.

Oh and remember this post?  I said Conference USA and the Sun Belt should do a shuffle to better organize their conferences to be more regional and less spread out.  I got a lot of messages from fans of Conference USA schools pissed off at me because I seemed to hate their conference.  I don’t hate it.  I’m realistic about it.  They have the worst TV package for football, by far, of any FBS conference.  They’ve never had one of their schools in the New Year’s Six.  The level of competition isn’t exactly making people not want to watch the American or Mountain West (let alone MACtion and the Fun Belt).  It’s the bottom of the ten conferences.  They needed to do something to change it and didn’t and now they are in deep shit.  Blame the conference commissioner and the powers that be for not being proactive.  Now you can watch your conference die for all I care.

It felt very weird this past Saturday with no late game.  And no I didn’t stay up for the Hawaii Test since that game didn’t even start until every other game had ended (other than the East Carolina-Houston game that was delayed five-and-a-half hours).  So for once I got, well, let’s say more sleep than I usually do on a Saturday night.  Alright, let’s get to the Bossman Top 25:

#1	Georgia
#2	Cincinnati
#3	Oklahoma
#4	Alabama
#5	Ohio State
#6	Michigan
#7	Oregon
#8	Ole Miss
#9	Notre Dame
#10	Michigan State
#11	Texas A&M
#12	Iowa
#13	Wake Forest
#14	Kentucky
#15	Auburn
#16	Baylor
#17	Penn State
#18	Oklahoma State
#19	San Diego State
#20	Pittsburgh
#21	SMU
#22	Iowa State
#23	UTSA
#24	BYU
#25	Arkansas

Honestly, after Georgia, it’s a bit of a crapshoot really.  I don’t care what anyone thinks, this wasn’t easy and anything remotely close to this (or the AP Poll) is probably OK as well.  The only truism is that if Georgia wins out, they go to the College Football Playoff.  For most of the other teams, that isn’t the case.  It definitely isn’t the case with Cincinnati.  Yes they are #2 at this point but will drop to #3, maybe in the next week depending on what happens with the teams below them.  It’s nothing on them but, other than SMU, the rest of their regular season schedule is not exactly great.  They need to beat SMU handily and then beat a (hopefully good) Houston team in the AAC Championship to keep their Top 4 spot.  And even then they made need help.  Oh yeah and I promised so I delivered: UTSA is in the Top 25 at #23.  To shock the world and get that New Year’s Six spot they are going to need Cincinnati, SMU and San Diego State to all lose at least once.  Cincinnati and SMU, as I stated above, play each other in November so there’s one loss there but the other two may be hard to come by.

Now let’s get to the first set of bowl projections of the season:

Orange Bowl	CFP Poll #1 vs. CFP Poll #4	Georgia vs. Cincinnati
Cotton Bowl	CFP Poll #2 vs. CFP Poll #3	Oklahoma vs. Ohio State

Alright, quick explanations for these choices at this point:

• OK so Cincinnati runs the table and destroys Houston in the AAC Championship.  Notre Dame also wins out, meaning Cincinnati would have two great opponents on their resume, the Irish and Cougars.  SMU, other than their loss to the Bearcats, also wins the rest of their games.  This bolsters their resume enough.  Oh, and Alabama loses to Georgia in the SEC Championship which pushes Cincy to #4.
• Oklahoma rounds into form and beats Oklahoma State in Bedlam (along with the rest of their regular season games).  They get Iowa State in the Big XII Championship (who has also won out from here) and beat them handily to nab the #2 spot.
• Georgia runs the table and then beat Alabama (finally) in the SEC Championship.  Easy route to #1.
• Ohio State has a bit of trouble with, yes, Michigan but wins out and then beats Iowa pretty easily in the Big Ten Championship (although a few teams could come out of the West).  The Buckeyes should be ranked higher than Cincinnati and would slot in at #3.

So there you go.  First set of bowl projections and I’m sure some of you disagree already, which is fine.  There’s still a lot of football yet to play.  Anyway, football every day will commence November 2nd and go through to November 29th (except for the day before American Thanksgiving).  That’s something to look forward to, no?  Enjoy your week everyone!

So what is Russell Wilson’s future? Week 7 NFL TV Schedule

Have you watched the last two weeks of Seattle Seahawks football?  If so, and you’re a Seahawks fan, I feel bad for you.

If you haven’t watched any of it, I got two words for you: Geno Smith.  Honestly, Smith hasn’t been terrible.  But he’s Geno Smith and not made to be a starter in the NFL.  The Seahawks, and their fans, are used to Russell Wilson at quarterback and having Smith behind centre means the offense won’t be nearly as good.  And it isn’t.  What this has done is open up questions about Wilson’s future in Seattle.  He has two years left on his deal and I can see Seattle possibly moving him.  The reason is that this team has a lot of holes in the lineup that they haven’t been able to fill and part of the reason they couldn’t fill them is because of the contract Wilson has.  Poor money management really on the Seahawks’ part.  Trading Wilson and then drafting a quarterback in the next draft or getting another quarterback who might not be enamored with his current team (*COUGH*Aaron Rodgers*COUGH*) is probably the direction they will take.  It’s probably the best for the Seahawks and Wilson because this may allow Seattle to finally put together a roster to compete, once again, for the Super Bowl.  And Wilson can go somewhere else to try and keep his career going, hopefully with less injuries.

Alright, let’s gets to the point of this post and that’s the NFL schedule for the week (which does include the aforementioned Seahawks):

Thursday

Denver at Cleveland

8:20, FOX, TSN1, CTV Two

Sunday Early

Kansas City at Tennessee	Seattle, Spokane, Minneapolis, Detroit		Vancouver, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Northern Ontario, Ottawa		London, Toronto
NY Jets at New England	Rochester, Burlington, Boston		Montreal, Atlantic
Cincinnati at Baltimore	Cleveland, Buffalo		Kitchener, Toronto	TSN3	Atlantic
Washington at Green Bay		Tacoma, Seattle, Spokane, Minneapolis	Winnipeg		Vancouver Island, Alberta
Carolina at NY Giants		Rochester, Burlington			Ottawa
Atlanta at Miami

Sunday Late

Chicago at Tampa Bay	All affiliates		All affiliates (except Atlantic)		Atlantic
Houston at Arizona
Detroit at LA Rams		Detroit
Philadelphia at Las Vegas		Buffalo, Boston		TSN3

Sunday/Monday Primetime

Indianapolis at San Francisco	Sunday, 8:20, NBC, TSN 1/3/4, CTV Two
New Orleans at Seattle	Monday, 8:15, TSN 1/2/3

Notes and Things That Have Nothing to do with Russell Wilson

• Thank god for no early morning London game this week.  And any other week for the rest of the season.  There were only two this season; however, it seems like there will be at least one more next season with the possibility of another game being played in Germany (obviously on a different week).  Man, it’s getting to the point where Sundays are an all-day affair.  I don’t know if I can handle that.
• It’s CROSS-FLEX TIME BAYBEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!  CBS is getting the Bears-Bucs game in the late window this week and that’s the only CBS game we will get up here in that window.  FOX will get another game in a future week that normally would have been on CBS.  I think we’ve finally got to the point where very few people care about this which is a good thing.  Now we should go to everything getting scrambled up and networks basically doing a draft to pick their games.  Give them an open bar while they do it.  Who says no?
• Only two games you can’t get here, one in each window.  I’m a bit surprised TSN didn’t pick up these two games so that we could see every game up here.  Saying that, do you really want to see the Falcons and Dolphins play?  Exactly.
• Has there ever been a bye week with six teams off at the same time?  Maybe that’s normal but it feels like there are less games than usual this week.
• Both primetime games not looking exactly appealing.  We’ve got a mediocre Colts team facing an overrated Niners team (that many in the media seem to really want to be good).  Then you have the Saints who obviously miss Drew Brees against the Seahawks, who I discussed above.  But, at least this week with the Monday nighter, TSN2 will be showing the ManningCast!  I didn’t think I’d miss it that much but I did.  It’s a fun watch with those two.  Not saying the regular broadcast is bad.  It’s helped that most of the MNF games have been good this year which is a rarity since SNF became a thing on NBC.

There you go.  Here’s hoping it’s another good week of NFL football as the weather starts getting cooler outside (or in some areas of Canada, snow appears).  Have a great rest of the week everyone!

No Mo Eaux & Rolo – Week 8 College Football TV Schedule

Ed Orgeron and Nick Rolovich are out at LSU and Wazzu, respectively.  Well, kind of.  Rolovich has been shitcanned immediately.  He, along with some of the assistant coaches, refuse to get the COVID-19 vaccine and, therefore, cannot work in any capacity in a state government position, which Washington STATE head coach definitely is.  I honestly do not understand why someone wouldn’t get the vaccine but to each their own I guess.  Part of not doing that, though, is to give up the right to do certain things.  Like be the football head coach at a state university.  I mean it’s not like Rolovich doesn’t already have a lot of money but he’s not that old and has a lot of years left to coach but he’s going to be considered persona non grata for a while now.

As for Coach Eaux, that’s a different story.  He will coach out the rest of the season which I think is a completely stupid thing to do.  Nothing worse than the lame duck coach.  As for why he was fired?  Well, LSU isn’t nearly as good as they were but how could they be?  That 2019 team was one of the best college football teams ever.  No, it’s more than that.  See, Eddie has had a divorce lately and it sounds like he’s letting his dick do the talking a lot these days.  Like hitting on a married pregnant woman at a gas station whose husband just happens to be a high-ranking official at the same damn school he coaches at.  Like how fucking stupid can you be?  So yeah, I think they got sick of Coach O being a womanizing asshole who didn’t seem to want to put the team first (or second or third, for that matter).  Oh well, he won’t be disappointed since his payout is ridiculous.  Not exactly Bobby Bonilla-type money but he will make over $17 million through to the end of 2025.  Must be nice.

Anywho, enough of Shitcan City, more college football schedules.  Sound good?

Wednesday

		US	Canada
#14 Coastal Carolina at Appalachian State	7:30 PM

At least TSN understands the importance of weeknight Fun Belt!  This is a massive game in the conference and a Coastal win basically wins the East division.  App State winning doesn’t just put the Sun Belt in a bit of flux; it also kills the chances of one of Cincinnati’s competitors for the Group of Five New Year’s Six spot (if the Bearcats don’t get into the College Football Playoff).

Thursday​

		US	Canada
Florida Atlantic at Charlotte	7:30 PM
Tulane at #21 SMU	7:30 PM
Louisiana at Arkansas State	7:30 PM
San Jose State at UNLV	11:00 PM

Four games.  None of them really that good to be honest.  Chances are many will be watching the NLCS Game 5 or Thursday Night Football, even if the Denver Broncos aren’t as good as their record indicates.  But there could be some upset possibilities that could hamper some teams’ expectations.  A Mustangs loss to Tulane wouldn’t just hurt SMU: it would hurt Cincinnati as well as they need a good SMU team later in the season to keep their resume intact for a potential College Football Playoff spot.

Friday​

		US	Canada
Middle Tennessee at UConn	6:00 PM
Columbia at Dartmouth	6:00 PM
Memphis at UCF	7:00 PM
Colorado State at Utah State	9:30 PM
Washington at Arizona	10:30 PM

Technically this is a schedule of college football games on a Friday night.  I guess if you are into Ivy League football or UConn football (for some reason), then maybe this is the schedule for you.  Oh and we have Zona in the late night Friday window.  Ugh.

Saturday Early

		US	Canada
Illinois at #7 Penn State	Noon
UMass at Florida State	Noon
#16 Wake Forest at Army	Noon
#3 Oklahoma at Kansas	Noon
#2 Cincinnati at Navy	Noon
Northern Illinois at Central Michigan	Noon
Northwestern at #6 Michigan	Noon
Arkansas-Pine Bluff at Arkansas	Noon
Syracuse at Virginia Tech	12:30 PM

Fairly good start to the Saturday.  Not as great as last week but still good.  The biggest problem is quite a few games of ranked teams facing non-ranked teams where the unranked teams are really not that good.  I mean it’s either that or watching UMass face a not-so-good Florida State team and probably lose by 40 so take your pick.

Saturday Afternoon

		US	Canada
Wisconsin at #25 Purdue	3:00 PM
#10 Oregon at UCLA	3:30 PM
LSU at #12 Ole Miss	3:30 PM
Western Michigan at Toledo	3:30 PM
Clemson at #23 Pittsburgh	3:30 PM
Maryland at Minnesota	3:30 PM
#8 Oklahoma State at Iowa State	3:30 PM
Boston College at Louisville	4:00 PM
East Carolina at Houston	4:00 PM
Mississippi State at Vanderbilt	4:00 PM

Definitely better here.  Yes, it’s still a few ranked teams against unranked teams but the games themselves are of much better quality for sure.  OSU tries to keep their inexplicable undefeated run going against ISU.  Chip Kelly sees his old Oregon team again at home at the Rose Bowl.  And for once, it’s Pittsburgh that’s ranked and Clemson that’s unranked.  Looks weird.  And yes, TSN is already done for the day early.  They have really done a lot less this year and it’s not a good sign for people who rely on regular cable (and no specialty pack) to bring them their college football fix.

Saturday Primetime​​

		US	Canada
#22 San Diego State at Air Force	7:00 PM
Tennessee at #4 Alabama	7:00 PM
#5 Ohio State at Indiana	7:30 PM
Georgia Tech at Virginia	7:30 PM
#18 NC State at Miami	7:30 PM
West Virginia at TCU	7:30 PM
USC at #13 Notre Dame	7:30 PM
South Carolina at #17 Texas A&M	7:30 PM

To say there are huge games in this timeslot would be a lie.  But there is some intrigue.  USC could surprise the Irish and the Hoosiers could do the same at home against Ohio State.  Tennessee might AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA sorry I couldn’t type that without laughing.  I mean there’s probable and then there’s near-impossible.

Saturday Late Night

No late night sked.  Nothing.  The only game on at all after the 7:30 games is Hawaii’s home game against New Mexico State on their PPV channel.  I guess you could try and find a stream to watch it (or it may end up on Facebook somehow) but other than that, there is nothing on past primetime.  How fucking bizarre is that?  It’s like we are back to two decades ago when college football rarely headed into late night waters.

Games to set your eyeballs on

Oklahoma State at Iowa State (3:30, FOX) – Who thought Oklahoma State would be in the Top 10 at any point this season?  Now whoever has their hands up, put them down you filthy liars.  Once again, Mike Gundy has his Cowboys in great position at the midway point of a season with a slight possibility of getting into the CFP.  We have seen this story before and it has never ended well for the Pokes.  Funny thing is, they aren’t really doing it with offense this time around.  Their defense, especially for a Big XII team, has been great and has carried this team to the #8 ranking.  If things break their way, it would set up a huge Bedlam game at the end of the regular season.  As for ISU, they are still 4-2 and still have every opportunity to get back in the Big XII race and it could start with a home upset here.

Oregon at UCLA (3:30, ABC) – It’s about time that Chip Kelly has finally worked a bit of his magic in Westwood.  I guess he needed that time to recruit the guys he wanted to play his kind of ball.  And now he gets to face his old team in a game that could honestly break the Pac-12.  Oregon is ranked #10 and a loss by the Ducks would destroy any Pac-12 chances of doing anything other than their champ being one of “those teams” that get into the New Year’s Six when they probably didn’t deserve it.

San Diego State at Air Force (7:00, CBS Sports Network) – The Aztecs vs. The Academy.  This is SDSU’s chance to show they are the team in the Mountain West that replaces Boise State at the top.  But we all have seen what it’s like to play Air Force in Colorado Springs.  It’s at night which means it might be cold.  It’s against the option which always rough on a defense.  And the Falcons are a seriously good team who are also looking to put their stamp on the Mountain West.

Coastal Carolina at Appalachian State (Wednesday, 7:30, TSN2) – Man, when’s the last time there has been two Group of Five games in the Games of the Week list?  Other than last year when things were all messed up, I can’t remember.  Coastal is desperately hoping for a Cincinnati loss to give them an honest chance at the NY6 spot.  Unfortunately for them, their schedule doesn’t give them a lot of huge potential wins so beating teams like App State by a lot is a must.  The Committee will not give them any respect unless they are laying waste to their Sun Belt schedule.

Clemson at Pittsburgh (3:30, specialty pack) – Yeah it isn’t the greatest of weeks when this game hits the Games of the Week section.  Anyway, Clemson still has every opportunity to win the Atlantic division, amazingly enough.  Win out and they would be back in Charlotte again in December.  The Panthers could put an end to Coastal Chaos (at least for this season), if they continue to win.  I’ll say it again: the way they are playing makes their loss to Western Michigan more and more baffling every week.

Honourable mention: Wake Forest at Army (Noon, CBS Sports Network); LSU at Ole Miss (3:30, CBS);  USC at Notre Dame (7:30, NBC)

Wanna bet?

I didn’t do too badly, especially picking Baylor over BYU.  Some of my other picks were less than good but whatever.  It is what it is.  Here’s this week picks for you gambling degenerates to look and laugh at:

Ole Miss over LSU

Iowa State over Oklahoma State (upset!)

Coastal Carolina over Appalachian State

Oregon over UCLA

Notre Dame over USC

Wake Forest over Army

Air Force over San Diego State (mild upset)

Clemson over Pittsburgh

Ohio State over Indiana

Toledo over Western Michigan

UConn over Middle Tennessee (yes, I am calling for a UConn winning streak!)

Hey how about my Top 25 going into this week?  Why not, right?  Since I’m not doing the recap posts I can start including them here.  So here we go:

#1	Georgia
#2	Cincinnati
#3	Oklahoma
#4	Alabama
#5	Ohio State
#6	Michigan
#7	Oregon
#8	Penn State
#9	Ole Miss
#10	Michigan State
#11	Oklahoma State
#12	Notre Dame
#13	Iowa
#14	Coastal Carolina
#15	Texas A&M
#16	Wake Forest
#17	Auburn
#18	Kentucky
#19	NC State
#20	Baylor
#21	San Diego State
#22	SMU
#23	Clemson
#24	UTSA
#25	Arkansas

A few differences from my poll to the actual AP Poll.  I would have had the roles reversed for the Clemson-Pitt game: Clemson ranked and Pitt unranked.  I think Oregon should be firmly in the Top 10 and would cement their spot with a big win over UCLA.  I’m still skeptical of Oklahoma State but if they can pull out the win this week, I probably have them in the Top 10 for next week.

I don’t know if I will be on Twitter this weekend.  It did feel kind of freeing to not be on there this past Saturday.  But I would be lying if I said I didn’t miss it because I kind of did.  So we shall see.  Have a great rest of the week everyone!

Update (not a recap post)

A bit of an update to the blog and what’s been going on lately.

Yesterday, I decided to stay off of Twitter. I have noticed this season that I haven’t enjoyed it as much and many interactions I have had with others on there have been of the negative variety. My feeling is that there are a lot more people on that platform that feel like they can say whatever they want because they don’t care and there are no repercussions. As Mike Tyson said “Social media has made it so people can say things to others online that they would never say to their face.” That’s so true. Hell, I wasn’t even on this past weekend and still got messages. People who would just rather treat others poorly than converse online about a sport a lot of us love to watch. And with the way my mental illness has been as of late, it’s probably a good idea that I did stay offline.

I’m sure this won’t continue. I mean the messages may but I will go back on Twitter; I will just have to limit who I talk with. I will also use the mute option a lot more. It’s something I hated doing in the past because I felt that you shouldn’t mute or block someone you disagree with just because you disagree with them. Having conversations with people from all walks of life opens up your world. Saying that, I have noticed it doesn’t matter to many and that it’s not disagreements they want; they want online fights. They want to argue and basically beat you into submission with repeated messaging. It’s tiring. I’m not even in college football media and I get messages like that. It’s ridiculous.

I have also made the decision to stop doing recap posts. There are a few reasons for this. One ties in to what I have mentioned above. It’s tiring getting messages about a recap of all things so makes no sense to continue. Also, they take a lot of time and I need to use my time in different ways going forward. I don’t get paid to do this: I do it because I enjoy it. So if the enjoyment is drastically reduced, there really isn’t a point in going forward with it.

I will continue with the schedule posts, so no need to worry about that. I might include my Top 25 in the college football schedule posts but we shall see. All other posts, including bowl projection posts later in the season, I will be continuing with as well. I still enjoy doing those so might as well continue them.

I still love college football. And the NFL as well. Nothing will change that. Not even the comments from a few idiots.

Anyway, I hope you all have a good week and I’ll see you back here in a couple of days for the college football schedule post. Take care of yourself.

Good lord what a complete shitshow – Week 6 NFL TV Schedule

So yeah I was watching Monday Night Football and then I see Adam Schefter pop up on my screen to say that Jon Gruden has just been shitcanned by the Raiders.  Looks like the investigation into the Washington Team of Football uncovered emails between Gruden and Bruce Allen (who is also a shitbag).  Many of these emails were pretty fucking awful and probably made Gruden’s comments about DeMaurice Smith seem tame in comparison.  Not totally shocking once that email about Smith came out that there would be more but holy shit did everything move fast after that.  That’s good since the Raiders, who weren’t even involved in the investigation, need to distance themselves from this and fast.  Now, I have a feeling there is more correspondence in there from various other people and that much of it is not good at all.  We’ve seen nothing from Dan Snyder, which is complete horseshit since everyone knows he is a complete asshole and there is probably a lot of incriminating evidence against him in there somewhere.  Who knows what else there is…terrible emails from Roger Goodell?  A very bad phone message from Jay Gruden?  An X-rated crayon drawing by John Madden?  It’s anyone’s guess.  OK I’m sure you’ve heard enough about Gone Gruden (see what I did there) and just want the damn schedule info so here it is ya heathens!

Thursday

Tampa Bay at Philadelphia

8:20, FOX, TSN3, CTV Two

Sunday Morning

Miami vs. Jacksonville (in London)

9:30, CBS, TSN4, CTV

Sunday Early

Kansas City at Washington	Minneapolis, Detroit		Northern Ontario, Ottawa
LA Chargers at Baltimore	All affiliates (except Minneapolis & Detroit)		Vancouver, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Kitchener, Toronto, Montreal		Atlantic
Houston at Indianapolis
Green Bay at Chicago		Boston	Atlantic		Vancouver Island, Alberta
LA Rams at NY Giants		Burlington, Rochester
Cincinnati at Detroit		Detroit			London, Toronto, Ottawa
Minnesota at Carolina		Minneapolis	Winnipeg	TSN4, TSN5

Sunday Late

Las Vegas at Denver	Spokane
Dallas at New England	All affiliates (except Spokane)		Saskatchewan, Winnipeg, Northern Ontario, Kitchener, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal		Atlantic
Arizona at Cleveland		Tacoma, Seattle, Spokane, Buffalo	Vancouver, Alberta	TSN4

Sunday/Monday Primetime

Seattle at Pittsburgh	Sunday, 8:20, NBC, TSN 3/4/5, CTV Two
Buffalo at Tennessee	Monday, 8:15, TSN 1/3/4/5

Random Analysis

• I think I feel a bit bad for the football fans in London, England.  Dolphins-Jaguars?  Look, I get there are a lot of Jags fans over there because they are under the pretense that the Jaguars will soon enough be the London Jaguars (and the NFL has never said no to that).  Last week they got the Falcons and the Jets.  Like give them at least one good game.  Oh and I’m not surprised they are heading to Germany soon enough to show games.  You think the Brits love football, the Germans fucking LOVE football.  You could send whoever there and they will pack the stadium.  And you might actually hear something other than cheering or horns or silence there, unlike the London games.
• TSN is only going with TSN4 and TSN5 yet again during the day on Sunday and TSN4 only gets the early game (and the London game).  Glad to see they took a game not available in a lot of places in the late window.  TSN has become quite smart (most of the time) with doing that.  They don’t take the game on most of the CTV stations which usually means it isn’t appearing on most of the CBS or FOX affiliates.  Besides, TSN tends to at least try to go with bonus coverage after their game is done if time allows (since they are always desperate to get to their late game, whatever that may be).
• The Monday Nighter is a better matchup than the Sunday nighter.  This is starting to happen every so often.  The Bills and the Titans are both good teams, where as the Steelers aren’t that good and the Seahawks now have Geno Smith at quarterback.  I’m sure Al and Cris are not impressed.  Maybe it will give us more Angry Al which is always fun to listen to.
• When there’s a London game, the amount of early games drops which is not always a bad thing.  I’m sure Scott Hanson of RedZone is happy about it.  And there’s only one game not being shown here.  One.  That is unheard of.  It’s the only advantage of the London games.  I think I have watched the first half of one London game since they started doing them.  I’m never up early enough to watch the start of the game after watching college football until like 3 in the morning the previous night and it’s usually a shitty game that has no bearing on anything (except maybe fantasy football) so why watch the whole thing?
• Back to Gruden, let’s be brutally honest: would you trust someone who trusted Nathan Peterman as a backup quarterback?

Alright let’s hope for a bit of a distraction this Sunday.  Some good games, nailbiters, walk-off field goals…fun stuff like that.  Enjoy the games everyone!

Week 7 College Football TV Schedule with no real intro

Yep, I got nothing.  Nothing really happened that was huge…I mean compared to the NFL which is a complete shitshow.  So why don’t we just get to the damn schedule?  Sounds like a plan.  Let’s go.

Thursday​

		US	Canada
Navy at Memphis	7:30 PM
Georgia Southern at South Alabama	7:30 PM

Two games.  Neither game really being big as none of these teams are near the top of their conference or division.  I mean the Thursday Night Football matchup is Tampa Bay against Philadelphia so we kind of know that will be a blowout so maybe one of these games can be close and give us something fun to watch.

Friday

		US	Canada
Marshall at North Texas	7:00 PM
Clemson at Syracuse	7:00 PM
Montana State at Weber State	10:00 PM
#24 San Diego State at San Jose State	10:30 PM
California at #9 Oregon	10:30 PM

Five games, one in the FCS on this night.  SDSU has a date with Nevada later in the year and need a win to keep pace.  Oregon trying desperately to keep the Pac-12’s almost non-existent playoff hopes alive.  I’m very curious as to why ESPN is all of a sudden showing Big Sky games.  They already have the MEAC, SWAC and Ivy League, all leagues that don’t go to the FCS playoffs.  Going this route is something different and I, for one, welcome it.  If it’s anything like the Montana-Eastern Washington game two weeks ago, then buckle up.

Saturday Early​​

		US	Canada
UCF at #3 Cincinnati	Noon
Rutgers at Northwestern	Noon
Auburn at #17 Arkansas	Noon
Yale at UConn	Noon
#20 Florida at LSU	Noon
Nebraska at Minnesota	Noon
Tulsa at USF	Noon
#12 Oklahoma State at #25 Texas	Noon
#21 Texas A&M at Missouri	Noon
Duke at Virginia	12:30 PM

OK not the sexiest lineup per se but it has some decent quality.  CBS gets their one Noon game of the season and actually didn’t get too bad a pick with the Tigers and Razorbacks.  Remember that when CBS has a Noon SEC game, they get the top SEC pick for their afternoon game and then ESPN gets the next two choices.  THEN CBS gets to select their Noon SEC game.  Other than that, UCF and the Gus Bus try to derail the Bearcat Express, Oklahoma State hopes to continue their unexpected undefeated run against the Longhorns and Yale and UConn face off in yet another game where CBS regrets ever signing the Huskies to a broadcast contract.

Saturday Afternoon

		US	Canada
Purdue at #2 Iowa	3:30 PM
Miami at North Carolina	3:30 PM
#11 Kentucky at #1 Georgia	3:30 PM
#19 BYU at Baylor	3:30 PM
Pittsburgh at Virginia Tech	3:30 PM
Kent State at Western Michigan	3:30 PM
Vanderbilt at South Carolina	4:00 PM

The afternoon shows that many times quality is much better than quantity.  We shall see if the craziness continues in Athens.  TSN has really not stepped up yet and it has nothing to do with the CFL for the most part.  I’ve mentioned it before but it feels like they are going slightly backwards with their college football coverage (and then will wonder why college football fans go different routes that aren’t TSN to get their college football fix).  Anyway, Purdue gets a rare ABC spot (which should result in them getting obliterated) and the specialty pack picks up the rest of the games.  Brutal.

Saturday Primetime​

		US	Canada
Utah State at UNLV	7:00 PM
#5 Alabama at Mississippi State	7:00 PM
TCU at #4 Oklahoma	7:30 PM
#22 NC State at Boston College	7:30 PM
Iowa State at Kansas State	7:30 PM
Stanford at Washington State	7:30 PM
#13 Ole Miss at Tennessee	7:30 PM
Army at Wisconsin	8:00 PM
UCLA at Washington	8:30 PM

Technically this is a primetime schedule.  Nothing impressive but if you don’t have quality get some quantity (I know what I said in the last section).  Again, no TSN games but at least FOX, BTN and CBSSN are back in this timeslot.  Got to hope there is at least one close game or one upset here or it’s looking pretty grim going into the late night portion of our schedule.

Saturday Late Night

		US	Canada
#18 Arizona State at Utah	10:00 PM
Hawaii at Nevada	10:30 PM

Only two games but both of them could end up being pretty good.  Hawaii could make it so San Diego State is clearly in the driver’s seat if they can beat the Wolf Pack in Reno.  And Utah isn’t as bad as their record indicates and could cause all sorts of problems for the Sun Devils, especially with their rowdy student section.

Games to set your eyeballs on

Kentucky at Georgia (3:30, CBS) – Easily the biggest game of the week, if not a great candidate for Game of the Year.  I know, even with Kentucky involved!  An expected Bulldog victory would put them in the driver’s seat in the SEC East with, realistically, a win in the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party the only thing standing between them and a trip to Atlanta.  If the Wildcats win then ho boy, the insanity meter gets ratcheted up a whole lot more (and also puts Bama back in the mix to get back to #1).  I’m hoping, for Brad Nessler’s sake, it’s a good game.

Oklahoma State at Texas (Noon, FOX) – OK so there is a bit of a drop off after the Game of the Week.  But, the Pokes are seriously good and we could be heading for the best Bedlam in a long time if they can keep this up.  Texas helped the cause by losing an absolute heartbreaker in the Red River Shootout on Saturday.  I have this feeling that if Okie State wins this, it’s basically a foregone conclusion that we will have a Bedlam rematch at JerryWorld in December.  We almost need the Longhorns to pull something out here to keep things exciting in the Big XII.

UCF at Cincinnati (Noon, ABC) – Look I will be honest: the quality of this game all depends on which Knights team shows up.  We’ve seen the quite good Knights where the team is rolling along and the Gus Bus is humming.  And we’ve seen the horrible Knights where the Gus Bus has serious mechanical problems and/or is on fire.  Here’s hoping we get the former.  You could say this is the last true hurdle to the Bearcats running the table until the AAC Championship as they don’t have Houston on their schedule.

BYU at Baylor (3:30, specialty pack) – BYU losing last week means they are locked into the Independence Bowl unless a bunch of crazy shit happens.  Don’t want to say they have nothing to play for but they have a lot less to play for now.  Baylor, on the other hand, could be the surprise team of the season if they keep winning as Dave Aranda is doing a miraculous job in Waco.  The Cougs need to win big and the Bears just need to win.  Could be the sneaky good game of the week.

NC State at Boston College (7:30, specialty pack) – The ACC Network kind of lucked out in getting this game.  Both teams are somehow contending in the ACC Atlantic division since Clemson is not the Clemson of the past decade.  The Wolfpack are obviously in better shape here since they actually beat the Tigers whereas the Eagles lost (albeit with a backup quarterback).  With a relatively weak primetime schedule, this game could shine.

Honourable mention: Auburn at Arkansas (Noon, CBS); Alabama at Mississippi State (7:00, specialty pack); TCU at Oklahoma (7:30, ABC)

You wanna bet?

Before the season I said Alabama would lose one game and I thought, at the time, it would be Texas A&M.  Then I chickened out last week and had Bama beating the Aggies.  Should have gone with my gut!  Other than that (and picking LSU over Kentucky) it was a pretty good week.  Wonder if I can replicate it….I hope I didn’t just jinx myself.  Here we go:

Baylor over BYU (an upset!)

NC State over Boston College

Oklahoma over TCU

Texas over Oklahoma State (another upset!)

Cincinnati over UCF

Georgia over Kentucky

Alabama over Mississippi State

Auburn over Arkansas

Marshall over North Texas

Utah over Arizona State (slight upset)

UNLV over Utah State (to get their first win of the season)

Going to be honest: I feel like I put less than my best effort into this post.  It’s been a rough time for me lately and I try to push through it.  Part of that is doing this blog as it gets my mind off of everything I’m going through for a few hours.  Part of my therapy so to speak.  So as much as there is work involved in doing these posts on a near-daily basis these days, it’s also cathartic and something I enjoy doing.  Everyone needs a hobby or something they do outside of work and this is the one real thing I’m doing these days.  I’m sure I will get back to doing a better job soon enough (hey, there’s an NFL post tomorrow).  Anyway, take some time for yourself and watch some college football these next few nights.  You deserve it!  Have a great week!

The Land of the Undefeated 6.0

It’s the sixth edition of The Land of The Undefeated!  Last year, obviously, it made no sense to do one so this is the first time in two years that we will be looking at the undefeated teams remaining and how I believe they will do the rest of the way.

Normally I do this after Week 5 and I didn’t.  Why?  Honestly, it’s because I forgot to.  It happens.  At least I got to it before it got to like Week 12.  That would have been a relatively short post.  Anyway, here we go!

#1 Georgia (6-0) – I figured they were going to have two losses by now.  Lucky for them, Clemson and Auburn aren’t as good as they were advertised and the rest of their sked has been relatively easy.  The rest of their schedule…is kind of the same other than their next two games.  Kentucky this Saturday and Florida at the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party are what is keeping the Dawgs from a sure 12-0 and #1 ranking going into conference championship week.  I think they do just that and almost assuredly clinch their spot in the College Football Playoff.  Predicted record: 12-0.

#2 Iowa (6-0) – Somewhat of a surprise at the #2 spot but it shows how crazy the season has been so far.  Unless their offense starts showing some real pop, though, it will be tough to get out of the regular season unscathed.  And I believe they will drop a single game on their way to what will still be a relatively easy Big Ten West division crown.  Predicted record: 11-1.

#3 Cincinnati (5-0) – Quite the start for the Bearcats.  Big win over the Irish is the thing that will keep them in the mix.  They have a tough test this Saturday against UCF but if they win, they should be 10-0 when they host SMU.  It’s their Group of Five spot, at the very least, to lose but Luke Fickell’s team’s goal is, and has been all season, the CFP.   Predicted record: 12-0.

#4 Oklahoma (6-0) – The Sooners have had quite the first half of the season.  They somehow got past Texas in the Red River Shootout to get to 6-0 and are really lucky to be there.  I think it won’t be luck the rest of the way as they may have found something with Caleb Williams and Kennedy Brooks is proving to be a beast on the ground.  They should win out.  Predicted record: 12-0.

#8 Michigan (6-0) – They’ve looked a lot better than many people thought they would be.  Not awesome but good enough to be undefeated.  They were able to escape Lincoln with a win and made Wisconsin look terrible a couple weeks ago.  Problem for Michigan is that they are in the toughest division in college football and surviving that is a slim possibility.  I’m going to go further and say the possibility is zero for the Wolverines.  Predicted record: 10-2.

#10 Michigan State (6-0) – Very few are talking about Michigan State being in the Top 10 but here they are.  The Spartans are rolling but soon enough hit the big part of their conference schedule which will be a minefield.  I believe they are going to start to struggle with a very tough schedule the rest of the way.  Saying that, they should get to the Michigan game the day before Halloween undefeated.  After that….ugh.  Predicted record: 9-3.

#11 Kentucky (6-0) – The Wildcats sure are fun to watch.  That fun may go by the wayside very soon as they have Georgia on the schedule next week.  Win that and it might be smooth sailing.  I am assuming rough waters for the Cats for that game and a game they should win but end up shitting the bed on.  Predicted record: 10-2.

#12 Oklahoma State (5-0) – Just another fantastic coaching job done by Mike Gundy this season.  Considering that no one figured this team would be any better than probably 4th in the conference, they are overachieving so far.  They are also a team that has snuck their way into the Top 15.  The sneaking is going to stop soon now that they have everyone’s attention.  Predicted record: 9-3.

#15 Coastal Carolina (6-0) – It always felt like the Sun Belt never had a really good team well into October and now it happens every season.  The conference is set up well for the next set of realignment that’s for sure.  As for Coastal, they are having another great season but still have to hope that Cincinnati trips up at least once for them to nab that New Year’s Six spot.  Coastal probably won’t lose the rest of the way so their fate lies in the rest of the Bearcats’ conference opponents.   Predicted record: 12-0.

#16 Wake Forest (6-0) – This feels like I am repeating myself but Dave Clawson is doing an amazing coaching job in Winston-Salem.  They are the ACC’s final hope for the College Football Playoff and it’s a slim one.  I can’t see them pulling through.  Predicted record: 10-2.

#23 SMU (6-0) – I’ll be honest with you: I still don’t have the Mustangs making it to the AAC Championship Game.  Seriously.  They are very lucky to still be undefeated and that luck will end soon with a brutal schedule the rest of the way.  Predicted record: 8-4.

#24 San Diego State (5-0) – Kind of surprising to see the Aztecs here.  This was a team that seemed destined to win 7 or 8 games again and go to a low-level bowl.  Instead, they are technically still in the mix for the Group of Five NY6 spot although they would need a lot of help.  A great season for a team that is playing nowhere close to their campus.  I mean it’s not going to continue but it’s been fun to watch so far if you were willing to stay up that late.  Predicted record: 8-4.

UTSA (6-0) – I figured the Roadrunners would lose in Champaign to Illinois and then maybe once more all year.  Instead, they beat the Illini, then also beat Memphis to complete a perfect non-conference schedule.  Looking at the rest of their schedule, they would have to botch a game seriously to fall from the land of the undefeated.  They should make for three undefeated Group of Five teams at the end of the season and eventually (hopefully next week) be ranked in the Top 25.  Predicted record: 12-0.

13 undefeated teams remain as we head into mid-October.  This post is a lot shorter than normal because it’s a couple of weeks later and we’ve had a bit of chaos at the top.  I can almost guarantee that by Halloween this number will be in the single digits.  I do have five teams finishing the season undefeated, however, so it will be interesting to see how The Committee would deal with that at the end of the season.  My guess is with a lot of booze.

Tonight is a big Sun Belt affair on TSN2 with Appalachian State visiting Louisiana.  Wednesday I will have your college football schedule and Thursday I will present the NFL schedule.  Same old, same old.  Have a great Tuesday!

The Student Finally Defeats the Master – Week 6 College Football Recap

Up until early Saturday evening, Nick Saban had been 24-0 against his former assistants.  24-0.  That’s like an Undertaker-like streak.  Completely insane.  Then came the game.

The Aggies came out strong and it looked like the Crimson Tide defense was struggling.  Yes we had seen this earlier in the year but it’s not like things had gone off the rails for them.  But Bama’s offense could only do so much and couldn’t pull away.  And even though TAMU was keeping pace, it felt to me (and I assume a lot of others) that eventually the Tide would win.  Until Seth Small hit the field goal with no time left to clinch the Aggie victory, I still thought the Tide would pull it off, somehow.  That’s just what they do.  This time it did not happen.  The field goal was good (barely) and the fans stormed the field.  The mighty Alabama Crimson Tide had been defeated, 41-38 in a thriller.

For people saying this is starting to feel like 2007, you might want to tuck that away.  This is shaping up as being way more volatile than 2007 could ever think to be.  I’ve said something every week about this and major things continue to happen.  We aren’t even halfway through the season.  And this past week could have been considered one of the best Saturdays of college football in a long time.  A lot of good games, a lot of close games and just a lot of shit happening that is turning the college football world upside down.  If it’s chaos you want, this season is bringing it.  Now let’s see what pitfall Georgia will fall victim to because we kind of know that’s coming, right?

Let’s get right to the recap as it was a fun (for the most part) 14+ hours of football.

And now for the rest of the recap

• A great game down in Iowa City this past weekend.  Iowa grinded out a victory over Penn State in a Top 5 matchup.  Sean Clifford was knocked out of the game in the second quarter with the Nittany Lions leading 17-3 and the offense fell apart.  Iowa’s defense saved the day and now the Hawkeyes have legit College Football Playoff aspirations.  I think everyone agrees except for one Penn State fan who was pretty upset that I had mentioned Iowa and the CFP.  He basically said I was dumb and that Iowa should be ranked 6th in the new poll, so three spots down…after a win.  Riiiiiiiiiiight.  I mentioned Iowa should be #3 and I will admit I was wrong.  They are actually #2 now.  My mistake.
• An absolutely insane game went down at the Cotton Bowl for the Red River Shootout and it’s no surprise since this game is almost always nuts.  Texas looked like they had Oklahoma on the ropes early.  Then Spencer Rattler was benched so I assume most thought it was over.  But Caleb Williams came in and did a good job in bringing the Sooners all the way back from a 21-point deficit to win the game.  Let’s be honest here though: the combination of Kennedy Brooks going crazy (including what was essentially a walk-off touchdown to win the game) and the Longhorn defense self-destructing was what gave Boomer Sooner the big win.  Oklahoma had looked like the worst undefeated Top 10 team in quite some time but this victory could be a turning point for a team who may not meet an equal until Bedlam in late November.
• How about that game down in Lincoln?  As the game went along, I really started to believe that finally the Huskers, under Scott Frost, would get that huge victory to start turning the program around.  Man, was I wrong.  In typical heartbreaking fashion, Nebraska blew the game late and allowed Michigan a late game-winning field goal.  The Wolverines honestly looked pretty pedestrian for a good portion of the game.  They really can’t be like that going forward considering how brutally difficult the Big Ten East looks.  As for Nebraska, oof.  Another loss, another black mark on Scott Frost’s record and unless things turn around I could see the program moving on since nothing is really improving at the end of the day.
• Speaking of hot seats, there was another great game on the night, this one in Blacksburg.  It felt like the Hokies would hand Notre Dame their second straight loss and almost destroy their New Year’s Six chances.  Instead, Jack Coan, who played like shit early on, came on, drove the Irish down the field for the touchdown and game-tying two-point conversion and then drove them again for the winning field goal with only 17 seconds remaining.  Great performance but Virginia Tech had their chances to stop the Irish as their defense had been pretty good in the second half.  Unfortunately they came up short and Justin Fuente’s seat gets juuuuuuust a bit hotter.
• To start Saturday there was the Arkansas-Ole Miss game which was basically drugs.  So damn ridiculous and completely defense-optional.  Both offenses went crazy and both teams got 50-burgers on the day.  It came down to the end where Sam Pittman decided he has balls the size of coconuts and would go for 2 and the lead instead of the extra point to send it to overtime.  The pass fell incomplete and the Rebels won a game that raised the blood pressure of both team’s fanbases.  Now the Rebel fans can truly enjoy that popcorn.
• Let history show that the Auburn Tigers were, at one point, tied with the Georgia Bulldogs 3-3. I’m sure most fans on The Plains who watched the game would love to just remember up to that point and forget the rest.  Georgia proved they are the undisputed number one team in the land (for now) as they destroyed Auburn by 24.  And this is with Stetson “The Mailman” Bennett at quarterback.  What happens when J.T. Daniels comes back?  Or do they platoon?  This team has looked better than Bama all season and now they will have the #1 ranking to back that up.  Their next two games against Kentucky and Florida will either prove that’s where they belong or bring them back down to Earth a bit.
• I didn’t think Florida State could keep close with North Carolina.  So what did they do?  Just beat them fairly easily and look as good as they were back in the Jameis Winston days (OK maybe not THAT good but still pretty good).  I am ruing the day I decided to be a smart guy and pick North Carolina as my chic pick to get to the College Football Playoff.  I feel like an idiot.  So they can now go 3-9 for all I care since it doesn’t really matter anymore (to me, anyway).
• Another game that was bonkers that no one saw was the game between South Alabama and Texas State.  I believe this is the longest game since they changed the overtime rules yet again.  I am not a fan of the new rules.  If you don’t know, starting in the second overtime, you must go for two after a touchdown and then starting with the third overtime, it becomes a two-point conversion contest.  The college football equivalent of hockey’s shootout.  Ugh.  Anyway, this game went to four overtimes and there were so many reviews it got ridiculous.  Like the replay booth was being paid per review.  Texas State won after stopping USA’s two-point conversion attempt.
• If I told you in, say, August of 2020 that Ed Orgeron would be on one of the hottest seats in the nation by October of 2021 you would have thought I was smoking crack.  But LSU’s loss to Kentucky this past Saturday will put Coach Eaux in that seat.  Look, Kentucky is a damn good team and losing to them is not a bad thing.  Not looking competitive when you are a team that should be in the Top 25 range is a different story altogether.  The team looks like there is a lack of effort and it shows.  The next few weeks will probably help determine Eddie O’s future.
• Ugh what a fall from grace for BYU.  The Cougars were stunned by Boise State and are now not undefeated.  Unless a lot of truly wacky things occur (and I’m not saying they won’t), BYU’s chances of the New Year’s Six are essentially gone.  What does this mean?  It means when they do become bowl-eligible they will be locked in to the Independence Bowl in Shreveport.  Yuck.  Imagine dropping from a potential Fiesta Bowl berth to that.  Brutal.
• Put up your hand if you thought Wake Forest…ok I am going to stop there since no one really thought much of Wake Forest this season.  OK that’s not totally true.  I had them going 9-3 this season and many had them in the 6-8 win range.  But to think this team is the only ACC hope left for the College Football Playoff in mid-October?  Yeah, no one thought that.  Wake had to survive a surprisingly tough Syracuse team, in overtime, to stay undefeated.  Now, with their next three games against Army, Duke and North Carolina, it looks like the Deacs could be 9-0 and firmly in the Top 10 when they host NC State in mid-November.  They have Clemson and Boston College after that so they have a rough end of the season to look forward to but get through all those unscathed?  They could make some history in December.
• Welp, Oregon State’s time in the sun went quick.  The Beavers were looking like they could make some hay in the Pac-12 with all the turmoil in the conference.  Instead, they shit the bed and lost to a Washington State team who’s biggest news has been coach Nick Rolovich and his absolute refusal to get the COVID vaccine.  That conference is an absolute mess.
• Another great game was shockingly at the Naval Academy.  No I’m not kidding.  The Midshipmen played undefeated SMU very tough.  The Ponies needed a fourth quarter touchdown and a couple of big defensive stops to escape Annapolis with the W.  I think Navy, despite being 1-4, is probably quite a bit better than their record indicates.  SMU?  They are very lucky considering some of the games they’ve been in this season.  If they can win their next four, a massive, probably primetime, game with Cincinnati looms large.
• Louisville…ugh.  They had the game won against Virginia.  But instead of going for it on 4th and about 3 fairly deep in Hoos territory, they kicked the field goal.  Then their defense allowed Virginia to drive the length of the field in two minutes for the touchdown and the win.  Cowardly coaching from Scott Satterfield and it might cost him his job.  And did anyone think this Cavaliers team would be 4-2 at this point?  I highly doubt it.  The ACC is another conference that’s just a dog’s breakfast (other than Wake Forest).
• Finally, UTSA was able to outlast Western Kentucky’s potent offense.  Quietly, the Roadrunners are 6-0, undefeated, and no one is noticing.  So what happens if this team finishes undefeated?  My guess is they will get no respect in the polls but they really should, despite the conference they are in.

Alright that was seriously fun.  And the late night schedule was light so it made it easier to pay a bit of attention rather than have my full attention which can get tiring into the wee hours of the morning.  Alright, let’s now look at the Bossman Top 25:

#1	Georgia
#2	Iowa
#3	Cincinnati
#4	Oklahoma
#5	Ohio State
#6	Oregon
#7	Alabama
#8	Michigan
#9	Penn State
#10	Ole Miss
#11	Notre Dame
#12	Michigan State
#13	Coastal Carolina
#14	Kentucky
#15	Oklahoma State
#16	Wake Forest
#17	Florida
#18	Texas A&M
#19	Arkansas
#20	BYU
#21	Arizona State
#22	NC State
#23	Auburn
#24	Clemson
#25	SMU

Yes there are a few somewhat glaring differences between my poll and the AP Poll and that happens of course.  I have Alabama at #7 and they only dropped to #5 in the AP Poll.  AP dropped Oregon whereas I moved them up to #6 since they didn’t play so why should they drop?  You can put the #8 through #12 teams in a hat and mix them up and any combination would probably be fine.  A lot is going to happen for these teams the next three weeks so no point in getting all bent out of shape about it now.  And I did mention undefeated UTSA earlier.  I also don’t have them in my Top 25 but they are just outside of it meaning a win next week should put them in.  Finally, I got Coastal at #13 and they are #15 in the AP Poll and Coaches Poll.  I have a feeling they may get to #12 or even #11 but that would be their ceiling unless a lot of crazy shit happens to the teams currently above them.  Which, considering the way this season has gone, wouldn’t surprise me one bit.

WEEKDAY FUN BELT ACTION!  Yes, it’s that time of year that we start getting more weekday football.  And this one, between Appalachian State and Louisiana, is a pretty big game.  And it’s tomorrow night!  Hell yeah!  God, I love Tuesday and Wednesday night college football.  Kind of feels like now we can say that Autumn has truly commenced.  Have a good week everyone!

The reins have been passed in Chicago – Week 5 NFL TV Schedule

It looks like Matt Nagy has finally figured out what to do in the Windy City.  He’s on a pretty hot seat right now so any decision he makes will be scrutinized.  So he finally pulled the trigger and ended the speculation.  Andy Dalton would………..not be the starting quarterback.  Sorry, Red Rocket.  The quarterbacking reins are being given to Justin Fields, the guy they traded up to get in what was one of the better draft moves this past draft.  It was also a move that many in the Bears organization will erase the stink of trading up to get Mitchell Trubisky a few years prior.  This is a smart move in my opinion.  Fields is the guy and if you trade up for a quarterback in the first round, chances are you are looking for him to start at some point during that rookie season.  So why not do it now?  The Bears are not a Super Bowl contender but could be just over .500 which may be enough for a playoff berth so do it and face the consequences.  He needs the game action to get used to it so no better time than the present.  Now let’s hope he doesn’t have the same ending to his rookie year as Joe Burrow did.

Alright, it’s NFL schedule time.  Let’s get to it!

Thursday

LA Rams at Seattle

8:20, FOX, TSN1, CTV Two

Sunday Morning

Atlanta vs. NY Jets (in London)

9:30, NFL Network, TSN4, CTV

Sunday Early

Miami at Tampa Bay	Buffalo, Rochester				Vancouver Island, Alberta, London, Toronto
New Orleans at Washington
New England at Houston	Burlington, Boston		Montreal, Atlantic	TSN4
Tennessee at Jacksonville
Philadelphia at Carolina
Green Bay at Cincinnati		All affiliates (except Minneapolis & Detroit)	Vancouver, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Winnipeg, Northern Ontario, Kitchener, Toronto, Ottawa
Denver at Pittsburgh
Detroit at Minnesota		Minneapolis, Detroit	Winnipeg		Ottawa

Sunday Late

Chicago at Las Vegas	Minneapolis, Detroit
Cleveland at LA Chargers	Seattle, Spokane, Cleveland			TSN4
NY Giants at Dallas		Minneapolis, Detroit, Buffalo, Rochester, Burlington, Boston		Northern Ontario, Kitchener, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal	Atlantic
San Francisco at Arizona		Tacoma, Seattle, Spokane		Vancouver, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Winnipeg

Sunday/Monday Primetime

Buffalo at Kansas City	Sunday, 8:20, NBC, TSN 1/4/5, CTV Two
Indianapolis at Baltimore	Monday, 8:15, TSN 1/3

Notes on the Sked

• We are getting to that time of year when during the week there could be some hockey and basketball on TSN.  On Monday night, TSN4 is showing a Raptors preseason game and should join the Colts-Ravens game in the second half.  On TSN5 there is a NHL season preview and fantasy draft show.  Yeah.  Again, they should join the football game in the second half.
• Four early games not showing anywhere in Canada.  That is unless you have Sunday Ticket or RedZone or both.  Or like me you can watch the British version of RedZone.  I believe I explained this last year but they show a main game in both the early and late timeslots on Sunday and when those games are in commercial breaks, they do highlights from the other games.  So kind of a hybrid model.  Not bad if RedZone is being screwy (which it sometimes does).
• Only one TSN station showing NFL games during the day on Sunday.  NASCAR and tennis rule the day for TSN.  At least they chose games that aren’t being shown in very many places in this country.
• Shockingly, the Chiefs enter the Sunday Night Football game looking like a relatively average team.  I wonder if the Bills are the favourites in this one.  And no they aren’t.  I guess it being in Kansas City puts the Chiefs as the slight 2.5 point favs.  Honestly, we have had more good primetime games than bad ones so far this season.  I sincerely hope that trend continues as it is so easy to check out of a primetime NFL game when it’s a blowout.
• Ugh, the London game.  Oh god and it’s the Falcons and the Jets.  Let’s see how early I will be waking up and actually getting in front of a TV to watch it.  My guess is sometime in the third quarter.

Yep, no need for very many comments on the schedule this week.  Hope you enjoy all the games!