You asked for it (I think). So here it is. The 2023 Bowl Game TV Schedule in HIGH DEFINITION!!!

Does anyone say that anymore? That something is in high definition (or the now-even cringier term, High Def)? Feels very 2008-ish.

TSN seems to always deliver during bowl season. It’s funny how they absolutely don’t deliver at all during the rest of the season but with TSN+ they now have their very own built-in excuse to not have many games on the main five stations. Now, as I say every year, the TSN portion of the schedule could change so keep coming back for any updates.

Let’s not waste any more time. Bowl schedule. NOW!

Saturday December 16th

Myrtle Beach Bowl: Georgia Southern vs. Ohio

11:00 AM

Thanks to issues with the Bahamas Bowl (that will be explained below if you don’t already know) Bowl Season begins on the eastern coast of South Carolina. This game pits two teams who were kind of forgotten in their conferences this season but quietly put together good seasons. Should be a good start to the college football postseason on the teal turf in Conway.

Celebration Bowl: Florida A&M vs. Howard

Noon

It feels like many times this game features one team that could have caused some damage in the FCS playoffs and one team that scraped their way into this game. This year’s edition is no different. Florida A&M ran roughshod through most of its opponents whereas Howard barely won the MEAC. And as it usually happens, the not-so-good team gives the really good a team a run for their money and sometimes ends up winning. So don’t necessarily think this will be a blowout.

New Orleans Bowl: Louisiana vs. Jacksonville State

2:15

Opening bowl day brings the return of RichRod to postseason competition. With the Cajuns already being there, this should at least have a raucous crowd and really, that’s a big part of the bowl experience. It’s great to see a bowl game with a great crowd as it just continues to prove that most of these bowl games mean something.

Cure Bowl: Appalachian State vs. Miami-OH

3:30

What used to be the worst bowl game matchup almost every season is now being shown on ABC on opening bowl day. Great turnaround for the Cure Bowl for sure. I think we need to have more bowl games set up like this: where a good portion of the money goes to some sort of charity or towards some type of research. I think this way we can decrease the amount of people who think there are too many bowl games. I mean there will always be some that will hate it. I see their point but it’s more football. Would you prefer to take 35 minutes to find something worth watching on Netflix or Amazon Prime or would you rather watch LIVE FOOTBALL? It really shouldn’t be a choice to be honest (at least if you read this blog).

New Mexico Bowl: Fresno State vs. New Mexico State

5:45

Time to watch America’s Team in this one. No, the Dallas Cowboys aren’t playing (and no, they aren’t America’s team and haven’t been since a year that started with a 1). The New Mexico State Aggies, coached by, arguably, the best coach in the land Jerry Kill, is now America’s Team. That’s unfortunate for the Fresno State Bulldogs who won’t have their head coach, Jeff Tedford, on the sideline. They have to face the Aggies in almost a quasi-home game for them. I want to say this won’t be close but the Bulldogs are pretty good so at the very least you should see a good game here. America’s Team. Now you know. And knowing’s half the battle…………………………………………GI JOE!!!!!!

LA Bowl: UCLA vs. Boise State

7:30

For once, the Broncos had to grind to get to a bowl game. 5-5 with their head coach being shitcanned and they somehow win the Mountain West Championship. But now with no potential Chip Kelly drama, this game loses a lot of spots in the rankings.

Independence Bowl: Texas Tech vs. California

9:15

Shreveport seems like an odd spot for two Power Five teams in their bowl game but that used to be the norm. Maybe the Independence Bowl should have been used in the new 12-team playoff somehow. I mean who says no, other than ESPN who would prefer to put every game in the biggest neutral site stadium they can find for MAXIMUM MONEY.

Monday December 18th

Famous Toastery Bowl: Old Dominion vs. WKU

2:30

This will most likely be my favourite one-off bowl ever. Because of renovations at Thomas Robinson Stadium, the Bahamas Bowl could not be played on the island since there are no other stadiums able to hold the game there. Charlotte got the call and this game will be played at the 49ers’ home field and with a new sponsor, Famous Toastery. I don’t think it’s even famous at all in that area of the country but I like their confidence. I pray that the winning coach gets buried in a mountain of toast.

Tuesday December 19th

Frisco Bowl: UTSA vs. Marshall

9:00

Frisco gets two postseason games: this one and then the FCS Championship. The FCS title game is there through at least next season but beyond that, who knows. The Frisco Bowl, on the other hand, is here to stay. At least we have two good Group of Five teams here and with UTSA not being too far away it may approach a sellout.

Thursday December 21st

Boca Raton Bowl: Syracuse vs. USF

8:00

Back to grinding for bowl-eligibility, here are two teams that epitomized that. Syracuse, who has completely re-done their coaching staff and USF, whose close game with Bama earlier on in the season made the College Football Playoff debate that much worse. Look it’s either this or the Saints and the Rams on Amazon Prime. You know what to choose.

Friday December 22nd

Gasparilla Bowl: Georgia Tech vs. UCF

6:30

Interesting start time for this game. I get that it’s only half-an-hour before games normally would start locally but why do that? Bizarre. This is probably the highest-profile matchup this bowl game has ever had and it should bring a good amount of fans with one team not too far from Tampa. Hey, at least’s it not at the Trop.

Saturday December 23rd

Birmingham Bowl: Duke vs. Troy

Noon

This should be a good game and it’s the kind of game I always talk about. A Group of Five conference champion getting their shot at a Power Five team. That’s part of what bowl season should be all about and I have said that often in the past. Will college football listen to me? No. And it’s their loss.

Camellia Bowl: Arkansas State vs. Northern Illinois

Noon

Two teams that have got basically no coverage this season. I’m honestly surprised that no team looked at Butch Jones to be their new head coach. He’s brought ASU back from being horrible for both of Jones’ first two seasons (and Blake Anderson’s last in Jonesboro) to being respectable. I think the fact that the Sun Belt is so damn good now (in G-5 terms), this team gets overshadowed a lot.

Idaho Potato Bowl: Utah State vs. Georgia State

3:30

Again, two teams who were overshadowed by a bunch of better teams in their respective conferences. Plus it’s on the blue turf and that’s always a bit of fun, especially if it’s freezing cold (OK not so much for the players and fans but hilarious for us viewers at home).

Armed Forces Bowl: Air Force vs. James Madison

3:30

The Dukes in a bowl game! As it should be. And it shouldn’t have taken the lengths it did but luckily there weren’t enough 6-win teams to fill all the bowl slots. Air Force had a monumental collapse to end their season after being the Group of Five favourite to go to the New Year’s Six coming into November so momentum is not on their side.

68 Ventures Bowl: South Alabama vs. Eastern Michigan

7:00

Chris Creighton has done amazing things in Ypsilanti. He has made EMU relevant for really the first time ever. As for South Alabama, it looked like they would be the Sun Belt’s darling this year after an early win over Oklahoma State. The bottom fell out for this team and they barely made it to bowling. Massive contrast of seasons here.

Las Vegas Bowl: Northwestern vs. Utah

7:30

Northwestern and Utah aren’t exactly the fanbases I think of when I think of fans who could completely wreck hotel rooms and drink a bar dry…well, Utah maybe. Maybe that is by design. Have to give credit to a Northwestern team that should have been terrible and ended up doing quite well in the final Big Ten West season. And we will never know how good the Utes could have been with the injuries they had.

Hawaii Bowl: San Jose State vs. Coastal Carolina

10:30

It’s the annual Stocking Stuffer Bowl where many parents finally fill the stockings of their children so that when they wake up they will know Santa (or some other fat white dude) came down the chimney (or more like through a window because he’s fat) to give them presents because…we as parents didn’t give them enough? Is that how the story goes? Anyway, I will enjoy a nice scotch after all that stocking stuffer stuff is done and watch some great football during a bowl that should start at one minute before Midnight on Spectrum Sports so most of the college football world has to scramble to find it.

Tuesday December 26th

Quick Lane Bowl: Minnesota vs. Bowling Green

2:00

OK not exactly what I’ve always had in mind but still. It’s a G-5 team against a P-5 team. The P-5 team is in because they are smart. The G-5 team is in because the MAC, past the top three teams, was pretty bad this year. Advantage? The fans who get to watch college football on a weekday afternoon when you probably will be off work. Probably. For those who must work I hope you have a good PVR setup.

First Responder Bowl: Rice vs. Texas State

5:30

Hey remember when this bowl game was cancelled because of weather? What a shitshow that was. I’d be surprised if they ever let that happen again considering the fallout. When it comes to this year’s First Responder Bowl, you have to like what you see in Texas State. In a really good Sun Belt, they were able to go 7-5 and get to their first bowl game ever. Tulsa is going to rue the day they decided not to hire G.J. Kinne as their coach. Rice, I believe, lucked out due to a much-less powerful AAC. Not to say they didn’t play well but I believe the Sun Belt, top to bottom, is the best Group of Five conference.

Guaranteed Rate Bowl: Kansas vs. UNLV

9:00

This is why bowl games matter. UNLV is back in a bowl game for the first time in a decade thanks in large part to a guy who should have got more votes for Coach of the Year, Barry Odom. Speaking of guys who should have got Coach of the Year consideration, Lance Leipold has done wonders and the Jayhawks are doing everything they can to keep him in Lawrence. Big question for this game will be if Jalon Daniels will play after his somewhat mysterious back injury from earlier this year kept him out of action for most of the season.

Wednesday December 27th

Military Bowl: Virginia Tech vs. Tulane

2:00

Maybe we will see some snow for this one. Not gonna lie: VaTech was WAY the fuck better than I thought they would be. They did a masterful job in an ACC that, below FSU and Louisville, wasn’t that great. They will face a Tulane squad that just lost Willie Fritz to Houston. I know some teams struggle when their coach leaves before a bowl game and I could see that happening here.

Duke’s Mayo Bowl: North Carolina vs. West Virginia

5:30

North Carolina with a big home advantage at the Mayo Bowl. In the end, though, that advantage means little. The game itself only means so much. No, what really matters, is who is going to get a big tub of mayo dumped on them, Mack Brown or Neal Brown? Either way, Duke’s Mayo is going to be down on Brown in this one………wait, that doesn’t sound right.

Holiday Bowl: #15 Louisville vs. USC

8:00

Caleb Williams has opted out of this one. No surprise there. But they could be playing a team that, despite being ranked 15th in the nation, hasn’t exactly lit it up lately. Let’s see if Louisville can actually play a decent game for the first time in weeks after shitting the bed against Kentucky and looking mediocre against Florida State.

Texas Bowl: Texas A&M vs. #20 Oklahoma State

9:00

Some classic Big XII action here. Cue the Big XII on FOX Sports Net music and get Joel Meyers back to call this one. The Aggies should be doubly pissed since the Pokes had a chance to knock those damn Longhorns off their perch and they couldn’t get it done. So now they have to watch Texas play in the College Football Playoff while the Aggies are in a decent bowl but one quite a ways down the pecking order.

Thursday December 28th

Fenway Bowl: Boston College vs. #24 SMU

11:00 AM

Morning football at Fenway. See, morning football is fine if it bleeds into the afternoon. None of this 9:30 in the morning horseshit. I guess this could be considered the Ponies’ first ACC test as these two teams will be roommates next year.

Pinstripe Bowl: Rutgers vs. Miami

2:15

I honestly think this will end up being a good game. I mean what’s not to like? OK there are probably a few things not to like, such as Mario Cristobal’s continued contract as head coach of the Miami football Hurricanes but I digress. It’s Rutgers football. In NYC. An old Big East matchup (I really wish the Big East was back…in football). I look forward to it, especially if there is some serious football weather that day.

Pop Tarts Bowl: #18 NC State vs. #25 Kansas State

5:45

OK so get this. The mascot for the new Pop Tarts Bowl is, of course, a Pop Tart. So far, so uninteresting. Then everything goes off the rails when we are told that this will be the first edible mascot ever and that the winning team gets to eat it. What? I mean, hey, it’s got me interested just to see what absurdity will unfold after what should be one of the better non-CFP/non-NY6 bowl games.

Alamo Bowl: #12 Oklahoma vs. #14 Arizona

9:15

Usually the Alamo Bowl gives us one of, if not the, best non-CFP/non-NY6 bowl matchups. This year is no exception. Oklahoma’s final ride in the Big XII before they head to the prosperous SEC. Jedd Fisch’s resurgent Arizona Wildcats who are looking to head to the Big XII next year with a lot of momentum. This feels like it will be a slobberknocker to quote good ol’ JR.

Friday December 29th

Gator Bowl: Kentucky vs. #22 Clemson

Noon

If Kentucky hadn’t beat Louisville I would have said this could end up being complete domination by the Tigers. It probably still will be but at least there feels like the Cats could have a fighting chance here.

Sun Bowl: #19 Oregon State vs. #16 Notre Dame

2:00

This game sold out in about an hour or so. And all because of a random draw. All the bowls left with ACC tie-ins wanted Notre Dame so I guess they did the whole coin toss thing they did in Friday Night Lights or a no holds barred cage fight or whatever the fuck they do to figure these things out. The Sun Bowl won out. So for the last time that they get a Pac-12 team, one of the oldest bowl games around got the one with one of the most rabid fanbases and then got them paired with Notre Dame, the team whose fans travel, arguably, the best. OK I changed my mind…this is the best non-CFP/non-NY6 matchup. I’m starting to feel like Bobby Heenan changing my pick all the time.

Liberty Bowl: Iowa State vs. Memphis

3:30

So Memphis is playing at home so this bowl game should have a great turnout. They will have to wait to get eyeballs on their game since the Sun Bowl will overlap the Liberty Bowl’s first half.

Cotton Bowl: #9 Missouri vs. #7 Ohio State

8:00

Quite the prove-it game for a team that some still don’t feel truly belong in the SEC. This is the type of big time bowl game that people expect the Buckeyes to be in but the Tigers, not so much. This will be a definite contrast of styles. Missouri’s run game with one of the best running backs in the country, Cody Schrader going up against the Ohio State passing attack led by Marvin Harrison Jr. The absence of Kyle McCord, as average as he could be at times, could play a role here.

Saturday December 30th

Peach Bowl: #11 Ole Miss vs. #10 Penn State

Noon

Interesting matchup. Fans were making a myriad of arguments as to why one of these teams shouldn’t be in the New Year’s Six. And then both make it and get paired up down in Atlanta. No matter how some fans feel, a potential Top 10 season should cut down on the hate for both teams’ head coaches. It won’t but it should.

Music City Bowl: Auburn vs. Maryland

2:00

Divisions in the Big Ten are going away. “Hooray” – Maryland. Washington, Oregon, USC and UCLA are joining the conference. “FUCK!” – Maryland. Hey Terps fans, look, it could be worse. You could be in the ACC, a conference that seems to be ready to join the Pac-12 in completely imploding.

Orange Bowl: #6 Georgia vs. #5 Florida State

4:00

My brief thoughts on the whole Florida State/College Football Playoff situation is this: The Committee have no plans for anything. Everything is a knee-jerk reaction. Want proof? They knew what they were heading towards. They were going to have to make a decision between a Jordan Travis-less Noles team and two of Texas, Georgia or Alabama, depending on the outcomes on conference championship weekend. So what did they do in the final CFP rankings before that weekend? Have FSU at #4. They could have moved Oregon ahead of them instead into the #4 spot but didn’t. It set everything up for the chaos that occurred during Selection Sunday. Deep down I don’t really care who made it but if The Committee were more transparent and thought about things for more than two minutes then the anger would have been reduced immensely. But no, they fucked up and now FSU fans have a right to be furious. Anyway, I hope this game is at least close because otherwise SEC fans and talking head morons like Paul Finebaum will never let anyone hear the end of it.

One note about this game: it will start on TSN1 at about 6:30. My guess is that it will be because of a World Juniors game being aired at the same time as the start of the Orange Bowl but who knows since the tournament is in Sweden.

Arizona Bowl: Wyoming vs. Toledo

4:00

Could this be an interesting game? Perhaps. Unfortunately, it will be overshadowed by two things: that this game is the first bowl game ever to appear on The CW and that it is sponsored by Barstool Sports. The game is also being called by Barstool personalities and seeing what it was like last year, they go overboard on certain things, especially the gambling aspect of college football. Not saying others don’t talk about it because they do but they beat you over the head with it all game. Oh well, you don’t have to watch if you don’t want to since the Orange Bowl is on at the exact same time (someone didn’t think this one through).

Monday January 1st

ReliaQuest Bowl: #13 LSU vs. Wisconsin

Noon

I have a feeling this game might not be that close. Wisconsin feels like a shell of Badger teams in the past. Then again, there have been crazier bowl results.

UPDATE: Looks like this bowl game is on TSN2 which is a bit surprising. This means no TSN+ and no specialty pack.

Fiesta Bowl: #8 Oregon vs. #23 Liberty

1:00

This could be an big-time shootout if Liberty can keep up. Nice to see Conference USA finally get into the New Year’s Six for the first time. All it took was for a program that many people do not like to jump up from the FCS and immediately become the conference favourite. Easy stuff. Look, I’m sure many players don’t care about what the leaders at Liberty are all about. Same as at BYU or Notre Dame or Baylor or any other university with a religious affiliation. They just want to play football. I think people forget that (or want to forget that).

UPDATE #2: This game will also appear on TSN 1, 4 and 5. It will start on TSN5 right at 1:00 and join in progress on the other three stations at about 3:30.

Citrus Bowl: #21 Tennessee vs. #17 Iowa

1:00

Thankfully Tennessee is in this game. Otherwise, this could smash the record that is repeatedly set by this year’s Iowa team for lowest over/under ever. Kirk Ferentz is desperately hoping for a 7-6 with a good ol’ Iowa touchdown (a field goal and two safeties).

Rose Bowl: #1 Michigan vs. #4 Alabama

5:00

Did Nick Saban do one of his best coaching jobs ever with this group? Yes. Yes he did. Should Michigan be allowed in the College Football Playoff? I’m sure there are many (SEC fans) who think that Michigan should have their entire football program shut down because “Michigan cheated.” Not that I disagree that Michigan cheated because it sure felt like they did but I am under the assumption that at least half the Power Five schools cheat in some manner. It’s college football: it’s never been squeaky clean. Ever. To think it was…well, you’re just wrong.

UPDATE #3: This will appear on TSN1, 4 and 5 as well. There will be an update sometime in the next few days to determine which feed appears where.

UPDATE #6: The entire game will appear on TSN1, 4 and 5.

Sugar Bowl: #2 Washington vs. #3 Texas

8:45

Will I watch this entire game? Abso-fucking-lutely. Will I be a bit tired at work the next day? Maybe. I wonder if I should just book a vacation day. “Hey Bossman, doing anything fun on your vacation day?” “Well I’m definitely not recovering from watching the Sugar Bowl, that’s for sure.” Then they’d look at me like I have six heads.

UPDATE #4: Same update as the Rose Bowl.

UPDATE #7: The entire game will appear on TSN1, 4, and 5.

Monday January 9th

College Football Playoff National Championship

8:00

At this point, this game isn’t appearing on the TSN schedule. Neither are the New Year’s Day ones although that might come as early as tomorrow. If it’s the same as last year then those are three stations it will appear on. Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the special feeds goes to TSN+. Final game of the year (other than the wacky all-star games that are fun but not as exciting as the rest of the games). I will probably be wearing a frown when this game ends.

UPDATE #5: This game will also appear on TSN4. Determination of feed will probably happen closer to New Year’s Day.

Breakdown time!

• TSN only (regular channels) – 22 games
• TSN+ & specialty pack – 10 games
• ABC & TSN – 6 games
• ABC & TSN+ – 2 games
• FOX – 1 game
• CBS – 1 game
• The CW – 1 game

TSN is showing EVERY bowl game. Every. Single. One. With a caveat. We are starting to see the TSN+ effect. TSN+ will have 12 of the bowl games, either paired with airing on ABC or paired with appearing on the specialty pack. This is the future. Get ready for it. And also get ready for a day when at least the college football portion of the specialty pack goes away since I think that day is coming as well.

Next up are the bowl game rankings and the NFL schedule post for the upcoming week. I am still going back and forth on whether I will do another post on how I would fix the postseason. It’s a bit tougher now that they have gone to a 12-team playoff but with less conferences. Expect at least (AT LEAST) seven Big Ten/SEC teams in every playoff going forward unless something wacky happens. That would leave, at most, the G-5 champ and two each from the ACC and Big XII. Sounds about right (unfortunately for many schools). Anyway, I will make the decision at some point over the next week or so. Enjoy the rest of your week everyone and get ready for the bowl games in THREE DAYS!

Thanksgiving. Footballgasm. Let’s Do This!

The 2023 version of Footballgasm has arrived! Get ready for an absolute fuck-ton of college football and NFL football from Thursday through to Monday night. Why does this happen? Americans need something to do while they let all that food settle in their stomachs. I mean our Thanksgiving comes first and is pretty good but we really missed the mark. Take out green bean casserole and there’s very little to dislike about American Thanksgiving.

Alright time to unleash the college football schedule for this week, the final week of the regular season. This is done in traditional Bossman’s Blog American Thanksgiving style. Every game is listed. Some are not important. Some are very important. But every game gets their own section. College football deserves it (for the most part).

Tuesday

Bowling Green (-1.5) at Western Michigan

7:00

Does this mean anything? No. But it’s the final night of MACtion so enjoy it. Predicted score: Western Michigan 27 Bowling Green 24.

Eastern Michigan (+6.5) at Buffalo

7:30

Now this game is more important…well, at least for one team. The Eagles can become bowl eligible with a win here. The Bulls are just here to try and play spoiler. Predicted score: Buffalo 31 Eastern Michigan 21.

Thursday

#12 Ole Miss (-11) at Mississippi State

7:30

The Rebels are juuuuuuuuuuuust on the outside looking in at the New Year’s Six. Could they leapfrog Missouri or Penn State without those two teams losing? It’s doubtful but they could strengthen their case by putting a beating on Mississippi State. Predicted score: Ole Miss 34 Mississippi State 30.

Friday

Miami (-9) at Boston College

Noon

Miami destroyed any chance of doing anything this season, mostly with piss-poor coaching (although Tyler Van Dyke seriously regressed this season). The Eagles on the other hand, they played much better than expected and Jeff Hafley has saved his job. Predicted score: Miami 38 Boston College 15.

#17 Iowa (+2) at Nebraska

Noon

Big game here for the Huskers. Win and they are bowl-eligible in Matt Rhule’s first season in Lincoln. Maybe, just maybe, the sun is finally shining on Huskerland for the first time in quite a few years. To do that, though, they will have to upset the Hawkeyes who have defied every odd and probably some theories of offensive football to become Big Ten West champs. Take the under (even though the over/under is a record-low 26.5). Predicted score: Iowa 14 Nebraska 7.

Ohio (-14) at Akron

Noon

Ohio can win their ninth game of the season which is pretty impressive. Unfortunately, it won’t be enough to win the division. Akron is hoping to stay out of double digits in the loss column. Predicted score: Ohio 30 Akron 10.

Memphis (-11.5) at Temple

Noon

Memphis lost their shot at a potential American Conference championship spot last weekend. So really, this means nothing. Predicted score: Memphis 31 Temple 7.

Toledo (-10.5) at Central Michigan

Noon

The Rockets will need a win and a lot of help to somehow sneak into the New Year’s Six. The Chips are trying to get to their sixth win. Actually, quite a bit at stake here. Predicted score: Toledo 34 Central Michigan 16.

TCU (+10) at #13 Oklahoma

Noon

Huge game here for the Sooners. An Oklahoma win and they still have a shot at going to JerryWorld one last time, much to the chagrin of the rest of the Big XII members. TCU isn’t going to lie down for them, though. They have to win to go bowling. Predicted score: TCU 38 Oklahoma 26.

UTSA (+3) at #23 Tulane

3:30

Tulane gets to eleven wins with a win here. More importantly, a win here puts them in the AAC Championship game and makes them the favourite to go back to the New Year’s Six. I am honestly shocked that no team has taken a flyer on Willie Fritz, despite his age. A Roadrunners win doesn’t eliminate the Green Wave either although they would need some help from Navy. A UTSA win would put them in the conference championship and would finish one of the best conference moves (outside the Sun Belt) in recent memory. Predicted score: Tulane 29 UTSA 24.

Utah State (-7.5) at New Mexico

3:30

The Aggies go bowling if they beat the Lobos. A UNM win would put them at five for the season which, honestly, would probably save Danny Gonzales’ job and constitute one of their better seasons in a long time. Predicted score: Utah State 49 New Mexico 31.

#9 Missouri (-7.5) at Arkansas

4:00

Mizzou locks themselves into the New Year’s Six if they can defeat the lowly Hogs. Sam Pittman has already been retained for next year so no surprise shitcanning in Fayetteville like Bret Bielema got a few years back. Predicted score: Missouri 33 Arkansas 14.

Texas Tech (+13) at #7 Texas

7:30

A massive game for the Longhorns. There is honestly so much on the line here. The most important being a spot in the final four-team College Football Playoff. It’s within their grasp but they have to stop allowing teams to stick around in games. The Red Raiders, on the other hand, are playing for one thing since they are already bowl eligible: spoiling the Horns’ entire season. Predicted score: Texas 31 Texas Tech 17.

#11 Penn State (-21) vs. Michigan State (in Detroit)

7:30

Do the Nittany Lions deserve to be in a New Year’s Six bowl? It’s debatable but at this point, a win probably clinches a spot unless Ole Miss goes nuts on Mississippi State the night before. The Spartans just want to end one of the most miserable seasons in their program’s history, on and off the field. Predicted score: Penn State 49 Michigan State 28.

#16 Oregon State (+13.5) at #6 Oregon

8:30

The Ducks want a rematch with Washington for the Pac-12 Championship. The Beavers just want to spoil Oregon’s season as all teams do in rivalry games. Predicted score: Oregon 44 Oregon State 29.

Saturday Early

Kentucky (+7) at #10 Louisville

Noon

Louisville needs a win to keep their slim CFP hopes alive. That alone will make this game interesting. Kentucky has no stakes other than maybe trying not to lose too badly so that Mark Stoops can be guaranteed for 2024. Predicted score: Louisville 31 Kentucky 10.

Pittsburgh (+6) at Duke

Noon

Duke is already going bowling and are middle of the ACC standings. Pitt is pretty awful (other than playing lights out against Louisville) and are looking forward to the offseason. A lot of better options in this window. Predicted score: Duke 20 Pittsburgh 7.

Indiana (+3) at Purdue

Noon

The Old Oaken Bucket. Even with this being a rivalry game, it’s really not worth watching. Predicted score: Purdue 32 Indiana 13.

Miami-OH (-6.5) at Ball State

Noon

Redhawks are in. Cardinals are out. Let’s see if Mike Neu finally gets the axe like I’ve predicted for a few seasons now. Predicted score: Miami-OH 30 Ball State 28.

Texas A&M (+10.5) at #14 LSU

Noon

For two good teams (OK one quite good team and one OK team), this game does not mean a whole lot. The Aggies are bowling and playing under an interim coach. LSU would need a damn miracle to get into the New Year’s Six so should start packing for a Florida bowl game. Predicted score: LSU 45 Texas A&M 31.

Navy (+20) at SMU

Noon

Now with TSN pushing a lot to TSN+, games like this will almost never make it to the regular TSN channels again which sucks for people who don’t subscribe. It feels like it has finally come to the point where you have to either get one off the specialty packs, get TSN+ or go the IPTV route to see as much college football as you want as a Canadian. Anyway, Navy has two shots to go bowling and would like to close that out here. The Mustangs are in the American Championship with a win in Big D. Predicted score: SMU 48 Navy 20.

Troy (-17) at Southern Miss

Noon

Troy has no shot at the New Year’s Six and is already hosting the Sun Belt Championship. Southern Miss is home for the holidays. Meh. Predicted score: Troy 23 Southern Miss 8.

#2 Ohio State (+3.5) at #3 Michigan

Noon

Another huge version of The Game. Not a total surprise. The winner is in the Big Ten Championship and all but guarantees a spot in the playoff. And just like last year, the loser isn’t out with a loss depending on what happens on conference championship weekend. If GUS JOHNSON would ever pass out from lack of oxygen, this would be the game he would do it in. Predicted score: Michigan 28 Ohio State 24.

Saturday Afternoon

Wake Forest (+3) at Syracuse

2:00

The two worst teams in the ACC but it’s still important for one team. The Orange need a win here to somehow become bowl eligible. Wake would be just outside at five wins if they win here and could nab a spot due to their great APR score if it comes down to that. Predicted score: Syracuse 35 Wake Forest 15.

Southern vs. Grambling (in New Orleans)

2:00

Prairie View A&M has already clinched the SWAC West so this means nothing for either team other than bragging rights: both for the football teams and the bands. Predicted score: Southern 23 Grambling 18.

Colorado (+22) at Utah

3:00

Utah has been very good considering the sheer amount of injuries that team sustained. The Buffaloes season finally ends after the most hype ever given to a one-win team before the season began (and well into the season as well). Predicted score: Utah 39 Colorado 17.

BYU (+17.5) at #20 Oklahoma State

3:30

BYU needs to win here to be in a bowl game. It would be a pretty big upset if they did, but hey, crazier things have happened. The Pokes are holding on to an outside shot at the Big XII Championship. They need to win and have a few other things go their way but again, it’s not impossible. Predicted score: BYU 49 Oklahoma State 31.

Virginia Tech (-3) at Virginia

3:30

Last year’s Commonwealth Cup was cancelled after the murders of three Virginia players. Just having this game will bring back quite a few emotions I’m sure for the Cavs. For the Hokies, they can do the improbable and become bowl eligible if they beat their rivals. Predicted score: Virginia 40 Virginia Tech 35.

Northwestern (+6) at Illinois

3:30

If you had told me at the start of the season that this game would have Northwestern already going bowling and the Illini fighting for their bowl lives, I would have thought you had just went to a cannabis shop for the first time in your life and ate a few too many edibles. But here we are. The Wildcats have been amazing considering their offseason. David Braun has done a masterful job in Evanston. Bret Bielema on the other hand is still at the helm of a struggling Illini team. He will make it to 2024 but a loss here will put him on a much shorter leash. Predicted score: Illinois 31 Northwestern 23.

Maryland (-1.5) at Rutgers

3:30

I have this game showing in most homes in this area. I have no idea what will happen. Hell, I have Big Ten Network and three alternate BTNs and even then, one game usually gets left out for everyone. Why do they do this when they honestly don’t have to? Anyway, both teams are going bowling so are looking for momentum heading into the postseason and nothing else. Predicted score: Maryland 20 Rutgers 17.

#8 Alabama (-14.5) at Auburn

3:30

How close can the Tigers keep this game? The spread honestly seems way too low. Don’t even bother talking about an upset. Kind of a dud for the final SEC on CBS regular season game if you ask me. Now watch it be close deep into the fourth quarter. Predicted score: Alabama 41 Auburn 21.

#25 Liberty (-17) at UTEP

3:30

In what is feeling like a broken record, here’s another game that means very little. Sure, the Flames can finish an undefeated season with a win over the terrible Miners. Problem is they need quite a bit of help to get that coveted NY6 spot. I just can’t see it happening. Predicted score: Liberty 38 UTEP 20.

#15 Arizona (-11.5) at Arizona State

3:30

ASU is already home for the Christmas holidays. The Wildcats have to win here and hope Oregon has already lost the Civil War. So we will know going in whether this game means anything or not. Predicted score: Arizona 23 Arizona State 13.

James Madison (-9) at Coastal Carolina

3:30

Big game in the Sun Belt and unfortunately only for one team. The Dukes are almost guaranteed a bowl slot after all the bowl eligible teams get their spots. For the Chants, because of JMU’s ineligibility for the Sun Belt title, they win this and they will face Troy for the Sun Belt Championship. Predicted score: James Madison 42 Coastal Carolina 24.

Georgia Southern (+8.5) at Appalachian State

3:30

The Mountaineers will be scoreboard-watching and trying to pay attention to the task at hand. Not easy for sure. If CCU can’t beat JMU then App State, with a win, will head to Troy and face the Trojans as the champions of the Sun Belt East. Predicted score: Appalachian State 26 Georgia Southern 10.

Vanderbilt (+27) at #21 Tennessee

3:30

This would have been at least a bit more humourous being played at Vanderbilt’s stadium with their ongoing construction issues. Predicted score: Tennessee 49 Vanderbilt 21.

Washington State (+16.5) at #4 Washington

4:00

The Apple Cup continues to produce high drama. The Huskies’ dream season could come crashing down if they get upset by the Cougs. Wazzu has to win to become bowl-eligible. This should nab a lot of viewers until it gets out of hand. Predicted score: Washington 52 Washington State 17.

Saturday Primetime

#5 Florida State (-6.5) at Florida

7:00

If this had been discussed a week ago the spread might have been over 20 points. Instead, we will find out if the Noles can continue their success without Jordan Travis. The Gators could do the improbable by going bowling with a win here. Predicted score: Florida State 36 Florida 27.

South Alabama (-6) at Texas State

7:00

Two teams that are already bowl-eligible here. Good for them but it means that the NFL Network’s final game of the year will not get a whole lot of viewers. Predicted score: South Alabama 20 Texas State 14.

#18 Notre Dame (-26) at Stanford

7:00

I’m sorry but this is fucking hilarious. The final Pac-12 Network football game ever and it will feature Notre Dame. NOTRE DAME. Irish fans are going to be so damn pissed off trying to find a way to watch this. That alone makes this fun. Not quite worth watching a lot of but still, you’ll be seeing history at the end as the worst conference network closes its football doors for good. Predicted score: Notre Dame 42 Stanford 32.

#1 Georgia (-24) at Georgia Tech

7:30

A little Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate. I love some of the names of these rivalries. There might be a bit of intrigue to see if UGA can cap off another undefeated regular season but other than that, you can avoid this one. Predicted score: Georgia 34 Georgia Tech 10.

Kansas (-6) at Cincinnati

7:30

Kansas is pretty good again this season. It’s nice to see. Cincinnati, on the other hand, may be regretting the Scott Satterfield hire although he deserves another season to see how they can truly compete in the Big XII. Predicted score: Kansas 28 Cincinnati 14.

Charlotte (+5.5) at USF

7:30

Speaking of teams playing much better than most thought they would, the Bulls are one win away from going bowling. They showed a lot in the near-upset of Alabama back in September and have scratched and clawed their way to this point. The only thing standing in their way? The bare arms of Biff Poggi and his Charlotte 49ers. Might not be as easy as USF thinks it should be. Predicted score: USF 31 Charlotte 30.

#24 Clemson (-7) at South Carolina

7:30

Gotta give Dabo Swinney from credit for turning around the team after that poor start. Either that or we give all the praise to Tyler from Spartanburg for lighting a fire under the Tigers. Either way, they come into this game as actually one of the hottest teams in the country. And they could actually make their season for a lot of fans by ruining South Carolina’s. The Gamecocks need the win to be bowl eligible. I don’t think this will be as feisty as their brawl-filled game many years ago but I could see it getting chippy. Predicted score: Clemson 41 South Carolina 24.

North Carolina (-3) at #22 NC State

8:00

North Carolina was supposed to be one of the teams to go to the ACC Championship this year. NC State was supposed to be fighting for a .500 record. Instead, they both come in at 8-3 with maybe something other than bragging rights on the line. Let’s be honest: teams would much rather go to a Florida destination than the Sun Bowl or Military Bowl. Predicted score: North Carolina 28 NC State 27.

Iowa State (+10) at #19 Kansas State

8:00

By this point, we will know if the Wildcats have any shot at the Big XII Championship. Other than that, neither team has anything to play for other than to win…FARMAGEDDON. Predicted score: Kansas State 50 Iowa State 34.

Saturday Late Night

Wyoming (-11) at Nevada

9:00

Yes, the odd CBS Sports Network Thanksgiving Saturday timeslot is back again. At least they do their best to cram in as much live sports as humanly possible into this day. Predicted score: Wyoming 35 Nevada 27.

California (+9.5) at UCLA

10:30

It’s really hit or miss with this final game of the regular season. Sometimes, it’s a massively important game that is must-watch and keeps everyone up well past Midnight. Other times we get games that have absolutely no importance. For once, it’s somewhere in the middle. Shockingly, the Bears are in line for a bowl spot if they can pull the upset on a Bruins team who might still be on a high after defeating USC for the Victory Bell this past weekend. Predicted score: UCLA 38 California 34.

That’s a lot of football. I am not complaining. At all. I would have thought TSN might have stepped up for the final regular season weekend but, alas, that is not the case. They are pushing TSN+ for college football so that is the future we have to live with. Oh well…progress, right? Ugh.

I will update the rankings when I see them. I figured I should get this post out in some form so my MACtion predictions don’t look too fishy. Enjoy the games everyone!

Hey, Hey, It’s the All-New Bossman Top 26 with a Special Bonus!

What’s the special bonus? It’s bowl projections! And not just any bowl projections. My annual Chaos Bowl Projections. This should be good. Or really stupid. Either way, let’s get going with the Bossman Top 26 after this past week’s games:

#1	Georgia (9-0)
#2	Washington (9-0)
#3	Michigan (9-0)
#4	Alabama (8-1)
#5	Ohio State (9-0)
#6	Florida State (9-0)
#7	Oregon (8-1)
#8	Texas (8-1)
#9	Ole Miss (8-1)
#10	Penn State (8-1)
#11	Louisville (8-1)
#12	Utah (7-2)
#13	Oklahoma State (7-2)
#14	Oregon State (7-2)
#15	Tennessee (7-2)
#16	Tulane (8-1)
#17	LSU (6-3)
#18	Missouri (7-2)
#19	James Madison (9-0)
#20	Oklahoma (7-2)
#21	Liberty (9-0)
#22	Notre Dame (7-3)
#23	Kansas (7-2)
#24	Arizona (6-3)
#25	USC (7-3)
#26	North Carolina (7-2)

Yes, I have Washington at #2. At this point, they may be the most complete team in college football but I do wonder if they could beat UGA on a neutral field. Those two teams are two of the five who, if they win out, are locks to be in the College Football Playoff. The other three are Florida State, Ohio State and Michigan. tOSU and Big Blue play each other so no way that those two could both be 12-0 at the end of the season. Can you imagine if they still had ties in college football? You think the debates are horrible at this point? They’d be a million times worse. At the Group of Five level, I already mentioned it but I will say it again: Tulane runs the table, they are in for the New Year’s Six spot. No questions asked they go to either the Peach or Cotton Bowl. If they lose, even in the conference championship, it brings a bunch of teams back in to the fray, including Air Force, Fresno State, Liberty, Troy, SMU, Memphis, Toledo and, yes, even UNLV. Remember, the Green Wave faces UTSA to finish off their regular season. The Roadrunners could do a bunch of teams a favour with a win. Finally, back to the CFP for a minute. If we don’t see four unbeatens at the end, then the arguments will pile up as to who gets the final spot. If Michigan or Ohio State are the only one of those five not to be undefeated, then the argument may be mostly clear to put the loser of The Game in the #4 spot. You would get a lot of pissed off Alabama and Texas fans but the argument would probably be sound. Besides, The Committee will almost always take a Big Ten or SEC team over any other conference. Just the way it is (and probably always will be).

Now we get to the fun part…kind of. OK not fun for some fans and very frustrating for some others because this is complete chaos. Like over the top insanity. Off the rails ridiculousness. This won’t happen, I can assure you. Now, some of it may happen though so it’s not like this is completely crazy (but it mostly is cocaine crazy). Alright let’s get going with this bonkers exercise.

Sugar Bowl	CFP #1 vs. CFP #4	Louisville vs. Kansas
Rose Bowl	CFP #2 vs. CFP #3	Oregon State vs. Tennessee

I’m sure that’s the look you are giving your screen right now. You’re thinking I have lost my fucking mind. I assure you I have not gone insane. Let me just give you an explanation as to how we have found ourselves at this point:

• Florida State loses to both Miami and Florida. Only one of those games counts as a conference loss, obviously, so FSU is still in the ACC Championship game. Louisville ends up running the table in convincing fashion to become one of only two Power Five teams with only one loss (we will get to that later on in this post). The Cardinals somehow go into the title game as slight favourites and beat the Noles in a close one to capture the ACC title and the #1 ranking, putting them in the Sugar Bowl.
• Oregon and Washington both end up losing to a resurgent Oregon State team as the Beavs (and Jonathan Smith especially) rebound from that absolutely awful playcall against Arizona which at the time looked like it cost them a lot. The Beavs also beat Stanford by about 50 and qualify for the Pac-12 Championship. The Huskies lose to Utah but the Ducks lose to USC and then USC loses to UCLA! The insanity means U-Dub still gets to the Pac-12 Championship but now it’s almost a pickem with the Beavers. Oregon State blows Washington out to get the #2 seed.
• Alright now, the Big Ten. This is where it gets a bit iffy. Iowa runs the table, scoring approximately 12 points a game to easily win the Big Ten West. The East becomes a shitshow. Michigan loses to both Penn State and Ohio State. Good news for the Buckeyes, right? Wrong because they lose to both (get this) Michigan State and Maryland. Maybe Maserati Marv was injured. No problem. Penn State’s got this. Wrong again! They fall to mighty Rutgers! Ho boy. In the end, Ohio State is the highest ranked of all the (now) 2-loss East Division teams. Then they get beat in a defensive struggle by the Hawkeyes, 12-10.
• But we still have the SEC. Yeah, let’s discuss that. Georgia loses to Ole Miss this coming weekend, then Tennessee the following weekend. They blast Georgia Tech out of the water but it doesn’t matter because Tennessee runs the table, including that win over the Dawgs. They demolish Vandy to win the East in ridiculous fashion. They face Alabama who loses the Iron Bowl, meaning their path to the CFP is now very rocky. The Vols beat Bama convincingly and move into the #3 spot. This might piss off Ole Miss. They also run the table and are the only other one-loss Power Five school. Problem is they lost to Alabama meaning they couldn’t play in the conference championship which would allow the winner of that game to leapfrog them, which they will. Question now is will Ole Miss get in at #4?
• That brings us to the final Power Five conference, the Big XII. Texas shits the bed the rest of the way. Quinn Ewers’ absence catches up with them and they lose winnable games to TCU and Iowa State. This should allow Oklahoma or Oklahoma State to sneak into the top spot. Instead, it’s Kansas who wins out and gets in. They will face Oklahoma State who, despite a loss to BYU, gets in just ahead of West Virginia thanks to their victory over the Mountaineers earlier in the season. Kansas mops the floor with the Cowboys and The Committee rewards them with the #4 spot, ahead of the Ole Miss Rebels and a pissed off Lane Kiffin.

Of course the final year before the 12-team playoff has to have some controversy, no? I mean this is insane but wouldn’t it be fucking awesome if even half these results happened? We’d be talking about this season in the same vain as 2007. ESPN and FOX would have field days with this stuff.

So now that we have the CFP done and dusted, let’s see what the New Year’s Six now looks like.

Fiesta Bowl	CFP at-large vs. CFP at-large/G-5 #1	Utah vs. Iowa
Orange Bowl	ACC Champ vs Big Ten/Notre Dame/SEC	Florida State vs. Ole Miss
Peach Bowl	CFP at-large vs. CFP at-large/G-5 #1	Penn State vs. Alabama
Cotton Bowl	CFP at-large vs. CFP at-large/G-5 #1	Michigan vs. UTSA

Well this is some kind of messed up but almost feels way less messed up than the CFP. Here we go:

• Already explained Ole Miss and their #5 spot. I could see a ton of debate and SECtards would definitely want two teams in the big dance no matter what (or more like think that the conference always deserves two teams in the top four) but I am sticking with this. The Rebels being dropped to #5 puts them in the Orange Bowl.
• Utah is #6. They are the second best team to not go to a conference championship behind Ole Miss and their two losses will to the two Oregon teams so that will look pretty good. They slot into the Fiesta Bowl.
• Penn State will be #7 after their shocking loss to Rutgers kills their Big Ten Championship hopes. They head to the Peach Bowl.
• A bit more controversy would be Michigan being at #8. Sure their two losses will be to Penn State and Ohio State but I see them both being big losses, unlike Penn State losing a close one to Rutgers. Either way, the two losses would take them out of the Big Ten East title race and have them going to the Cotton Bowl.
• Remember I told you Iowa won the Big Ten Championship? I could see many of you wanting to forget that. So yeah, they will now head to the Fiesta Bowl to face Utah. Interesting matchup.
• The ACC has to send their next best team after Louisville ended up number one. In the end, Florida State is probably the only option and they should be high enough in the rankings to warrant the Orange Bowl spot opposite Ole Miss.
• So who is the best Power Five team left? It’s down to, get this, Alabama and Ohio State. The Committee will be damned if they do, damned if they don’t. I think they go with the Tide in the end but the debates, oh the debates.
• Finally, the Group of Five spot. Liberty fans will scream about being the only undefeated team in FBS and I can understand that. Their schedule, however, was so ridiculously easy compared to pretty much every other team in FBS. I think they do end up in the Top 25 but so does UNLV and UTSA who both win their respective conference championships. I give the nod to the Roadrunners to head to the Cotton Bowl to face Michigan.

Good God that was ridiculous. Why do I do it each year? To see how far I can push the system. And I have determined it can only be pushed so far. Next year, if I do this, I will have to adjust how it’s done for the new playoff. The times they are a-changin’. Enjoy the rest of your week everyone!

More like Mari-No Cristobal, am I right? And the Week 7 College Football TV Schedule

If you missed it this past Saturday, one of the most egregiously bad coaching decisions in college football history occurred.

Miami had Georgia Tech beat. All they had to do was kneel down with 33 seconds left in the game and they would have escaped with a win over the Yellow Jackets. Tech had no timeouts. This is about the easiest call to make. A horrible high school football coach could figure it out. Not Mario though.

The Canes instead ran the ball and fumbled. The fumble was close. Honestly, if it had been called not a fumble and the runner down initially, I think it would have stayed that way. Instead, Georgia Tech got the ball back and went down the field and scored a touchdown with only a couple of seconds left (that play alone was ridiculous as Haynes King seemed to scramble forever and then found a relatively wide open Christian Leary for the TD pass).

Immediately, some harkened back to Cristobal doing almost the exact same thing when he was the head coach at Oregon. Kind of the same situation where a kneel down would almost certainly have got them the win over Stanford. Instead, the Ducks ran a play, fumbled, Stanford recovered and would go on to win in overtime.

Whether Cristobal survives this is debatable. Even with Miami still at 4-1, some Canes backers will want him gone unless they can at least be ranked at the end of the season. Either way, that set of events will go down in college football infamy.

OK enough of Fumblegate or Kneelgate or Cristogate or whatever some idiot will come up with for this. It’s schedule time!

Tuesday

		US	Canada
Louisiana Tech at Middle Tennessee	7:00
Coastal Carolina at Appalachian State	7:30
Liberty at Jacksonville State	7:30

Here we go. Conference USA weekday action. All October. No Saturday games. It’s like somewhat southern fried MACtion except not as good. Also throw in a Fun Belt game and you got a decent night of football.

Wednesday

		US	Canada
UTEP at FIU	7:30
Sam Houston at New Mexico State	9:00

The latter half of the first early week Conference USA set of games. Nothing super important here although we will see if Sam Houston can get their first FBS victory in program history.

Thursday

		US	Canada
Wagner at St. Francis	7:00
SMU at East Carolina	7:30
Fort Valley State at Benedict	7:30

This is easily the weirdest schedule segment I have ever put on my blog. The first ever NEC game appears as Wagner travels to St. Francis. Also, a rare Division II matchup between Fort Valley State and Benedict. Why is this D-II game on this Thursday night? Hell, if I know but it’s football so I will watch.

Friday

		US	Canada
Tulane at Memphis	7:00
Fresno State at Utah State	8:00
Stanford at Colorado	10:00

TSN going with the late game and not the early game is certainly a choice. Two things though: CFL football is on in the early window and TSN probably wants to get in on the Colorado ratings early-season juggernaut.

Saturday Early

		US	Canada
Syracuse at #4 Florida State	Noon
Michigan State at Rutgers	Noon
#1 Georgia at Vanderbilt	Noon
Kent State at Eastern Michigan	Noon
Arkansas at #11 Alabama	Noon
Georgia Southern at James Madison	Noon
Temple at North Texas	Noon
Indiana at #2 Michigan	Noon

This is not as good as your normal Nooner schedule. It’s surprising since most networks are trying to avoid going up against USC-Notre Dame in the primetime window and Oregon-Washington in the afternoon window. And yet still, the best game in this timeslot is arguably Syracuse-FSU (although I think Georgia Southern-JMU will be the better game).

UPDATE: Syracuse-FSU has been added to TSN+.

Saturday Afternoon

		US	Canada
California at #16 Utah	3:00
#8 Oregon at #7 Washington	3:30
Wake Forest at Virginia Tech	3:30
UMass at #6 Penn State	3:30
Texas A&M at #19 Tennessee	3:30
Troy at Army	3:30
BYU at TCU	3:30
FAU at USF	3:30
Illinois at Maryland	3:30
Florida at South Carolina	3:30
Ohio at Northern Illinois	4:00
Iowa at Wisconsin	4:00

OK now this is a timeslot. A ton of choice. The undisputed game of the week lands here along with a bunch of other tasty college football platters for our consumption. UW-UO is that big game of the week (year?) and will have a huge impact on the Pac-12 going forward (and even the national championship picture). TAMU-UT could be low-key good and Iowa-Wisconsin might just be for the Big Ten West title. Let’s see if Iowa can put up some offense for once.

Saturday Primetime

		US	Canada
#14 Louisville at Pittsburgh	6:30
Wyoming at Air Force	7:00
Auburn at #22 LSU	7:00
Marshall at Georgia State	7:00
Arizona at #19 Washington State	7:00
#25 Miami at #12 North Carolina	7:30
#10 USC at #21 Notre Dame	7:30
Missouri at #24 Kentucky	7:30
NC State at #17 Duke	8:00
UAB at UTSA	8:00
#18 UCLA at #15 Oregon State	8:00

I already mentioned the big USC-Notre Dame game that appears here alongside UCLA-Oregon State which is another Pac-12 cannibalization game that I believe will keep the Pac-12 out of the College Football Playoff once again. You will notice that UF-SC is not on TSN+ even though it probably should be. I wonder if it’s an error in the current schedule as otherwise it would make absolutely no sense but would be right up TSN’s alley when it comes to college football broadcasting gaffes of the past.

UPDATE #2: Normally I would chastise myself for not waiting but didn’t have time to wait (thanks a bunch, Conference USA). Anyway, Mizzou-UK has been added to TSN+ as I thought would happen.

Saturday Late Night

		US	Canada
Montana at Idaho	10:30
San Diego State at Hawaii	11:00

Ho boy. Is it an interesting schedule? Sure. But there isn’t much meat on the bone here. It does give Canadians the rare opportunity to participate in the Hawaii Test though.

Hey, Watch This!

Oregon at Washington (3:30, ABC/TSN+) – I have mentioned the Pac-12 and how they tend to cannibalize themselves often. It’s happened a few times in the past few years already. And it’s already rearing its ugly head again. Wazzu beat Oregon State and then promptly lost to UCLA. So yeah, no guarantees for the winner here except the fact they should be in the Top 5 with a win and will remain among the (quickly shrinking) land of the undefeated.

USC at Notre Dame (7:30, NBC) – This might have been considered for Game of the Week if the Irish had been able to beat Louisville last Saturday. A Trojan win here keeps them in at least of a share of the driver’s seat to go to Las Vegas for the Pac-12 Championship and conference supremacy. An Irish win and the Trojans cost themselves greatly and Caleb Williams’ chance at history could take a huge hit.

UCLA at Oregon State (8:00, FOX) – Man, this is truly the Pac-12’s week to shine. Five of the six teams in the games of the week reside in a conference that will be dead very soon. How sad. Anyway, the Beavers could put UCLA out of the mix at this point if they get the victory here. The Bruins would be the shock of the college football world if they could somehow make it to the Pac-12 Championship. It would also validate (finally) Chip Kelly’s hiring.

Missouri at Kentucky (7:30, specialty pack) – I mentioned above that this game was not on TSN+ and only on the specialty pack at this point. That should change but until I see it I won’t post it. Anyway, this section drops off a bit of a cliff after the top three games. Both of these teams had their chances last week to make serious noise in the SEC. The Wildcats got blasted by Georgia and the Tigers couldn’t outlast one of the other Tigers in the conference (LSU). The winner here still has an outside shot at the New Year’s Six with the loser being relegated to the third tier of the SEC East behind the winner and, of course, UGA.

Sickos Game of the Week

Wake Forest at Virginia Tech (3:30, TSN+/specialty pack) – Every conference network has their share of, let’s say, not-so-good games and this is certainly one of them. The Demon Deacons aren’t nearly as good as they have been in recent years and the Hokies are bordering on awful. Luckily for these two teams, Virginia and Boston College exist in the ACC. Honestly, there really aren’t too many seriously bad games that we can watch here so this will look better than most of the games that appear in this spot this season.

Hubba Bubba Blowout of the Week

UMass at Penn State (3:30, Big Ten Network) – Good god. I wonder if the Nittany Lions can put an 80-burger on the board in this one. This will be bowling shoe ugly for sure.

Wanna Bet?

Look, I had Texas-Oklahoma being close. And it was. A great Red River Shootout as it almost always is. Some of my other picks….well…I’m looking at that Miami over Georgia Tech pick and shaking my head. Not because it was a bad pick: it’s because of what you saw at the top of our show. So let’s move on to this week and not dwell too much on the past.

New Mexico State 24 Sam Houston 21

Florida State 49 Syracuse 14

Michigan 54 Indiana 27

James Madison 47 Georgia Southern 10

Texas A&M 33 Tennessee 24 (mild upset)

FAU 45 USF 25

Washington 34 Oregon 31

TCU 35 BYU 21

Wisconsin 30 Iowa 10

Pittsburgh 31 Louisville 22 (fairly big upset!)

Kentucky 27 Missouri 21

Notre Dame 38 USC 35 (OT)

Oregon State 31 UCLA 19

Alright we shall see how busy I get. I am sure to wtch a fair amount of college football on Saturday but it might not be my usual all-day affair. I hate to say I hope for somewhat shitty weather on Fall Saturdays sometimes but I do. It gives me all the excuses I need to stay inside and be a slob and watch football.

Also, small apology for the blog post coming out after the games commenced this week. Starting the week on a Tuesday certainly creates a time crunch even with a holiday Monday. Anyway, enjoy the games everyone!

The Land of the Undefeated 8.0

Yep. It’s that time again. It’s the eighth (EIGHTH?) edition of looking at the undefeated teams left in college football around the halfway mark of the season. Fun stuff, right? One day I should go back and see how accurate I was with these predictions. Though to be honest, I think I would be scared to do so since my predictions have been so great, right (see Tigers, Clemson). Anyway, let’s get going with this!

#1 Georgia (6-0) – The Dawgs have, at times, looked a bit shaky. Tough wins over South Carolina and Auburn made it seem like this team may struggle at some point. Then they demolish Kentucky and it feels like all is normal again. I still think there is a loss in there but they will, once again, walk to another SEC East title and a berth in the SEC Championship. Predicted record: 11-1.

#2 Michigan (6-0) – Now here is a team that has not struggled. At all. In any sense. The Wolverines are just that good. I do, however, think they will lose a game this season (I have it being a loss to Penn State although it could just as easily be Ohio State). They will still make the Big Ten Championship and throttle whichever sad sack team comes out of the Big Ten West and head to the College Football Playoff. Predicted record: 11-1.

#3 Ohio State (5-0) – Speaking of tOSU, I figure they will also lose one game. I have them losing The Game to Michigan which would knock them out of a shot at the Big Ten Championship (in what could be the most scrutinized tiebreaker ever). The Buckeyes, though, have to quit with the slow starts or otherwise some other team is going to surprise them and it will be lights out for their national championship hopes. Predicted record: 11-1.

#4 Florida State (5-0) – They may end up dropping even more if they can’t show how dominant they really are. Then again, they may not have to since I honestly believe they will be the only undefeated team at the end of the regular season (can you smell those 2007 vibes?). Predicted record: 12-0.

#5 Oklahoma (6-0) – Quite a few people are suprised Oklahoma is doing this well. I figured that they would lose against Texas but would only have that one loss against them at this point. Look, Dillon Gabriel wasn’t going to be as bad as he was last season and the defense was definitely going to be better under Captain Defense himself, Brent Venables. Will they go the rest of the way unscathed. Eh…. Predicted record: 10-2.

#6 Penn State (5-0) – PSU really doesn’t seem to have any weaknesses. They could go on a serious run, the likes which haven’t been seen in State College in quite a long time. It is Penn State, though. They are bound to lose one and I think they will to Ohio State (which would make for a fun three-way tie at 11-1). Predicted record: 11-1.

#7 Washington (5-0) – The Pac-12 is up for grabs. The worry is that the conference will cannibalize itself. I agree with that notion. Predicted record: 9-3.

#8 Oregon (5-0) – If you take out the weird Texas Tech game, the Ducks have looked awesome. They would seem to be on a fast track to the Pac-12 Championship if USC, Washington, UCLA, Oregon State and Washington State weren’t in their conference. If one Pac-12 team gets out with only one loss, I wonder if The Committee gives them a bit of a bump because of how difficult the road to get there would have been. Predicted record: 10-2.

#10 USC (6-0) – Now we get to the Trojans, the preseason Pac-12 favourites. Man, have they had a roller coaster season so far. Three close games in a row now for this team. And their defense is atrocious. If Lincoln Riley wants to stick with Alex Grinch as his defensive coordinator then so be it. It will most likely cost USC a trip to the CFP (if not also the New Year’s Six). Predicted record: 10-2.

#12 North Carolina (5-0) – Maybe this will finally be the Heels’ year. They are flying under the radar and playing really good football if you take away the game against Appalachian State where they survived in double overtime. Will they struggle with their ACC schedule? Looking at it, they probably should be 9-0 going into the Victory Bell game against Duke. Then all bets are off. Predicted record: 11-1.

#14 Louisville (6-0) – This is arguably the biggest surprise on this list. Not saying no one thought Louisville wouldn’t be good. Just not this good. I had them 4-2 at this point which is pretty good but not undefeated. I would say they now have the meat of their conference schedule remaining but realistically, if they can beat Duke, they could conceivably be 11-0 and playing Kentucky for the Governor’s Cup in late November. Sounds crazy but you never know. Predicted record: 10-2.

Air Force (5-0) – They have ascended to the top of the Group of Five pecking order…for now. They have Wyoming this weekend in what could be the biggest game of the season. Other than that, it could end up being a showdown with Boise State to end the regular season which will tell us whether the Falcons will have their first shot at the New Year’s Six or not. Predicted record: 10-2.

Liberty (5-0) – The Flames are playing….pretty good. Holding on to beat Sam Houston isn’t a good look though. They also might have the easiest schedule remaining of any team in FBS. So even if they ran the table it would probably mean nothing unless utter chaos happened. Predicted record: 10-2.

James Madison (5-0) – Now here’s a frustrating one. JMU is undefeated. Would be bowl-eligible except for the NCAA’s ridiculous rule that teams moving up from FCS must serve a two-year transition. The thing is, that is to keep teams from not having full FBS schedules from becoming bowl-eligible. The Dukes weren’t even like that last year in their first year in FBS. Hopefully someone comes to their senses and gives this team a shot at a bowl game, if not the Sun Belt Championship. Predicted record: 10-2.

14 teams left unscathed. We are in mid-October. I wouldn’t be surprised if we headed into November with only 5 or 6 undefeated teams. At least we know for sure that by early Sunday morning there will only be a maximum of 13 undefeated teams with Washington and Oregon meeting in a mega-matchup.

Tomorrow…yes, TOMORROW…is the start of the college football week. Conference USA continues their October Weekday Warrior schedule with two games. The Fun Belt adds to the mix with a game of their own. Wednesday then has two more C-USA games. Football every day folks. Gotta love it! Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving Day!

Lists, Lists…..LISTS!

You’d think I was employed by Buzzfeed with all these lists I’m making.

So just like last year, I will add a few more lists to accompany the Most Important Games post. It should give you a good idea of the important games to watch (at least at this point) and maybe some games to avoid (unless you are a Sicko like me and will watch any football…even, yes…arena football!)

I know, I know, I have always stated my disgust for arena football but I have to admit it does have its own trashy charm to it. OK let’s just get to the lists, shall we?

Sneaky-Good/Underrated Games

I used to list a game like this for every week of the season. This time I will rank the top dozen games that should be considered underrated but very good and that didn’t rank in the Top 35 from the previous post.

1. Oklahoma vs. Texas (at the Cotton Bowl) (Week 6, Noon, ABC/TSN2) – First of all, I am not on drugs. Not many are talking about the Sooners and most are calling for the Longhorns to walk off to the SEC with a Big XII Championship title. Do you remember what game this is? It’s the god damn Red River Shootout/Rivalry/Game/Brawl/Drinking Contest. Many times it is ridiculous, crazy, wild and just plain dumbfounding. Don’t count OU out…at least in this one game…….oh the second thing. Yeah, ABC has picked up this game but the time hasn’t been set. It will be either Noon or 3:30 because the State Fair of Texas becomes a gangland shootout at night or something like that.
2. TCU at Kansas State (Week 8, Noon, specialty pack) – The rematch of last year’s Big XII title game loses a bit of its luster but should still be important in the grand scheme of things in the conference. I get it’s not Gary Patterson anymore but Sonny Dykes is already showing he can also make the whole greater than the sum of the parts. Chris Klieman will get every opportunity to show off why he got a big extended contract and this is one of those opportunities at home in front of the Wildcat faithful.
3. Iowa at Wisconsin (Week 7, Noon, Big Ten Network) – As I said in the Most Important Games post, it feels like all the conference networks get at least one good game a season now. This could be that game, if it ends up there. Once again this could be for the Big Ten West title but it’s going to feel weird with Wisconsin not running the ball as much. Iowa, on the other hand, should be exactly the same, trying to win games 6-5.
4. Texas A&M at Ole Miss (Week 10, Noon, specialty pack) – Many will sleep on these two teams…wait, bad analogy. I forgot Petrino was at College Station. Anyway, two teams that many will cast aside but it’s almost a guarantee one of them will cause a bit of a stink in the conference. Also, take the over.
5. UCLA at Oregon State (Week 7, 5:30, Pac-12 Network) – Speaking of conference networks, here’s the worst of the bunch. That includes the Big XII’s non-existent network. Look, one of these two teams is going to be very good (I think) and will cause quite a few headaches at the top of the Pac-12 food chain (I think) and will end up being in the Pac-12 Championship (ehhhh, I don’t know).
6. TCU at Oklahoma (Week 13, Friday, Noon, FOX, confirmed) – Black Friday will start with a game between a team who just got destroyed in the national championship and a team that normally is great and struggled to be bowl-eligible. Both teams will have something to prove and this could be their last real chance to do so (and make it count) this season.
7. Kansas State at Texas Tech (Week 7, 3:30, ABC/TSN2) – I guess it makes sense that the Big XII fills a good portion of this section after almost being shut out of my Top 35 most important games of the season. The Red Raiders always put up the points, no matter who the quarterback, head coach, or receivers are. And KSU can also do that when they want to. Should be a shootout (of sorts).
8. South Carolina at Texas A&M (Week 9, Noon, specialty pack) – More Fun Bobby! And Fun Shane…ok that one doesn’t have as good a ring to it. But BeamerBall 2.0 is a lot of fun to watch.
9. Arkansas at Ole Miss (Week 6, 7:30, specialty pack) – Could Sam Pittman be the most lovable coach in the game right now? Perhaps. He still feels like a bit of an underdog and you always root for the underdog, right? Wait…I’m getting something here….a message…ah, OK. Lane Kiffin doesn’t agree.
10. Minnesota at Iowa (Week 8, 3:30, FOX) – Row The Boat vs. Single-Digit Scoring. I am intrigued, I’m not going to lie. Plus we will see the best new tradition in all of not just college football but sports in general, the Iowa Wave.
11. Duke at North Carolina (Week 11, 8:00, specialty pack) – The Eastern version of the Victory Bell could be important once again. Both teams look like they could slot in anywhere from three to six in the ACC this year (with no divisions thank god). So a win here and maybe an upset or two somewhere else and one of these programs will duke it out for a conference championship.
12. Ole Miss at Tulane (Week 2, 3:30, specialty pack) – The game time is confirmed. I assume it heads to the specialty pack. Too bad because TSN would be smart to pick up this game. The Green Wave, who have to be considered to have the best odds to make it back as the best Group of Five team, hosting Ole Miss in what will be stiflingly hot weather in New Orleans…yeah I like Tulane’s chances but I still think it will be a close one.

Best Group of Five Games

Next up is our friends from the Group of Five. Three of them got invited to sit up at the adult table so overall this group is a tiny bit weaker. That just means other teams will have opportunities that they may not have had before. So let’s look at the best Group of Five games this season. And no, the Ole Miss-Tulane game above doesn’t count. This is full G5-on-G5 violence, bruh.

1. UTSA at Tulane (Week 13, 7:00, specialty pack) – As per usual, the American Conference should make up the bulk of this list. The defending Group of Five champion (and Cotton Bowl champion), Tulane is the favourite to do it again. UTSA is in its first season in the American but already could be the team to knock the Green Wave off their perch. Huge game where I have to favour Tulane only because it’s in New Orleans not the Alamodome where the Roadrunners have a huge home advantage.
2. Air Force at Boise State (Week 13, Friday, 4:00, FOX Sports One, confirmed) – Not having FS1 will deprive Canadians of a lot of good Mountain West action. This should be the conference’s game of the year and the winner probably goes to the Mountain West Championship. Being on the Smurf Turf, I would give the Broncos the slight edge here.
3. South Alabama at Tulane (Week 1, 8:00, specialty pack) – This game is set for ESPNU on opening Saturday and, I can almost guarantee, will head to the specialty pack. The Jaguars (Jag-you-ares) came out of nowhere last season to almost win the Sun Belt. They are the favourites to win the conference and if they can pull the mini-upset here, could feasibly run the table. I guess I could say the same thing about Tulane.
4. Boise State at Fresno State (Week 10, 10:00, CBS Sports Network, confirmed) – Hey it’s CBSSN’s first foray onto any of these lists. CBSSN is a nice palette cleanser really. It shows games you never would have normally watched. Plus it shows most of UConn’s games. I am liking CBSSN having the CFL. Yes it’s just a simulcast of TSN’s showing but it works. Kind of wish they would come up with at least their own play-by-play and analysis and just use the TSN visuals.
5. Tulane at Memphis (Week 7, Friday, 7:00, TSN2) – It’s the time of year when the American and ACC split most of the Thursday and Friday night games on ESPN and their dysfunctional family of networks. TSN tends to show more Friday night games because they can put it on TSN2 and not have it interfere with the CFL’s Friday Night Football. Anyway, yes, it’s the Green Wave again. Bored yet? They might be that good. Maybe even legit Top 12 good if everything falls right.
6. Boise State at San Diego State (Week 4, Friday, 10:30, CBS Sports Network, confirmed) – And here comes Boise State again. I mean I want to say there aren’t two obvious frontrunners in the G5 but there are. Both the Broncos and Tulane should be in it to the end to see who gets that single spot.
7. South Alabama at Troy (Week 10, Thursday, 7:30, specialty pack) – Hey it’s not Tulane, Boise State, the American or the Mountain West! Let’s give the Sun Belt a lot of respect. They have become the third-best Group of Five conference and it’s a pretty wide gap between them and the two conferences below them, the MAC and Conference USA. The Battle for the Belt (so good to have a wrestling title belt as the rivalry trophy) should be for the de facto Sun Belt West title unless Louisiana or maybe Southern Miss has something to say about it.
8. Boise State at Memphis (Week 5, 3:30, specialty pack) – This might end up on ESPN or ESPN2 depending on how both teams are doing at this point. I could see it happening because ESPN made a point to trade with CBS for this BSU road game.
9. Tulane at East Carolina (Week 10, 3:30, specialty pack) – I figured East Carolina would have to find someone to replace Holton Ahlers and his 245 passes per game. Instead they plan to completely turn to the running game and grind teams into the turf. If this somehow works, Georgia Tech fans are gonna be real mad.
10. WKU at Troy (Week 4, 3:30, ESPN+) – First Conference USA appearance and it heads to ESPN+. I have that this year for the first time so I am going to have a lot of fun and totally destroy my remote control this season with that. Kind of wish it even got to ESPNU so that the specialty packs could pick it up. I still think WKU and MTSU were foolish not to take the MAC’s potential invite as they are stuck now in arguably the worst FBS conference with not much in the way of rivalries.
11. San Diego State at Air Force (Week 5, 8:00, CBS Sports Network, confirmed) – OK two teams that aren’t quite fitting the mold of the top G5 teams. Nice. And, if things go according to plan, we should see a bazillion yards rushing and the game might be over by 10:00.
12. Eastern Michigan at Toledo (Week 11, Wednesday, 7:00, specialty pack) – Finally we end this list with a MACtion game since I have to. MACtion is awesome. We also have Fun Belt now and whatever the American conference calls their weeknight games. Oh and Conference USA is doing pretty much all weeknight games in October. Crazy! Anyway, this could very well be the two best MAC teams so let’s call this the de facto MAC West championship.

Best Group of Five vs. Power Five Games

Let’s bring back this section because these games are the ones many college football fans feast on. What is better than watching your hated rival lose to a Group of Five team? Not much. And I have always said, Group of Five teams, at least the better ones, should get their shot at Power Five teams to see what they are worth. If it wasn’t for that happening, very few teams would have moved up and the Power Five may have already separated from the rest of college football by now.

1. Ole Miss at Tulane (Week 2, 3:30, specialty pack) – This was already discussed above but it is the biggest G5 vs. P5 game of the season and hosted by the Group of Five team which is a rarity but happening more often these days which is nice to see.
2. UTSA at Tennessee (Week 4, 7:30, specialty pack) – The Roadrunners meep their way up the food chain to the American Conference this season and are already a contender for the league title (and perhaps a NY6 spot). The Vols will be really good this season but a UTSA win her would be massive for the program and for the college football season as a whole.
3. Boise State at Washington (Week 1, 3:30, ABC/TSN2) – Everything is confirmed except for if the game will appear on TSN. I believe it will but we won’t know for like another two months. Ridiculous. Washington is looking to ride their Heisman contender quarterback all the way, hopefully, to the College Football Playoff so a slip-up here would almost derail that entire plan.
4. WKU at Ohio State (Week 3, 4:00, FOX, confirmed) – Look, are the Hilltoppers going to win this? No. All we can hope for is for WKU to put a scare into tOSU. If, somehow, they ended up with the upset, it would be the biggest upset in the history of college football and you wouldn’t be able to convince me otherwise.
5. Troy at Kansas State (Week 2, Noon, FOX Sports One, confirmed) – OK now this one has intrigue written all over it. Troy is one of a handful of teams that has legit New Year’s Six aspirations out of the Group of Five. Kansas State is the defending Big XII champions but have a few question marks. This feels ripe for an upset.
6. SMU at TCU (Week 4, Noon, specialty pack) – The Battle for the Iron Skillet. This might be the best one yet if the Mustangs are as good as some say they will be. Not the favourite in the American so they will have to show out in games like this to catch voters’ eyes. This could be a good litmus test to see how far TCU has fallen from last year’s national runner-up team.
7. San Diego State at Oregon State (Week 3, 3:30, FOX Sports One, confirmed) – This could be a tasty affair if the Aztecs step up and prove they could be eventually Pac-12 worthy in football. Otherwise, you might hear a lot of chainsaws going in this one since Oregon State is definitely a dark horse contender this season.
8. SMU at Oklahoma (Week 2, 6:00, ESPN+, confirmed) – Ouch. Seeing this relegated to ESPN+ surprises me a bit but the Sooners are not the team they had been for the past few decades. The Sooners are going to try and come out of the gate swinging but don’t be surprised if the Stangs give them some trouble in this one.
9. UCF at Boise State (Week 2, 7:00, FOX Sports One, confirmed) – Last year this would have been in the previous section. Now the Knights are in the Big XII but they may still be an underdog on this one. If I were a betting man I would put my money on the Broncos here as they are hoping to run the table and get back to where they believe they belong: as the top dog among the Group of Five.
10. East Carolina at Michigan (Week 1, Noon, Peacock, confirmed) – The debut of Peacock on these lists. I am sure at some point it will be available for Canadians but we aren’t quite there yet. Yeah I don’t think this will be really close but you never know. I wonder if ECU can run on this Michigan offense. If they can, the entire Big Ten will be watching tape of this game all season to see if they can replicate it.
11. UCLA at San Diego State (Week 2, 7:30, CBS, confirmed) – Nice to see the Mountain West appearing on CBS. The week before this we get Texas Tech/Wyoming and here we get a very interesting matchup that could easily lead to an upset, if SDSU has things going by the second week of the season.
12. UTSA at Houston (Week 1, 7:00, FOX Sports One, confirmed) – The Cougs have stepped up to the Big XII conference. Good for them. Problem is they start their first season back on the top tier of college football against one of the best Group of Five teams. The only thing helping Houston is that the game is in Houston and not San Antonio. I am sure Drunk Uncle Dana will be about seven Red Bulls in by the time this one starts.

Worst Power Five Games

Didn’t think I’d forget this section, right? These are the games that you can probably avoid, unless they are close. They fill conference networks (and really are the reason those networks exist but I will not complain about that) and even sometimes creep onto FOX or an ESPN2 or ESPNU. Sad but true. Spoiler alert: I will still watch most of these games.

1. Northwestern at Rutgers (Week 1, Sunday, Noon, CBS, confirmed) – What a way to show off the new Big Ten on CBS with a game between *checks notes* uh….Northwestern and Rutgers? My God that is not good at all. Who the hell is picking these games at CBS? The only thing I can think happened was that it was the last game remaining…like picking the last kid in dodgeball. Well, nothing else will be on at that time at least in a college football sense so guess what ol’ Bossman will be watching?
2. Stanford at Colorado (Week 7, Friday, 10:00, TSN2) – This is confirmed for ESPN2 but who knows if TSN will pick it up or not. Look I understand there is a lot of hype with Deion Sanders now coaching at Colorado. And that’s a good thing for that program. But they will struggle to be bowl-eligible this season. Now Stanford….that’s a different story. They are back to the days before Jim Harbaugh and then David Shaw resurrected this program. They may just be the worst Power Five team at this point. What a fall from grace.
3. Virginia Tech at Virginia (Week 13, Noon, specialty pack) – What happened last year at Virginia was tragic. Three players gunned down late in the season. UVA rightfully cancelled their final two games, including the Commonwealth Cup game against VaTech. Now they are back but this will not be an easy season for the Hoos, both on the field and emotionally. The Hokies are as bad as I have ever seen them be. Then again, I only mostly saw them as a Frank Beamer team. Beamerball, this is not. Look, I hate putting this game here but these two teams might be god-awful this season.
4. Rutgers at Indiana (Week 8, Noon, Big Ten Network) – Rutgers is, unfortunately, back to being Rutgers. And Indiana without Michael Penix Jr…well we found out they were bad. Both coaches will be on the hot seat with Tom Allen in the much hotter seat for sure. The loser might not win a Big Ten game this season.
5. Virginia at Boston College (Week 5, Noon, specialty pack) – As for non-Virginia teams in the ACC who probably won’t be going bowling, BC comes to mind. I can’t see them finding the magic formula especially with a young, relatively untested quarterback manning the ship.
6. California at Stanford (Week 12, 9:00, Pac-12 Network) – Ah, the worst of the conference networks. What a shitshow it is. Anyway, The Big Game will be anything but big this season as I already mentioned how bad Stanford will be and I don’t know how many people outside the Cal football program care about Cal football. A shame, really.
7. Colorado at Arizona State (Week 6, 9:00, Pac-12 Network) – Remember when ASU was the laughing stock of the Pac-12 for like a second? Everyone thought their ship was going to come crashing down. Well it did but other teams flew past them into the basement. That doesn’t mean this is some kind of comeback story, though. They still aren’t good and will be fighting for bowl eligibility. Wins in games like this are a must for that to happen.
8. Georgia Tech at Virginia (Week 10, 3:30, specialty pack) – It feels kind of weird watching Georgia Tech play football when they aren’t running the Paul Johnson option offense. You know, I’m starting to think they never should have changed from that. Made them unique and helped them win just as often as they lost.
9. Virginia Tech at Rutgers (Week 3, 3:30, Big Ten Network, confirmed) – Hey let’s dip into some non-con action now. I would ask who the hell scheduled a game like this but it was probably scheduled back when the Hokies played their first season in the ACC.
10. Arizona at Stanford (Week 4, 7:00, FOX Sports One) – I have to be honest: Jedd Fisch has already exceeded my expectations for a) his coaching in Tucson and b) a guy named Jedd. This team is on the brink of getting back to postseason play for the first time in years. I will put the over/under on fans attending this game at 14,000.
11. Arizona State at California (Week 5, 9:30, Pac-12 Network) – I am still on the record saying that there should be a pure sports-style Netflix or Amazon Prime out there. One where you can add or subtract whatever channels you want based on sport, country, etc. Would it be the death knell to cable? No but it would be quite the flesh wound. By the way, this game has some pretty good Pac-12 After Dark vibes to it and could get wacky because both teams are just not that good.
12. Northwestern at Nebraska (Week 8, 2:30, Peacock) – I would be remiss if I didn’t include Nebraska somewhere on this list. They’ve fooled and many others over the past few years. So until they prove it, I will not take the bait. Nope, no more. I refuse to drink the Husker Koolaid.

Alright, done and dusted. A reminder that tomorrow is the end of the fiscal year for pretty much all the FBS schools. There are rumours that something on the realignment (oh god that word) front could happen by the end of the night or the very next day. Last year it was USC and UCLA to the Big Ten. Can’t see anything as big as that but you never know.

Well, I would like to wish everyone a great Canada Day weekend and Fourth of July celebration. We are less than two months away folks. Nice to be talking college football again.

Iiiiiiiiiiit’s…TIME! For another Thanksgiving* FOOTBALLGASMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!

*of course I mean American Thanksgiving but you already knew that….right?

Just because it’s Thanksgiving south of the border doesn’t mean we can’t have turkey and mashed potatoes and gravy and peas and sweet potatoes and stuffing and pumpkin pie and…oh man I’m getting hungry. I think it’s a good way to support our ‘Murican friends on Turkey Day, don’t you think?

One sad thing is that everyday college football ends tonight. Tomorrow there are no games. I think there should be one. When I become commissioner of college football, I will do that. For all of you. There’s still college football on American Thanksgiving Day along with the usual NFL fare and then things ramp the fuck up starting Black Friday. I am so ready. Let’s get to the schedules and again it will be in the normal Thanksgiving style that I use….with a bit of a twist this year. Again, I am using AP Poll rankings because this blog post will come out a few hours before the next College Football Playoff Rankings come out.

Tuesday

Bowling Green (+6.5) at Ohio

7:00 PM

The week starts with the MAC East Division title game. If the Bobcats win, they head to Detroit. If the Falcons win, as of right now, they also head to Detroit. What is planned for Buffalo with their cancelled game against Akron is anyone’s guess. Predicted score: Ohio 38 Bowling Green 28.

Thursday

Mississippi State (+2.5) at #20 Ole Miss

7:00 PM

There is no chance this game could be important. It would have been if the Rebs could have beat Arkansas last week. Instead they were run out of the building. There may also be the distraction of Lane Kiffin possibly being named head coach of Auburn soon. Oh, and if you’ve noticed, I’m including the spread and a predicted score for each game. Predicted score: Ole Miss 41 Mississippi State 24.

Friday

#19 Tulane (+2) at #24 Cincinnati

Noon

I’m glad that ABC has made sure to have the AAC appear a few times on the main network during a season. Otherwise, this would have gone to, at best, ESPN if not lower. Huge game. Winner goes into the catbird seat for the Cotton Bowl spot. The loser could still go to the AAC Championship Game with a UCF loss later on. Predicted score: Cincinnati 43 Tulane 27.

Utah State (+16.5) at Boise State

Noon

I’m sure CBS was hoping for a much bigger game here. USU is already bowl-eligible and Boise has clinched their spot in the Mountain West Championship. That’ll be a pass for me, dawg. Predicted score: Boise State 34 Utah State 27.

Central Michigan (-2) at Eastern Michigan

Noon

Speaking of games that mean nothing, here’s another one. CMU is not going bowling. EMU is. Predicted score: Eastern Michigan 35 Central Michigan 27.

Baylor (+8.5) at #23 Texas

Noon

This could mean big things for Texas. They have to take care of business on their own end and beat the Bears here. If they do, they can then watch Kansas State-Kansas and hope the Wildcats lose for them to get a Big XII Championship opportunity. Predicted score: Texas 41 Baylor 39.

Toledo (-7.5) at Western Michigan

Noon

Nothing really to see here. Toledo is going to Ford Field for the MAC Championship and WMU is home for the holidays. Predicted score: Toledo 30 Western Michigan 19.

NC State (+6.5) at #17 North Carolina

3:30 PM

The Tar Heels will use this as a tune-up for their game against Clemson the following weekend. Beating the Tigers is the only probably way for UNC to get to the Orange Bowl. Predicted score: NC State 30 North Carolina 29.

Arkansas (-3) at Missouri

3:30 PM

Mizzou needs a win here to go bowling. Arkansas is already in…barely. Could be fun. Predicted score: Arkansas 26 Missouri 24.

New Mexico (+7.5) at Colorado State

3:30 PM

Arguably the two worst teams in the Mountain West here. There are better options on at the same time. Predicted score: Colorado State 18 New Mexico 12.

Nebraska (+10.5) at Iowa

4:00 PM

I do find it a bit funny that this seems to get relegated more and more to the Big Ten Network. Anyway, a win here and the offensively challenged Hawkeyes get a trip to Indianapolis. Lose and there are ways in which they still go to the Big Ten Championship and other ways where they don’t. I went over that in the previous post and flat-out refuse to go into it here. Predicted score: Iowa 32 Nebraska 17.

#18 UCLA (-10) at California

4:30 PM

The Bruins played themselves out of a potential Pac-12 Championship berth so they are playing for the extremely slim possibility of going to a New Year’s Six bowl. And it is EXTREMELY slim. Predicted score: UCLA 45 California 27.

Florida (+9.5) at #16 Florida State

7:30 PM

Does this game mean much in the grand scheme of things? Not really. The Noles would need a lot to happen to get into the NY6 and the Gators are bowl-eligible. Does this game mean much to fans of either team? Abso-fucking-lutely. Predicted score: Florida State 33 Florida 14.

Saturday Early

South Carolina (+14.5) at #8 Clemson

Noon

With so many options, this is one of them. Could the Cocks shock the Tigers? Yeah I guess. I can’t see it happening though. Clemson does need to win here, though, to keep any small College Football Playoff possibilities alive. Predicted score: Clemson 43 South Carolina 24.

Rutgers (+14) at Maryland

Noon

Rutgers is out, Maryland is in. I think we will see a fair amount of these types of games for this week. Predicted score: Maryland 38 Rutgers 24.

WKU (-7) at Florida Atlantic

Noon

The Owls are fighting for their bowl lives here. The Hilltoppers need a win (and a North Texas loss) to play for the Conference USA Championship. For once, there are some good stakes from the noon CBSSN game. Predicted score: WKU 38 Florida Atlantic 31.

Georgia Tech (+35.5) at #1 Georgia

Noon

Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate. There actually is quite a bit of importance to this one. Georgia cannot slip up if they want to go into conference championship week as the number one team in the land. Tech needs a victory to go bowling which would be an absolutely remarkable turnaround from the dreadful Geoff Collins era. Predicted score: Georgia 52 Georgia Tech 20.

West Virginia (+8.5) at Oklahoma State

Noon

No. I mean why? To see if Neal Brown gets fired after the game ends, Herm Edwards-style? Predicted score: Oklahoma State 30 West Virginia 28.

Coastal Carolina (+13.5) at James Madison

Noon

This seems like a huge spread in favour of JMU considering how good the Chanticleers have been this season. I guess it does show what kind of home field advantage the Dukes have. Unfortunately, thanks to stupid NCAA rules, JMU can’t go to a bowl game because they had the audacity to be good in their first year at the FBS level. Stupid. CCU needs a win and a LOT of help to be considered in the Cotton Bowl conversation. Predicted score: Coastal Carolina 24 James Madison 18.

#3 Michigan (+7.5) at #2 Ohio State

Noon

The Game. The biggest one in a few years. Winner almost guarantees themselves a spot in the College Football Playoff. The loser isn’t out either if things go their way. High, HIGH stakes here in a game where Gus Johnson might lose his voice. Predicted score: Ohio State 38 Michigan 37.

Saturday Afternoon

Southern vs. Grambling (in New Orleans)

2:00 PM

Prairie View A&M had a chance to wrap up the SWAC West Division title and were stunned by lowly Mississippi Valley State. This means that Southern can now sneak in and win the division and a date with Jackson State in the SWAC Championship if they beat Grambling. Predicted score (I couldn’t find any gambling lines for this game): Southern 40 Grambling 24.

#25 Louisville (+3.5) at Kentucky

3:00 PM

And odd start time here, especially by SEC Network standards. Both teams are bowling. Neither team can get to the New Year’s Six. People will watch if this game stays close but otherwise there is no reason to. Predicted score: Kentucky 33 Louisville 26.

#9 Oregon (-3) at #21 Oregon State

3:30 PM

Look, Oregon State is a good team. No, I’m not lying. No wonder the spread is so low. Could be very loud in Corvallis for this one. The Ducks need a win here to get to the Pac-12 Championship and keep their CFP hopes alive. Oregon State is going for their ninth victory of the season, their highest win total since 2012. Predicted score: Oregon 41 Oregon State 40.

Illinois (-14) at Northwestern

3:30 PM

We will know by now whether this game actually means anything to Illinois. I could see Bret Bielema getting a nice, fat extension in the offseason. As of right now, I have no idea whether this game or the other BTN game on at this time will be shown on the specialty pack. The specialty pack schedules show neither at this point which is always a bad sign. Hopefully this gets rectified by Saturday. Predicted score: Illinois 41 Northwestern 21.

UPDATE #2: This is now showing on the specialty pack guide.

Purdue (-10.5) at Indiana

3:30 PM

The Old Oaken Bucket. Again, we will know by start time whether Purdue has a shot at the Big Ten West or not. I have this game in the BTN slot that Canadians would get. Who the hell knows what will happen though. Predicted score: Purdue 30 Indiana 15.

Auburn (+22) at #7 Alabama

3:30 PM

Alabama doesn’t really have a chance at the College Football Playoff, do they? I mean I don’t think so but I know ESPN’s love for the Bama brand. Oh and do you want some laughs? Auburn needs a win here to be bowl-eligible AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Barely got that out before laughing. Predicted score: Alabama 41 Auburn 17.

UAB (-17.5) at Louisiana Tech

3:30 PM

The Blazers are having a down year. At least a down for year for this program since they were resurrected. They can get in to a bowl game with a win here. Predicted score: UAB 35 Louisiana Tech 18.

Minnesota (+3.5) at Wisconsin

3:30 PM

Look there’s nothing much going on here. Neither team really has a legit shot at the Big Ten West title. And they are both going bowling. Meh. Predicted score: Wisconsin 30 Minnesota 26.

Wake Forest (-3.5) at Duke

3:30 PM

Duke has been a massive surprise this season. They have been seriously competitive all season and Mike Elko is going to get a bit of Coach of the Year consideration (even though he won’t win). This game doesn’t mean anything as both teams are comfortably bowl-eligible. Predicted score: Wake Forest 38 Duke 26.

UPDATE #3: This still isn’t showing on the specialty pack guide although it should in the next 24 hours.

Virginia at Virginia Tech

3:30 PM

cancelled

The Commonwealth Cup game between UVA and VT has been cancelled. I am not surprised by this decision and it was made a lot easier by the fact that neither team would be going to a bowl game this year anyway. I put forth an idea on Twitter of maybe having the game during Army-Navy week (before the game perhaps) and have the ticket money go to the families or charity or something like that. Don’t think that would go through as I have a feeling the Virginia football program just needs this season to end so they can continue their mourning.

Memphis (+4.5) at SMU

3:30 PM

Both teams are 6-5. This means very little in the grand scheme of things. Predicted score: SMU 31 Memphis 25.

UPDATE #4: This isn’t showing on the specialty pack guide. I am sure the UVA-VT cancellation has to be adjusted before this will show up.

Troy (-13.5) at Arkansas State

3:30 PM

This is an odd one. This game was moved here during the shuffle caused by the Hoos-Hokies cancellation. Non-cable users in the U.S. can get this game on ESPN+ as an ESPNU game. I have a feeling this might be enough to screw things up on the specialty pack end of things meaning this game would show up nowhere here. We shall see. Predicted score: Troy 36 Arkansas State 13.

UPDATE #5: Well I am right that at this point the specialty pack is not showing this game. I have a feeling that will change by Thursday afternoon but I will keep you all updated.

Iowa State (+10) at #4 TCU

4:00 PM

The Horned Frogs cannot falter here. They are closing in on a dream season and the last thing they need is a struggle against the Cyclones. I could see ISU keeping this one close in what could be Matt Campbell’s final game as head coach of the Clones. Predicted score: TCU 34 Iowa State 24.

#14 Utah (-29.5) at Colorado

4:00 PM

Utah doesn’t have a shot at the Pac-12 Championship so this means little to them. Colorado is horrendously awful so I am sure they want this season to end quickly. Predicted score: Utah 42 Colorado 10.

Saturday Primetime

#5 LSU (-10) at Texas A&M

7:00 PM

LSU cannot look ahead to Georgia despite the fact that the Aggies might very well be the worst team in the SEC this year. Never thought I would say that about a Jimbo Fisher-coached team but they are awful. Predicted score: LSU 39 Texas A&M 23.

#22 UCF (-19.5) at USF

7:00 PM

The Knights should mop the floor with USF. They need to, otherwise they unbelievably won’t go to the AAC Championship and destroyed their Cotton Bowl chances in a matter of one week. Predicted score: UCF 48 USF 14.

#15 Notre Dame (+5.5) at #6 USC

7:30 PM

Notre Dame looked dead to rights earlier in the season. Now, if they win here, they probably lock up an Orange Bowl bid. Incredible. USC, on the other hand, has already clinched a spot in the Pac-12 title game and have to win here to keep their CFP hopes alive. ABC was smart to put this in primetime. Predicted score: USC 43 Notre Dame 40.

Tulsa (+12) at Houston

7:30 PM

Nothing to play for here. Unless it’s close, don’t bother. Predicted score: Houston 31 Tulsa 26.

#10 Tennessee (-14) at Vanderbilt

7:30 PM

This is actually a big game for both teams. Crazy, right? The Dores win here and they go bowling which would be huge for this program that has struggled since James Franklin left. The Vols need to keep up with the rest of the teams above them if they want any hope of getting into the College Football Playoff, as much of a long shot as it is. And both teams will want to destroy the chances of the other. Too bad for Vandy that I have a feeling Tennessee will show up VERY angry. Predicted score: Tennessee 49 Vanderbilt 13.

Pittsburgh (-6.5) at Miami

8:00 PM

A Miami win gets the Canes bowl-eligible. It’s shocking how far this team has fallen. Good call shitcanning Manny Diaz for no reason other than to nab Mario Cristobal, right? Some of these programs just overthink these kinds of things, usually to their detriment. Predicted score: Miami 22 Pittsburgh 15.

Kansas (+12) at #12 Kansas State

8:00 PM

OK sure the primetime slate doesn’t have some of the pizazz as the earlier games of the day (minus the ND-USC game) but a lot of these games still have importance. KSU wins here and they head to JerryWorld for the first time for the Big XII Championship. Kansas can stop that from happening. And it could happen. Kansas is actually pretty good. Predicted score: Kansas State 36 Kansas 30.

Saturday Late Night

Air Force (-1.5) at San Diego State

9:00 PM

SDSU and the AFA squandered any chances of promising seasons early on in the season. Both teams are still having decent years but they are being overshadowed by a few other teams who have just been that much better when it counted. Predicted score: San Diego State 23 Air Force 17.

SE Missouri State at Montana

10:00 PM

How about this? FCS Playoffs on ESPN2? Sure. But the first round of the playoffs? This has not happened since they expanded to 24 teams in 2013. Should be a nice change of pace. And it should be seriously cold up in Missoula. Predicted score: Montana 38 SE Missouri State 36.

UPDATE #6: For some reason, this isn’t appearing on the specialty pack guide. I’m sure it will soon enough but being an FCS game I am a bit worried it won’t end up appearing at all.

#13 Washington (-2) at Washington State

10:30 PM

If Oregon loses to Oregon State earlier in the day, this game becomes massive. The Huskies can then clinch a Pac-12 Championship Game spot with a win here in the Apple Cup. Otherwise, this game isn’t really that important. I mean I will watch it. Hell, I will also watch the BYU-Stanford game that starts half an hour after this. Why? Because that’s what I do. I honestly can’t totally figure it out anymore. Predicted score: Washington State 24 Washington 14.

UPDATE: I have updated the rankings to match the CFP Rankings.

Holy shit that’s a lot of football! No complaints though since we know what it will be like in a few months. I will be on Twitter often but not all the time as even I need sleep/pass out. As I mentioned about TSN last week, their coverage is much reduced this year for the final week of the college football regular season. I wouldn’t look too much into this as the World Cup takes up most of the early window and that’s where TSN usually had three or four games alone. Does it suck for college football fans who don’t have the specialty pack? Absolutely. But I guess if you are a college football fan, buying a specialty pack would be the least you would do, no?

I will keep this post updated when need be. It wouldn’t surprise me if there were some specialty pack updates. I hope TSN is set but I don’t trust them fully. Anyway, have a great rest of the week and enjoy the games everyone!

SUPER MEGA HYPER OMNI POST! Version 6.0.0

I have sent out the warning before so if you know about it you can skip to the next section. But if you are new to this, here it is: this post is insanely long. Don’t read this on the toilet since I am sure you could get hemorrhoids for being on the can that long. Hell, don’t even take it into the bath with you. I don’t think your skin can wrinkle that much. You have been forewarned. So get your favourite drink, sit down and enjoy this absolute avalanche of information.

This is the sixth version of this stupidly long post; however, it’s only the second with the same format as last year’s. Longer and uncut. No recaps since I don’t do those anymore but my Top 25, bowl projections, conference championship scenarios and some other crazy crap that you may or may not have even wanted to look at. Let’s get the ball rolling with the Bossman Top 25.

#1	Georgia
#2	Ohio State
#3	TCU
#4	USC
#5	Michigan
#6	LSU
#7	Oregon
#8	Clemson
#9	Alabama
#10	Penn State
#11	Tennessee
#12	Washington
#13	Utah
#14	Kansas State
#15	Notre Dame
#16	Florida State
#17	Tulane
#18	UCLA
#19	North Carolina
#20	Oregon State
#21	Cincinnati
#22	Ole Miss
#23	Texas
#24	Coastal Carolina
#25	UCF

So nothing really happened near the top although I have adjusted my rankings a bit. I have USC in now and Michigan out. I still think Michigan’s schedule has been mostly shit this season. That will all change if they beat tOSU so really, this doesn’t matter. I think USC has put themselves in the driver’s seat to get one of the Top 4 spots. Beat Notre Dame and win the Pac-12 Championship and they are golden…I think. The Group of Five will go through the American Conference although UCF’s loss to Navy has opened the door for a trio of Sun Belt teams (Coastal Carolina, Troy and South Alabama) to still have a sliver of hope although a lot has to happen for them to even have a legitimate shot. Finally, I think the Big XII will have the lowest ranked team in the New Year’s Six because I can’t see Kansas State beating TCU for the Big XII title.

Alright so far so good. I think. I hope. Let’s get on with the second part of this massive post, the conference championship game scenarios.

Toledo has clinched the MAC West already. In the MAC East, Ohio can clinch tomorrow night with a win over Bowling Green. Now, with Buffalo’s game against Akron getting postponed and probably cancelled outright, I don’t know what happens if Ohio loses and then the Bulls beat Kent State. The Bulls would have played one less conference game and would win the division if they had been allowed to play Akron and then won. An odd scenario that may become moot if the Bobcats win.

UTSA has clinched a spot in the conference title game and will host (I had wondered if the game would be moved permanently to the Alamodome but that won’t happen now that UTSA heads to the AAC next season).

North Texas is in the driver’s seat for the other spot (remember there are no divisions in Conference USA this season thank fucking God). If the Mean Green beat Rice they are off to San Antonio. Lose then that opens the door for WKU. If they can beat FAU they will play the Roadrunners.

Coastal Carolina is already in the championship game. It’s going to be close but I have a feeling the Chants will host the game as well. The host is the highest ranked team in the CFP Poll.

Troy beat South Alabama earlier this season so if they beat Arkansas State they will win the Sun Belt West. A loss and a USA win and it’s the Jaguars who will win. Both teams are looking for their first division title.

Boise State and Fresno State punched their tickets to the conference championship game with wins this weekend.

UCF had a chance to claim one of the conference title game spots but lost against Navy. They are still in with a win in the War on I-4 against USF. If they lose then the loser of the Tulane-Cincinnati game will play…the winner of the Tulane-Cincinnati game in the championship.

This was looking like a complete shitshow going into the previous week. Things have really been clarified after the results on Saturday.

USC is already in thanks to their amazing win over UCLA in one of the best Pac-12 games in recent memory (that actually meant something). Oregon eliminated Utah by beating them two nights ago. They are in the driver’s seat for the other spot. Washington still has a chance. They must win the Apple Cup and hope Oregon loses the Civil War to go to Santa Clara.

It feels like TCU clinched about a month ago. Kansas State sits in second and just has to beat Kansas in the Sunflower Showdown to make it to JerryWorld. Most years that would be a foregone conclusion but not so this season. If the Wildcats lose, Texas can get there if they beat Baylor on the final weekend.

Clemson vs. North Carolina has been booked for a couple weeks now.

We know what it comes down to. The Game. Ohio State-Michigan. Winner is in, loser has to await their fate for the College Football Playoff. In the West, Iowa, with their horrible offense, is somehow in the lead and has the easiest path to the Big Ten Championship. Beat Nebraska on Black Friday and none of the other games matter in the Big Ten West. If they lose, it opens up a few possibilities. Purdue can win it by then beating Indiana for the Old Oaken Bucket. If they also lose, well then God help us all. Illinois should handle Northwestern. Wisconsin and Minnesota play each other. It would give us a four-way tie between Purdue, Iowa, Illinois and the Minny/Wisky winner. Here’s how all this would look in terms of the head-to-head tiebreaker:

• Iowa lost to Illinois but beat Purdue, Wisconsin and Minnesota.
• Purdue beat Minnesota and Illinois and lost to Wisconsin and Iowa.
• Illinois beat Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin but lost to Purdue.
• Minnesota lost to Purdue, Illinois and Iowa and still have to face Wisconsin.
• Wisconsin still has to play Minnesota. They lost to Illinois and Iowa, but beat Purdue.

So, after all that, if there was a four-way tie and Minnesota beat Wisconsin, then Iowa, Purdue and Illinois would all be 2-1 in the head-to-head standings. Then comes divisional records where Iowa and Illinois would be tied at 4-1. The next tiebreaker is record against progressively worse teams in the division. Iowa and Illinois both beat Wisconsin and Nebraska and Northwestern. So now we go to common conference opponents. Meaning the divisional record plus any games they both played against the same teams in the East. The only team both faced was Michigan and both teams lost. This is getting insane. Next up is the cumulative conference record of their non-conference opponents and here is where it’s not really that close. Illinois’ East Division opponents have gone 13-11 in the conference going into the final week. Iowa’s opponents from the East have gone 17-7. So Iowa would get in.

If Wisconsin beats Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois would be tied at 2-1 with Purdue and Wisconsin at 1-2 in head-to-head matchups. I am not going through all the tiebreakers again but Iowa beats Illinois.

So if we get the four-way tie, no matter what, Iowa will go to face the East Division winner. Man, I hope I have that all right.

Well this will be a lot easier than the Big Ten scenarios. Georgia and LSU have already clinched their divisions and will face off in Atlanta. See? Much easier.

I’m already tired. But I will soldier on. Time for the updated bowl projections.

Fiesta Bowl	CFP #2 vs. CFP #3	Ohio State vs. TCU
Peach Bowl	CFP #1 vs. CFP #4	Georgia vs. Michigan

From my previous bowl projections two weeks ago, the Fiesta Bowl has not changed one bit. As for the Peach Bowl, Georgia is still #1. Now I have Michigan in instead of UCLA. UCLA not being in is an easy choice after they lost to USC. I see Michigan losing a close one to Ohio State. That is the first step. I also see LSU and USC losing their conference championship games. Finally, even though I think Clemson beats North Carolina in a relatively close ACC Championship, they don’t have the strength of schedule anymore to leapfrog Michigan for the #4 spot. Many will bitch and complain, much like they have when two SEC teams got in but I think this has a really good shot at happening.

Now on to the New Year’s Six which has got quite interesting over the past couple weeks.

Rose Bowl	Big Ten #1 vs. Pac-12 #1	Penn State vs. Oregon
Cotton Bowl	CFP At-large vs. G-5 #1	USC vs. UCF
Sugar Bowl	SEC #1 vs. Big XII #1	Alabama vs. Kansas State
Orange Bowl	ACC #1 vs. Big Ten/Notre Dame/SEC	Clemson vs. LSU

OK so a lot more changed here than in the CFP projections. Here we go:

• Normally the Big Ten champ would go to the Rose Bowl. With Ohio State and Michigan both in the CFP, the next best team out of the Big Ten would get this spot and that would be Penn State since it’s a long drop to whoever would be next.
• I believe Oregon beats USC in the Pac-12 Championship. This boots the Pac-12 out of the CFP and puts the Ducks in the Rose against the Nittany Lions.
• USC’s loss won’t drop them far and they should nab the only true at-large spot to go to the Cotton Bowl.
• The Trojans opponent will be UCF as I think they win their final regular season game and then the AAC Championship.
• Clemson’s victory over North Carolina gives them the ACC’s Orange Bowl spot.
• It’s a big drop from TCU to the next team and that won’t change from my last set of bowl projections until bowl selection day. I have Kansas State there and I think they will be juuuuuuust in the Top 20, making them the lowest ranked team in the NY6.
• Alabama will get the Sugar Bowl spot because Georgia is in the CFP. It could go to LSU, which would put Bama in the Orange. Honestly, they are fairly interchangeable.

Quite a bit of change there that would leave Tennessee, Washington, Utah and Florida State outside looking in. Very few would argue for those teams to get in so at least it would be, well, less controversy than normal since there’s always an argument (and if there isn’t, ESPN will find one). Alright now on to the rest of the bowl projections.

Citrus Bowl	SEC vs. Big Ten	Ole Miss vs. Purdue
ReliaQuest Bowl	SEC vs. Big Ten	South Carolina vs. Iowa
Music City Bowl	SEC vs. Big Ten	Tennessee vs. Illinois
Gator Bowl	SEC vs. ACC	Arkansas vs. North Carolina
Arizona Bowl	MWC vs. MAC	San Jose State vs. Toledo
Sun Bowl	ACC vs. Pac-12	NC State vs. Oregon State
Duke’s Mayo Bowl	SEC vs. Big Ten	Florida vs. Wisconsin
Alamo Bowl	Big XII vs. Pac-12	Texas vs. Washington
Cheez-It Bowl	Big XII vs. ACC	Oklahoma State vs. Florida State
Pinstripe Bowl	Big Ten vs. ACC	Maryland vs. Notre Dame
Texas Bowl	SEC vs. Big XII	Mississippi State vs. Baylor
Holiday Bowl	ACC vs. Pac-12	Louisville vs. UCLA
Liberty Bowl	SEC vs. Big XII	Miami* vs. Oklahoma
Military Bowl	ACC vs. AAC	Wake Forest vs. Cincinnati
Guaranteed Rate Bowl	Big Ten vs. Big XII	Minnesota vs. Kansas
Birmingham Bowl	SEC vs. AAC/ACC/C-USA	Liberty* vs. Duke
First Responder Bowl	2 of AAC, Big XII, C-USA, Sun Belt, MWC	Texas Tech vs. Memphis
Camellia Bowl	Sun Belt vs. MAC/C-USA	South Alabama vs. UTSA
Quick Lane Bowl	Big Ten vs. MAC	UConn* vs. Eastern Michigan
Hawaii Bowl	BYU/AAC/C-USA vs. MWC	BYU vs. Wyoming
Independence Bowl	AAC vs. Army	Tulane vs. Army
Gasparilla Bowl	2 of AAC, ACC, SEC, Pac-12	Pittsburgh vs. East Carolina
Armed Forces Bowl	2 of Big XII, C-USA, AAC	SMU vs. Middle Tennessee
New Orleans Bowl	Sun Belt vs. C-USA	Troy vs. WKU
Boca Raton Bowl	2 of AAC, Sun Belt, C-USA, MAC	Marshall vs. Bowling Green
Idaho Potato Bowl	MWC vs. MAC	San Diego State vs. Ohio
Myrtle Beach Bowl	2 of AAC, Sun Belt, C-USA, MAC	Appalachian State vs. Miami-OH
Frisco Bowl	2 of AAC, MWC, Sun Belt, C-USA, MAC	Fresno State vs. Southern Miss
Las Vegas Bowl	SEC vs. Pac-12	Kentucky vs. Washington State
LendingTree Bowl	Sun Belt vs. MAC/C-USA	Coastal Carolina vs. UTEP
LA Bowl	Pac-12 vs. MWC	Utah vs. Boise State
New Mexico Bowl	MWC vs. AAC/C-USA/MAC	Utah State vs. UAB
Fenway Bowl	ACC vs. AAC	Syracuse vs. Houston
Cure Bowl	2 of AAC, MWC, Sun Belt, C-USA, MAC	Air Force vs. Louisiana
Bahamas Bowl	C-USA vs. MAC	Florida Atlantic vs. Buffalo

There are just enough bowl-eligible teams to fill all the bowl spots; however, the SEC and Big Ten will fall short of fulfilling all their tie-ins. This has to do with more teams in the CFP and NY6 than other conferences. Miami, Liberty and UConn will fill in there (as noted by an asterisk). The ACC actually has more bowl-eligible teams than tie-ins so Miami gets slotted into the Liberty Bowl to face Oklahoma in a game straight out of the 80s. Liberty and UConn technically have to wait until all other bowl-eligible teams get their spots before they can find out where they go. With exactly two bowl games not having two teams, they go there (Liberty to the Birmingham and UConn to the Quick Lane). Finally, despite the fact North Texas won six games, in my scenario they lose the Conference USA Championship and fall to 6-7. If there weren’t enough teams available they would get a waiver to compete. Unfortunately for them there are no spots available to them so they will be home for the holidays.

Hey let’s continue! Time to look at various postseason scenarios. I will not use the AP Poll for some of these. I will use where I think teams will end up going into bowl season (my end-of-season rankings) for the first two.

12-Team College Football Playoff

This is the playoff format that’s coming soon. And if that pesky Rose Bowl can fall in line, it could be as early as 2024. Crazy to think but this is the case. So, if we had that this year, this is what it would look like:

Remember, only conference champions can get a first-round bye in this soon-to-be new format. That’s why Oregon replaces Michigan at #4. Where these teams would play I would leave out other than the first round games which are at the home field of the higher seed. Is it too much? Probably, but it’s college football so I will watch it and hope it works out properly (which no postseason format has been able to do every time but I digress).

6-Team College Football Playoff

This is what I started advocating for even though I had also pushed for just one new playoff team for a while. That dream is gone but here is what it would look like at the end of this season:

Pretty self-explanatory. They would still use bowl games for this. For this year, I think it would be the Cotton Bowl and the Orange Bowl for the first round since the Rose and Sugar, being on January 1st, would not give enough time for the playoffs to be done before the middle of the month. The semis would remain the Fiesta and Peach Bowls.

Poll-and-Bowl

Let’s go back to a simpler time. When the talk of a playoff or a plus-one was just that: talk. The only committees we knew were the bowl committees that went to all sorts of games in November to figure out which teams to select. Now let’s see what that might look like with the better teams in the polls. As I did last year when I did this exercise I have to take some liberty with bowl tie-ins. Also for this I will use current AP Poll listings for variety’s sake:

• Rose Bowl (Big Ten Champ vs. Pac-12 Champ): #2 Ohio State vs. #5 USC
• Sugar Bowl (SEC Champ vs. Big XII Champ): #1 Georgia vs. #4 TCU
• Cotton Bowl (Big XII #2 vs. Pac-12 #2): #15 Kansas State vs. #10 Oregon
• Orange Bowl (ACC Champ vs. SEC #2): #7 Clemson vs. #6 LSU
• Peach Bowl (ACC #2 vs. at-large): #16 Florida State vs. #3 Michigan
• Citrus Bowl (SEC #3 vs. Big Ten #2): #8 Alabama vs. #11 Penn State
• Fiesta Bowl (Big XII #3 vs. at-large): #24 Texas vs. #9 Tennessee

I’ll stop there as I have the top ten teams. Maybe there would be more at-large teams involved (say in the Cotton or Orange Bowls) but realistically this is what you would see in and around New Year’s Day. Sure there are some lopsided bowl matchups (see the Fiesta Bowl) but I think it’s that way to an extent anyway. Really this would come down to three games: the Sugar, Rose and Peach Bowls. Georgia wins they are the champ. Only way that doesn’t happen is if UGA barely beats TCU and Ohio State drops the hammer on USC. If the Dawgs lose and tOSU win, they are the champs. If both those teams lose, then Michigan could win it all in the Peach Bowl. If the top three teams lose, it will come down to TCU and USC and might end up being who looked better in the bowl game (or won by a larger margin). It would make things interesting that is for sure. Better? Debatable.

24-Team College Football Playoff

Oh god, why am I doing this to myself. Maybe I’m trying to prove some point. Well, to be fair, I have hammered this point home before. The longer the tournament, the more it becomes a war of attrition. The winning team, in the end, becomes the healthiest one, not necessarily the best one. It’s been seen often in FCS football, even with some of those North Dakota State teams that won it all. So….*deep breath*, let’s look at how at 24-team playoff would work (I’ll just use AP rankings again):

OK that’s a lot. To me this feels like WAY too much. Overkill. When the 24th-ranked team, Texas, has a chance to win the national championship, college football, at least at the FBS level, has lost a lot of what makes it special. Some want to go even farther and I say to that, put down the crackpipe.

Done. No more. I can’t do it. It’s so much information. But there it is. Read it, do with it what you will. Then in about a week’s time we can forget all of it since it will change…in some cases a lot.

Tomorrow, it’s time for the super American Thanksgiving schedule so prepare for a lot more reading but at least this you can use the rest of the week through late Saturday night. Have a great week, everyone!

Crazy Bowl Projections V5.0!

This is the fifth edition of this completely ridiculous post. I still wish one year we get close to what I post on these but it would cement that season as the new craziest season ever. Even more so than 2007. And then if it happened I would do anything I could to get to Vegas. Fly, drive, hitchhike, I don’t give a shit. That’s a heater you ride until it ends.

I will not do all the bowl games. What would be the point? To see how WILD it would be to see Eastern Michigan in the, say, Gasparilla Bowl? Ooooooooooh, so crazy. No I’m just looking at the top because the amount of upsets it would take just to get to what I’m suggesting is staggering.

Fiesta Bowl	CFP #1 vs. CFP #4	TCU vs. Illinois
Peach Bowl	CFP #2 vs. CFP #3	Utah vs. Tennessee

Illinois? ILLINOIS? Coached by this guy?

Alright just give me a minute or two here. Let’s go through everything that would get us to this point (since it’s a lot to absorb). Hell, it even took me a bit of time to go back through everything to say “Yep, this is fucked but it seems to work.”

• TCU wins out. That’s it. OK, we’re off to a good start. Is it crazy? No, but after last night’s College Football Playoff Rankings Show of Destruction and Doom El Fantastico, it seems like many at ESPN would love if the Horned Frogs would fuck right off already.
• Utah also wins out. That would include wins over Oregon, mighty Colorado, and UCLA in the Pac-12 title game. Oregon would also lose the Civil War to Oregon State pulling them right out of contention for anything. USC would lose to UCLA (who also wins their final regular season game to stay near the top of the rankings) and Notre Dame who is on quite the run as the season goes on. Washington loses to Wazzu and that wraps up the Pac-12 picture. OK, not too bad honestly. All this has the potential to happen.
• Tennessee. The Vols! I think Rece Davis wants them in so here you go ya Chris Fowler doppelganger. How they get here? Buckle up.
  • Georgia loses to Kentucky. Chaos ensues.
  • Tennessee beats the holy hell out of South Carolina.
  • LSU beats UAB. Big deal.
  • Alabama beats Austin Peay. Who cares.
  • Ole Miss beats Arkansas. No surprise.
  • The following week Georgia loses to GEORGIA TECH? OK then. Couldn’t handle the option I guess.
  • Tennessee beats Vanderbilt by 50.
  • LSU loses to, oh no, Texas A&M.
  • Alabama loses the Iron Bowl to Auburn!
  • Ole Miss wins the Egg Bowl over Mississippi State.
  • UGA then beats LSU for the SEC Championship.
  • All this means, LSU and Georgia would both be outside the Top 10 going into the SEC Championship. Meaning neither could get into the Top 4. Tennessee and Ole Miss would be the only two teams and UT gets in at 11-1 and Ole Miss falls just short.
  • Gary Danielson would lose his ever-loving mind over all this.
• Oh man we haven’t even got Illinois yet. OK. First of all, the Illini pull off a huge upset and beat Michigan. That is paired with Ohio State being stunned by Maryland (finally getting Mike Locksley and the program their signature Big Ten win). The following week, Michigan wins The Game and Purdue loses to Indiana for the Old Oaken Bucket. Illinois calmly beats Northwestern by about 40 and wins the Big Ten West. This means they get a rematch with Big Ten East champ, Michigan. They beat them yet again and leapfrog a few teams, including Michigan, to nab the final CFP spot. Penn State wins out but doesn’t have enough left to climb into the Top 4 so they barely miss out.

You’re probably asking where the ACC is. Well, North Carolina wins out but Clemson loses their final two. The ACC Championship, which was already set, has the Tigers regaining their crown in an upset over the Tar Heels. North Carolina was ranked too low in the previous rankings and needed to completely win out to have any shot at the CFP and they come up just short.

OK so that was ridiculous. It was looking good until we got to the SEC. If some of those results happen….I will be so fucking excited. But some of those game results I mentioned? They aren’t that far-fetched. On we go to the New Year’s Six where things may get weirder.

Rose Bowl	Big Ten #1 vs. Pac-12 #1	Penn State vs. UCLA
Cotton Bowl	CFP at-large vs. G-5 #1	Michigan vs. Tulane
Sugar Bowl	SEC #1 vs. Big XII #1	Georgia vs. Texas
Orange Bowl	ACC #1 vs. Big Ten/Notre Dame/SEC	Clemson vs. Ole Miss

OK so not totally messed up. Explanation:

• As I said above, Ole Miss wins out but they won’t have enough to move up the rankings without being in a conference championship game so they fall just short of the CFP but are easily in the New Year’s Six.
• Tulane is not the current G-5 favourite after their loss to UCF. Tulane, though, will win out while UCF gets shocked by Navy. The Green Wave winning their final two includes a victory over Cincinnati. No other conference has a team close enough and Tulane wins the AAC Championship to get the Cotton Bowl bid.
• Clemson, despite their problems to end the season, shock North Carolina and win the ACC title which gives them the automatic Orange Bowl spot.
• Speaking of teams kind of coming back out of nowhere to win their conference championship, here come the Georgia Bulldogs. Their win over LSU in the SEC Championship means their ranking doesn’t matter. They go to the Sugar Bowl no matter what as they would have been well out of the Top 4 after their late season collapse.
• With Illinois getting into the College Football Playoff, the Rose Bowl spot opens up to the best Big Ten team remaining. And that team would be the Penn State Nittany Lions who just kind of hid and waited for all the other teams to collapse around them.
• This puts Michigan in the Cotton Bowl as the only true at-large team in the New Year’s Six. Honestly, you could interchange Penn State and the Wolverines and it’s fine either way.
• I briefly discussed UCLA above. They slot into the Rose Bowl after losing the Pac-12 Championship which comes after their slight upset of USC.
• Finally, the Big XII spot in the Sugar Bowl. I have it going to Texas. In what would mirror what will probably happen, the Big XII would still have the lowest-ranked team in the New Year’s Six as past TCU there are a lot of good teams but no teams that could be considered great. Texas is the best of this bunch, barely beating out Kansas State and Oklahoma State.

So there you go. Yeah it’s pretty insane and makes no sense but was fun to do and if even half this stuff happens it would be quite the roller coaster for college football fans.

Next up is the Bossman Top 25.

#1	Georgia
#2	Ohio State
#3	TCU
#4	Michigan
#5	USC
#6	Tennessee
#7	LSU
#8	Alabama
#9	Utah
#10	Clemson
#11	Penn State
#12	Washington
#13	North Carolina
#14	Oregon
#15	Kansas State
#16	Ole Miss
#17	UCF
#18	UCLA
#19	Notre Dame
#20	Florida State
#21	Oklahoma State
#22	Tulane
#23	NC State
#24	Texas
#25	Cincinnati

My Top 4 is close to everyone else’s Top 4. Michigan may actually be a better team than TCU but sorry, they haven’t shown it and their non-conference schedule was horrific. If they beat Ohio State, then they can lay claim to a better ranking than the Horned Frogs. LSU is sitting there waiting and if they win the SEC Championship, it could cause some major issues at the top. And ESPN’s favourite, Alabama sits at #8. Unfortunately for them, they have no real way to move up except for complete chaos above them. And even then.

Alright next week I will be back with, let’s call them regular bowl projections. Enjoy the rest of your week!

This is just awful (and the Week 12 College Football TV Schedule)

If you haven’t heard, there was a huge tragedy on the campus of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Three players on the Cavaliers, Lavel Davis, D’Sean Perry and Devin Chandler were killed in a shooting at the end of a field trip. Two other students were severely injured and are in hospital. The shooter is a former UVA football player. I have not heard anything about a motive. This is just awful. Seems like more senseless violence. I don’t know how the team is going to move on for the final two games of their season. At this point, it feels pointless to move on but many of them probably need football as a distraction to help healing and mourning the loss of their teammates and friends. Condolences to everyone at the University of Virginia. I would say hopefully lessons are learned from this but they never are, unfortunately.

UPDATE: The Virginia-Coastal Carolina game will not be played this Saturday. This does not affect Canadians and what they can watch but it is noteworthy. And also not surprising in the least. There is also no word about what will happen with the Commonwealth Cup game against Virginia Tech the following weekend.

Alright, it seems much less important this week but let’s get on with the schedule.

Tuesday

		US	Canada
Ohio at Ball State	7:00 PM
Bowling Green at Toledo	7:00 PM

A couple of big MACtion games to start the week. If the Bobcats can beat Ball State and the Rockets beat Bowling Green, then Toledo will help Ohio win the MAC East. This would mean that Ohio would go to Ford Field in a couple weeks to face…Toledo. Interesting how that works out.

Wednesday

		US	Canada
Eastern Michigan at Kent State	6:00 PM
Miami-OH at Northern Illinois	7:00 PM
Western Michigan at Central Michigan	8:00 PM

If Ohio loses the previous night, then the EMU-KSU game becomes quite a bit more important as the MAC East will still be up for grabs. Otherwise we got some bowl-eligibility issues here: Kent State, Miami-OH and Central Michigan all have to win to keep their bowl game chances alive.

Thursday

		US	Canada
SMU at #21 Tulane	7:30 PM

Only one game Thursday night (not even a game on a network Canadians can’t get). It’s a big game for the Green Wave as they absolutely need to win this one to stay alive for a berth in the AAC Championship.

Friday

		US	Canada
USF at Tulsa	9:00 PM

One game here. TSN is picking it up. I don’t know why because it means nothing. Neither team can go bowling.

Saturday Early

		US	Canada
Navy at #17 UCF	11:00 AM
Illinois at #3 Michigan	Noon
Duke at Pittsburgh	Noon
Indiana at Michigan State	Noon
UConn at Army	Noon
Wisconsin at Nebraska	Noon
Yale at Harvard	Noon
#4 TCU at Baylor	Noon
Florida at Vanderbilt	Noon

I’d say the most interesting game here is the TCU-Baylor game. It’s your classic trap game as the Bears are a good team and the game is in Waco. The other truly interesting one out of the bunch is the Wisky-Nebraska game in the Big Ten West Chaos Carnival. No one is in the driver’s seat (but the Huskers aren’t on the trip at all). All the teams are in seats on the bus trying to see who can last to the final stop. I think I got that analogy right.

Yes, you see that right. We have morning football. ESPN2 still has their quadrupleheader but it starts an hour early. I will explain more later in the post. And yes, you see that right. Yale and Harvard, once again, appearing on ESPNU. Despite the fact there are other teams that might deserve that spot, it’s nice to see ESPN embracing FCS football. I just wish they would do that when Gameday goes to an FCS school, like this Saturday when they head to Bozeman for the Brawl of the Wild between Montana and Montana State. That game is on at 2 in the afternoon on ESPN+. Ridiculous. Give it the late ESPNU spot for Christ’s sake!

Finally, a little bit about the UConn bowl situation. The Huskies are bowl-eligible. They do, however, have to hope that there are not enough teams to fill all the spots. There is no guarantee for them as they have no tie-in to any other bowl. Even worse, Liberty is in the same boat and is ranked way ahead of them so will get the first chance when a bowl doesn’t have two teams to fulfill the tie-ins. So the program is still fingers crossed to make a bowl as it’s not set in stone just yet.

Saturday Afternoon

		US	Canada
Washington State at Arizona	2:00 PM
#25 Oregon State at Arizona State	2:15 PM
Boston College at #18 Notre Dame	2:30 PM
#2 Ohio State at Maryland	3:30 PM
NC State at Louisville	3:30 PM
#11 Penn State at Rutgers	3:30 PM
#1 Georgia at Kentucky	3:30 PM
Akron at Buffalo	3:30 PM
Miami at #9 Clemson	3:30 PM
South Alabama at Southern Miss	3:30 PM
#22 Cincinnati at Temple	4:00 PM
Iowa at Minnesota	4:00 PM
WKU at Auburn	4:00 PM
Georgia Tech at #13 North Carolina	5:30 PM
Stanford at California	5:30 PM

This might be the biggest afternoon schedule I have ever seen. Saying that, it’s definitely quantity over quality as there isn’t a ton here to whet the appetite. What does this mean? We are in for something crazy. It never fails.

I talked about TCU’s trap game earlier. You could say the same for Georgia here. I like UGA’s chances more than TCU’s obviously but if the Dawgs let the Cats stay around into the fourth quarter, expect a lot of nervous Georgia fans around the country. The Big Ten West Round Robin Fun-Time Carousel continues in this timeslot with Iowa and Minnesota facing off to see if we can get some clarity going into the final regular season week.

UPDATE #2: Akron-Buffalo has been postponed due to the snowstorm that has already hit the Buffalo area and moved this weekend’s Bills game to Detroit. The game is reportedly going to be moved to Sunday but I don’t see that happening with what the area will be like through the end of the weekend.

Saturday Primetime

		US	Canada
Boise State at Wyoming	7:00 PM
#5 Tennessee at South Carolina	7:00 PM
#24 Oklahoma State at Oklahoma	7:30 PM
New Mexico State at Missouri	7:30 PM
#14 Ole Miss at Arkansas	7:30 PM
Syracuse at Wake Forest	8:00 PM
#7 USC at #16 UCLA	8:00 PM

A huge Pac-12 game that could have been one of the biggest in years if the Bruins hadn’t blown a gasket against Arizona, of all teams, last weekend. Plus the Oklahoma Sooners are in a very odd spot, at least for this program: they need a win to become bowl-eligible in November. This is a stark difference to some Bedlam games of the past decade or so where it was the Pokes who needed that win badly to play some postseason ball. The Sooners don’t need to win this one but if they lose here they only have one more shot to keep their bowl game streak going.

Saturday Late Night

		US	Canada
UAB at #6 LSU	9:00 PM
Colorado at #15 Washington	9:00 PM
Fresno State at Nevada	10:30 PM
#10 Utah at #12 Oregon	10:30 PM

So the entire reason for ESPN2 starting their schedule at 11 in the morning is so that LSU could host UAB on the station at night? Are you fucking serious? That might be one of the dumbest things I’ve heard. The schedule could have easily been shuffled around to accommodate this in a normal way but ESPN is really upping how much they kowtow to the SEC. It’s probably a good thing the Big Ten is leaving for FOX. Also here we have the other high stakes Pac-12 match of the weekend that is, once again, a little less high stakes than it could have been. Both the Utes and Ducks still have Pac-12 Championship and New Year’s Six opportunities available…well, one will after this game.

Big Games O’ The Week

USC at UCLA (8:00, FOX) – I don’t remember a time when I’ve done this blog where the Pac-12 is the conference to watch on any given week. I think every other Power Five conference has had their week to shine (with the SEC and Big Ten having a lot of weeks to shine) but this may be a first for the Pac-12 on this blog. Look, a USC win may move them up to #6 or even #5 going into the final regular season week. It clinches their spot in the Pac-12 Championship Game and possibly sets them up to return to glory. A UCLA win doesn’t fully eliminate any team but makes it a lot tougher for any team from the conference to get to the College Football Playoff. What it does do, though, is cause massive Pac-12 chaos inside the conference which is also fun…for me at least.

Utah at Oregon (10:30, TSN2) – Hey a TSN quadrupleheader! That’s nice. What’s not so nice? This is probably the high water mark for TSN college football coverage this season. I will explain later. Anyway, the other big Pac-12 game this week pits two teams who still have big aspirations which hopefully lead to a Rose Bowl spot. No matter the result, there will still be a bit of chaos left in the Pac-12 to just determine it’s title game participants. Thankfully there are no divisions this year as it’s so much better to just have the best teams in.

Illinois at Michigan (12:00, ABC/TSN2) – Most years, this has the makings of a blowout. Not this time around. Yes it’s in the Big House so the Wolverines have a big home field advantage. Other than that though, this is not a game Michigan should take lightly. Illinois still has a shot at the Big Ten West title but a few other things have to go their way. A win here REALLY helps though. Michigan is heading into The Game with Ohio State and a win here, coupled with Ohio State winning, would set up the biggest matchup since…well, you could say last year but I would say since 2016’s double overtime classic.

Georgia at Kentucky (3:30, CBS) – This could be the game of a lifetime for Mark Stoops and Kentucky if they could pull off the upset. It would also completely upset the college football apple cart with very little time left. Let’s be honest though: it’s going to take a lot for the Cats to keep this close. Hopefully they have watched UGA’s games against Kent State and Missouri to figure out the best approach.

TCU at Baylor (Noon, FOX) – Dave Aranda’s Baylor Bears could throw a huge monkey wrench into TCU’s national title plans. If they beat the Horned Frogs, that probably spells the end for TCU’s CFP hopes. TCU has to be very careful with this one. It is the very definition of a college football speed bump game.

Tennessee at South Carolina (7:00, TSN2) – So it drops off a bit of a cliff after the first five games. But this could be a sneaky good one. Tennessee is not out of the College Football Playoff conversation just yet. South Carolina could put the nail in that coffin and potentially destroy the Vols’ New Year’s Six possibilities in one fell swoop if they can pull off the upset in Columbia.

Psycho Game of the Week

USF at Tulsa (Friday, 9:00, TSN2) – The Bulls are here for a second straight week. I would call that a trend. I get that TSN2, somehow, has nothing to air that night so this goes there by default. But of all the games to show. You know what, TSN? You’d be better off showing Best of Curling or World’s Most Incredible Darts Throws or something like that. This is terrible.

Hubba Bubba Blowout of the Week

Colorado at Washington (9:00, Pac-12 Network) – Man, Colorado is bad. Worst Power Five team? It’s between them and Northwestern. Maybe they should play a bowl game to determine the worst of the worst. The Huskies should annihilate Colorado here in a game that might be long over by halftime.

The Degenerate Portion of Our Show

Time for my picks for the upcoming week of college football. Is there any basis for these picks? Not really. I mostly wing it.

• Ball State (+3.5) over Ohio (and the mild upset win!)
• Central Michigan (-11) over Western Michigan
• Navy (+16.5) over UCF (they’ll cover but not win)
• Northwestern (+20) over Purdue (the Boilermakers will win though)
• Illinois (+18) over Michigan (covering but not winning)
• TCU (-2.5) over Baylor
• Oregon State (-8) over Arizona State
• South Alabama (-7.5) over Southern Miss
• Penn State (-19.5) over Rutgers
• Miami (+19) over Clemson (the Canes will cover but the Tigers will win this one)
• Minnesota (-2.5) over Iowa
• Wyoming (+14) over Boise State (the Broncos will end up with the win)
• Ole Miss (-2.5) over Arkansas
• Oregon (-3) over Utah

OK an explanation about the TSN comment I made earlier. Normally, the final week of the regular season would bring at least 8 games on TSN if not up to 13 or 14. TSN would go all in because the CFL would be done for the season. Just like this year, the Grey Cup lands on Week 12 of the college football season. One wrinkle, though: the World Cup. It begins Sunday. TSN and CTV are showing every game of the tournament. If I just take a look at the schedule, it means the following:

• It’s almost a guarantee that there will be on early Black Friday games aired on TSN.
• TSN 2, 4 and 5 are available for afternoon/night Black Friday games.
• The next day (Saturday, American Thanksgiving weekend) might be mostly out for college football games as there are World Cup games that overlap the early and afternoon windows. I can see TSN stepping up for primetime and late night games, though.

So, 14 games? Not going to happen. 10? Doubtful. Maybe they get back to that 8 mark but it will be dicey. Is this one of the reasons why the World Cup shouldn’t be in November and December? Yes. But it’s far down the list. Like WAY down the list. Remember…it’s in Qatar. That’s all you got to say.

Tomorrow you should get the bowl projection and rankings post and on Thursday the NFL post. Not guaranteeing anything but this is the time of year where staying on schedule is pretty imperative. Enjoy the games everyone!

Hey let’s storm the field (and give you the Week 9 College Football TV Schedule)

First off, remember this classic? It was awesome. So the powers that be decided to quash the possibility of it ever happening again. Instead, we get a nine-overtime affair that made me want to pour bleach into my eyes.

Anyway, as you can see from the pic, the Aggie faithful stormed the field after the win. It was a big win. An exhausting one, even for the fans who were there for over five hours. Now, rushing the field like this is now fined by certain conferences. And the fines can be hefty. LSU was just fined a quarter of a million dollars for their fans rushing the field after the Tigers thoroughly destroyed previously undefeated Ole Miss. It was a big win.

Here’s the dilemma from what I see: seeing fans rush the field can be, most of the time, an amazing visual. They are just so happy their team pulled off the victory. Can there be dangers to it? Absolutely. And there can be altercations. Look at that asshole Jermaine Burton who punched a female Tennessee fan after the Vols’ win over Bama. He said he was scared. Bullshit. He could have punched any fan and chose her. Funny he didn’t choose a bigger guy who might have taken offense to it and retaliated. Look, my point is this…I don’t think rushing the field should be fined. At all. That sounds crazy but I believe it. Now, if something happens when the fans rush the field, then the school should be punished (as long as it was not someone from the opposing team doing something wrong). And the fines should be hefty. Forget $250,000. Start at $500K and go up from there. And if students cause issues at games when they storm the field? Guess what? Pack your shit and fuck off to another university. Instead, we have these blanket fines that do nothing really except move money from one coffer to another coffer. Dumb.

Alright, let’s get down to some schedules, shall we?

Thursday

		US	Canada
Virginia Tech at #24 NC State	7:30 PM
Louisiana at Southern Miss	7:30 PM
#14 Utah at Washington State	10:00 PM

Two pretty important games here. NC State has to win here to have any chance to move back up the rankings and perhaps sneak into the New Year’s Six. Utah has the same issue going for them although they are closer to the Top 10 which basically guarantees a spot. OK make it three important games since Louisiana has to keep pace with Troy and South Alabama in the Sun Belt West.

Friday

		US	Canada
Yale at Columbia	6:30 PM
Louisiana Tech at FIU	8:00 PM
East Carolina at BYU	8:00 PM

Kind of a lacklustre night to be honest. I guess you could see some importance in the Cougs’ game since a loss might actually have them struggling to make a bowl game this season.

Saturday Early

		US	Canada
Notre Dame at #16 Syracuse	Noon
Georgia Tech at Florida State	Noon
Boston College at UConn	Noon
#7 TCU at West Virginia	Noon
USF at Houston	Noon
Toledo at Eastern Michigan	Noon
#2 Ohio State at #13 Penn State	Noon
Oklahoma at Iowa State	Noon
Arkansas at Auburn	Noon

Massive early game in State College. You could still consider it a Game of the Year candidate. This is a prove-it game for Penn State. Win this and it puts all the tough games they’ve had behind them and puts them in a great spot to make the College Football Playoff. A tOSU win means it comes down to them and Michigan for any Big Ten CFP possibilities.

If you had told me that Toledo and Eastern Michigan would be facing off in late October, essentially, for the MAC West championship I would have thought you were on some great drugs. But that is the case. EMU has shocked a lot of people this year. Chris Creighton has done a great job in Ypsilanti. It also helps that every other team in the division (other than these two) has looked below-average at best.

Syracuse has a potential speed bump game to get back on track as they host the Irish and honestly it feels weird to see Oklahoma face Iowa State where neither team is ranked.

Saturday Afternoon

		US	Canada
Rutgers at Minnesota	2:30 PM
#17 Illinois at Nebraska	3:30 PM
#10 Wake Forest at Louisville	3:30 PM
Florida vs. #1 Georgia (in Jacksonville)	3:30 PM
Temple at Navy	3:30 PM
#20 Cincinnati at UCF	3:30 PM
Northwestern at Iowa	3:30 PM
#9 Oklahoma State at #22 Kansas State	3:30 PM
#8 Oregon at California	3:30 PM
South Alabama at Arkansas State	4:00 PM
Missouri at #25 South Carolina	4:00 PM

No huge games but a lot of games of importance in this timeslot. OK fine you can say Oklahoma State-Kansas State is huge but there are still a lot of things that could happen in the Big XII with one possibility being that the conference cannibalizes itself and no one makes it to the College Football Playoff.

Illinois is actually on ABC! And they are the reason they are there! Bert doing a great job in Champaign and a win here puts them into a showdown with Purdue for the Big Ten West as long as no other screwy things happen…meaning something will happen. Yes there is an odd start for the Big Ten Network game and no, I don’t know why although I haven’t taken too hard a look to find that out.

Some are saying Georgia may be looking past Florida. I know I would if I was Georgia. I can’t see the Gators doing anything here but you never know as the Cocktail Party can get weird some years. Finally, South Alabama is in a nationally televised game on Saturday probably for the first time ever. They should easily beat ASU in this one. Maybe they are a dark horse for the NY6.

Saturday Primetime

		US	Canada
UAB at Florida Atlantic	7:00 PM
#19 Kentucky at #3 Tennessee	7:00 PM
Colorado State at Boise State	7:00 PM
Coastal Carolina at Marshall	7:00 PM
#10 USC at Arizona	7:00 PM
Michigan State at #4 Michigan	7:30 PM
Baylor at Texas Tech	7:30 PM
Arizona State at Colorado	7:30 PM
#15 Ole Miss at Texas A&M	7:30 PM
Pittsburgh at #21 North Carolina	8:00 PM

In almost any week of any season, UK-UT is the SEC on CBS Game of the Week (and potentially the primetime choice). But with the Cocktail Party this week, they are “relegated” to the primetime ESPN game. Still a good slot. Plus, this game is an elimination game. Winner has a shot at the SEC East and the loser has to hope to make up ground to get a nice January bowl game.

Speaking of relegation, USC is on the Pac-12 Network this week. OK, they are at Arizona who, while improved, is still not that good a team. But when you see that Arizona State and Colorado are on ESPNU (which is slightly better if you ask me), it makes you scratch your head a bit. I know the Trojans were picked for the P12N to fulfill their contracted amount of appearances on the network and this game was as good as any to put there. Still…it feels odd to see a Top 10 team on a conference network, especially the worst conference network around.

Saturday Late Night

		US	Canada
Nevada at San Jose State	10:30 PM
Stanford at #12 UCLA	10:30 PM
San Diego State at Fresno State	10:30 PM

The Spartans actually have a big game here. By the time the calendar turns, they might be the favourites to represent the West Division in the Mountain West Championship. Also, the Bruins look to bounce back and maybe get back into the Top 10 against the Cardinal who may have a tough decision with David Shaw ahead. Not saying Shaw will be fired this season (or even in the offseason) but something has to give here as the team has been pretty bad for a few years now.

Big Games O’ The Week

Ohio State at Penn State (Noon, FOX) – Just a reminder that this game is at Beaver Stadium so it gives the Nittany Lions more of a chance than if it was at the Horseshoe. This might not be exactly easy for the Fighting Ryan Days but a win here will put them into a one-game showdown in a month against Michigan for the Big Ten East and may put them at #1 in the first College Football Playoff poll on Tuesday.

Kentucky at Tennessee (7:00, specialty pack) – I’m sure there are many who wished this game would have been on TSN instead of the Michigan State-Michigan game but yeah, a good Big Ten game will almost always rate higher for TSN than a game from any other conference. As I said above, this is an SEC East elimination game so the stakes are high. It will be interesting to see if the Vols have a letdown after their big win over Alabama a couple weeks ago or if the Cats can get up for this game, dealing with a loud Knoxville crowd.

Oklahoma State at Kansas State (3:30, FOX) – FOX has quite the lineup this week. I know some marvel when I say that but it honestly doesn’t happen often. It probably helps that it’s only two games this week that lead into the World Series which starts after this game. This is part of the Big XII gauntlet that is happening before our eyes that involves more than half the conference (and maybe not even Oklahoma). FOX is probably hoping this game doesn’t go to a bunch of overtimes since we know it would be moved to like FOX Business Network or some channel no one in the world gets.

Notre Dame at Syracuse (Noon, ABC/TSN5) – The Cuse looks to rebound from their tough loss to Clemson. Meanwhile, Notre Dame continues their roller coaster first season under Marcus Freeman. A win by Syracuse here still keeps them in the hunt for…something. A New Year’s Six at-large spot perhaps? The Irish are just trying to make their season feel like it’s less of a failure than it has been and one where 2023 looks optimistic.

Cincinnati at UCF (3:30, specialty pack) – It feels like most years this is a battle between the top two teams in the American. I would have said Houston at the start of the season but yeah I whiffed on that one pretty hard. Tulane may have something to say about that first sentence and they may get their shot in the AAC Championship if they can keep playing as well as they are. Until then, this feels like the winner is in the driver’s seat for the Cotton Bowl spot.

Psycho Game of the Week

Arizona State at Colorado (7:30, specialty pack) – You have got to be some sort of masochist to spend more than one minute watching this one. I guess maybe hoping for some weird score like 5-3 could get you interested in this but otherwise, it is so easy to avoid this abomination.

Hubba Bubba Blowout of the Week

Georgia Tech at Florida State (Noon, specialty pack) – This might seem like a bit of a surprise but I have this feeling that the Noles will come into this one a bit angry and ready to beat the absolute shit out of whoever they face. The Ramblin’ Wreck are playing better not under Geoff Collins but at some point their lack of talent will come to the forefront. This is the game that will happen.

Fun-Time Stats of the Week

• Last time UAB traveled to Boca Raton to face FAU they were embarrassed 49-6.
• This is the first time in four years that Ole Miss has had to play back-to-back road games.
• NC State has lost five straight to the Hokies.

The Degenerate Portion of Our Show

For some reason I can delve into picking NFL games (which I still do from time to time on top of fantasy football) but when it comes to college football I draw a blank. I can’t seem to come up with a way to pick games other than just pick them off the top of my head for the most part. That’s something I would never say when my late night betting show commences. I wonder what the most ridiculous channel to put that on would be. OMNI?

• Louisiana (+1) over Southern Miss (and the outright win…why is Southern Miss even favoured here?)
• Louisiana Tech (-6.5) over FIU
• Toledo (-7) over Eastern Michigan
• Boston College (-7.5) over UConn (only 7.5? Who is making these odds?)
• Oklahoma (-1) over Iowa State
• Minnesota (-14) over Rutgers
• Navy (-13.5) over Temple
• Louisville (+3.5) over Wake Forest (big upset pick!)
• Florida (+22.5) over Georgia (UGA will cover but the Gators will make things interesting for about three quarters)
• Kentucky (+12.5) over Tennessee (the Vols will win a tight one)
• Coastal Carolina (+2.5) over Marshall (and they will win outright)
• Ole Miss (-2.5) over Texas A&M
• UCLA (-16.5) over Stanford (only 16.5? Yeah I’m not getting some of these)

Let’s see how much of a tool I look like with these picks. Anyway, I will be on the Twitter machine for most of the day (I think) so catch me there if you want. Hey, I got a secret for ya. Come closer….

There’s football every day between tomorrow and November 22nd!

Oh. Hell. YEAH! Enjoy the games everyone!