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!
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