I don’t think we have ever seen two football minds like this get let go within a week of each other. It is crazy to think this could happen, but it did. Two legends who didn’t get their proper sendoff on here. So here we go.
*deep breath*
Ladies and gentlemen, it is time to say farewell to two of, arguably……….the worst coordinators in recent Power Five football history. Brian Ferentz, son of Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz, had to be put on a points minimum to be able to keep his contract after this season was over. And Alex Grinch, one of Lincoln Riley’s loyal soldiers. Two men who undoubtdedly pushed football back 50 years with their horrendous playcalling and obvious lack of attention to detail.
Ferentz wasn’t even allowed to take a shot at the points amount (it had to be at least an average of 25 a game). He was told by interim Iowa athletic director Beth Goetz, who obviously knew his chances of hitting that mark were slim, that he would not be retained for the 2024 season. So technically he is still around although he’s in a lame duck position. Not so for Grinch who wasn’t allowed to continue putting out awful defense after awful defense, something that has almost killed USC’s chances of anything but going to a bowl game. Riley had no choice in the end but to axe him.
Realistically, these two guys should have been let go weeks ago. It was apparent to anyone with some knowledge of college football that these two weren’t cutting it. But nepotism and loyalty can go a long way in this sport and we have seen it time and again in the past. And it will continue to do so. Hopefully head coaches learn to take a step back and look at a situation from a bird’s-eye view so that they can honestly assess it. Otherwise you hurt the team and, potentially, yourself.
Alright, enough of fired coaches. Let’s get to the damn schedule!
Tuesday
| US | Canada | ||
| Ball State at Northern Illinois | 7:00 |  | |
| Central Michigan at Western Michigan | 7:00 |  |   |
| Ohio at Buffalo | 7:30 |  |    |
Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit’s MACTION!!!!!!! Second week of MACtion and boy do I love it. Also, the College Football Playoff rankings come out a few minutes into the early games so I am sure the announcers will stick to calling the games and not mention anything about the rankings. I’m sure of it.
Wednesday
| US | Canada | ||
| Bowling Green at Kent State | 7:00 | | |
| Eastern Michigan at Toledo | 7:00 | | |
| Akron at Miami-OH | 7:00 | | |
EMU-Toledo is easily the biggest game here. Depending on a few other results, the Rockets could clinch the MAC West with a win.
Thursday
| US | Canada | ||
| Virginia at #11 Louisville | 7:30 |  | |
| Southern Miss at Louisiana | 7:30 | | |
Louisville’s potential run to the New Year’s Six might have some potholes. This shouldn’t be one of them. Thing is, it’s either that, the Fun Belt game or one of the worst Thursday Night Football games ever. I’ll stick with the ACC matchup as long as I can (with some check-ins on the Southern Miss-Louisiana game of course).
Friday
| US | Canada | ||
| North Texas at SMU | 9:00 | |  |
| Grambling at Arkansas-Pine Bluff | 9:00 | | |
The Mustangs feel like a bit of a surprise team at the top of the American Conference and they shouldn’t be. Some had them at least getting to the conference championship. Take the over with this one.
Saturday Early
| US | Canada | ||
| Georgia Tech at Clemson | Noon |  | |
| Virginia Tech at Boston College | Noon |  | |
| Indiana at Illinois | Noon |  | |
| Holy Cross at Army | Noon | | |
| #8 Alabama at Kentucky | Noon | | |
| Tulsa at #23 Tulane | Noon | | |
| Yale at Princeton | Noon | | |
| #3 Michigan at #10 Penn State | Noon |  | |
| Vanderbilt at South Carolina | Noon |  | |
Absolutely colossal matchup in the early window. Yes, I am talking about Indiana-Illinois Michigan-Penn State. The second of the three-game Big Ten East round robin of Fun and Frolic lands in State College. Should this be under the lights with a Penn State Whiteout? Yeah, probably. But FOX is adamant that Noon is their big game. Big Noon Saturday. It’s not called Big Evening Saturday for a reason.
Saturday Afternoon
| US | Canada | ||
| NC State at Wake Forest | 2:00 |  | |
| #21 Arizona at Colorado | 2:00 |  | |
| Miami at #4 Florida State | 3:30 | | |
| Pittsburgh vs. Syracuse (in the Bronx) | 3:30 | | |
| Rutgers at #22 Iowa | 3:30 | | |
| #13 Tennessee at #14 Missouri | 3:30 |  | |
| UAB at Navy | 3:30 | | |
| #15 Oklahoma State at UCF | 3:30 | | |
| NC Central at Howard | 3:30 | | |
| #18 Utah at #5 Washington | 3:30 | | |
| Minnesota at Purdue | 3:30 |  | |
| Washington State at California | 4:00 | | |
| Auburn at Arkansas | 4:00 | | |
| Stanford at #12 Oregon State | 5:30 | | |
Utah-Washington. Big game. Tennessee-Missouri. Big game (but not as big as the first one). Miami-FSU. Big game, mostly for one team. So there are some important games in this timeslot. It’s rare to see a November Saturday timeslot not to have an important game at all. Now, all games are not equal. Let’s be honest: very few will give a shit about Pitt-Cuse even if it is at Yankee Stadium.
And on that note, can we quit with putting football games on in baseball stadiums? Look at last week’s shitshow at Wrigley. I mean the game was hilariously bad as is considering the two teams playing. But the turf was in shambles. At one point they were trying to fix a patch that looked to be about two feet long and one foot wide. Like, seriously? Want to go to new places? Play in more NFL stadiums. Play in big high school stadiums. Hell, go to Barrow, Alaska and play on their field that borders the Arctic Ocean. Just stay away from the baseball stadiums or otherwise one day some guy is going to get seriously hurt.
Saturday Primetime
| US | Canada | ||
| San Diego State at Colorado State | 7:00 | | |
| #9 OIe Miss at #2 Georgia | 7:00 | | |
| West Virginia at #17 Oklahoma | 7:00 | | |
| Georgia Southern at Marshall | 7:00 |  | |
| #7 Texas at TCU | 7:30 | | |
| Mississippi State at Texas A&M | 7:30 | | |
| Rice at UTSA | 7:30 | | |
| Michigan State at #1 Ohio State | 7:30 | | |
| Florida at #19 LSU | 7:30 | | |
| Duke at #25 North Carolina | 8:00 | | |
You are going to notice that TSN (other than TSN+) is barely appearing this Saturday. Well, just like last week, the CFL has their playoff games on a Saturday. I guess it makes sense from a viewer perspective since I am sure they lose viewers to the NFL on Sunday and would lose less viewers going up against college football. I think it has become apparent that TSN is pushing college football (among a few other live sports properties) to TSN+ and putting much less on their actual television networks. Sad for fans who either don’t want to spend more money on an online platform or just would struggle figuring out the online platform to begin with. Sure, live sports on TV is still a huge thing and will be for a long time but slowly…SLOWLY…more and more things are moving online. Give it, let’s say, 20 years and I could see a big difference in what you see now.
Anyway, the actual schedule has Ole Miss-Georgia as the main game and a few other games that could have been huge if certain teams hadn’t shit the bed. Take Duke-UNC. UNC losing on the CW to Virginia and then to Georgia Tech made this game an afterthought. Same with WVU-Oklahoma. The Sooners’ upset losses to Kansas and then Oklahoma State in the final Bedlam have killed the hype for this matchup. It happens every season.
Saturday Late Night
| US | Canada | ||
| Arizona State at UCLA | 9:00 | | |
| Iowa State at BYU | 10:15 | | |
| Fresno State at San Jose State | 10:30 | | |
| USC at #6 Oregon | 10:30 | | |
FOX quadrupleheader! Gotta love when they do this. I wish ABC would just do it once. I think they’d be surprised how many people would tune in to a late night game on ABC. USC could put a massive wrench in Oregon’s plans of at least getting to the New Year’s Six with a win here and Fresno State needs to keep winning to have any hope of having the same kind of plans.
Hey, Watch This
Michigan at Penn State (Noon, FOX) – This is easily the most hyped game of the weekend and rightly so. Penn State (and James Franklin) has a chance to do what many have been waiting for them to do: take that final step towards the CFP. This is their final chance this season. Lose this and perhaps even an NY6 spot is gone. Lose and The Game becomes so massive it may overshadow last year’s affair and maybe even 2006’s Game of the Century. Win and they move up the rankings and then pray for a Michigan victory over Ohio State. Then they would head way down the tiebreaker list to see who wins the division. Oh, and the last tiebreaker? A random draw. I am not joking. Wouldn’t that be insane television? ESPN and FOX would go nuts.
Ole Miss at Georgia (7:00, TSN+/specialty pack) – This should be almost as hyped as the UM-PSU game but for one thing: the Rebels need Bama to lose two conference games for them to win the division. So the Fighting Kiffins’ best shot is to win out, go 11-1, and hope for some chaos around them. Then they might sneak into the playoff. As for Georgia, this is yet another prove-it game. Last week was Missouri, this week Ole Miss, next week Tennessee. Survive those then they may not even have to win the conference championship to go to the playoff.
Utah at Washington (3:30, FOX) – Man, FOX has a crazy-good set of games for their quadrupleheader this Saturday. The Huskies have been sort of hanging on lately. Almost like TCU did last year winning games late and winning games that are close. That has to be their mantra right now though: Al Davis’s popular “Just Win Baby.” As for the Utes, could they almost kill the Pac-12’s playoff hopes with a win here? Not totally but they would do a lot of damage and something tells me they would be happy doing that.
USC at Oregon (10:30, FOX) – Two ranked teams facing each other warrants a spot (most of the time) on this list. Well, ranked in the AP Poll at least (sorry, USC). USC could be just like Utah in the previous game: be the spoiler. Oregon has recovered very nicely from their close loss to Washington. Win here, don’t stumble against Arizona State and then win the Civil War over the Beavers and they get their chance at revenge (probably) on Washington.
Tennessee at Missouri (3:30, CBS) – This is an interesting one. The Vols were expected to at least be in the New Year’s Six conversation. Mizzou? Not at all. They have played out of their minds most of the season and put a scare into UGA last week. They can’t win the SEC East so they have to push to win out and give The Committee something to think about. The Vols actually can win the East but it would take the craziest of scenarios to have that happen.
Sickos Game of the Week
Vanderbilt at South Carolina (Noon, TSN+/specialty pack) – The SEC never ends up here. Nor should they. But this game has awful written all over it. It was down to this one and Pitt-Cuse but I will give this game the nod. The Pitt-Cuse game is at Yankee Stadium which is kind of cool but I am sure the field conditions will not be. But the aura of it being in a baseball stadium is what I will use to grudgingly tip the scales towards Vandy and the Cocks getting this spot. Now, if this game had been played at Vandy’s Bob the Builder Stadium then it would have been a no doubter.
Hubba Bubba Blowout of the Week
Michigan State at Ohio State (7:30, NBC) – OK hear me out. At some point, the Buckeyes have to stop with their extremely slow starts. Enough of them being in a dogfight with Rutgers or Maryland. One game it will catch up to them. I think that Ryan Day might finally push them hard to come out of the gate strong. If they do, this game will essentially be over at the half and NBC will be less than pleased with the viewers flocking elsewhere (but, that’s what they signed up for).
Wanna Bet?
I was SO close on the score of my Tennessee-UConn bet. And honestly, I wasn’t too far off with USC-Washington even if I did have the Trojans winning in an upset. And I got Bama’s points dead on. Don’t look at my Virginia pick. Let’s get to this week’s picks, shall we?
Southern Miss 29 Louisiana 28 (upset!)
North Texas 31 SMU 27 (another upset!)
Alabama 34 Kentucky 21 (no upset)
Penn State 30 Michigan 23 (yet another upset!)
Tulane 41 Tulsa 10
Wake Forest 31 NC State 27 (minor upset)
Florida State 42 Miami 32
Washington 34 Utah 14
Tennessee 45 Missouri 35
Washington State 31 California 24 (very slight upset)
Georgia 38 Ole Miss 27
UTSA 37 Rice 21
Oregon 63 USC 33
OK I picked a ton of upsets here and look at Oregon. Yeah I think they are going to have a field day with the USC defense even with Alex Grinch not there to fuck things up.
I am preparing for another day of college football, starting Saturday at Noon and going into Sunday morning. Remember, we are in November, people. We don’t have much longer to go. Soon enough it will be conference championship weekend and the schedules like these go away. So savour it. Take your time to watch a lot of football before it’s gone and the only thing to watch (after the Super Bowl is over at least) is the Xtreme United States Football Association and/or League, also known as the XUSFAL. That acronym will probably end up being better than what they come up with. I’d put money on it. Like ten bucks. Enjoy the games everyone!
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