Can’t say we didn’t see this coming – Week 9 College Football TV Schedule

OK we all know the facts here.  COVID-19 is a virus that has wreaked havoc in some areas of the world and has changed the way we live, possibly for a long time.  Also, sports have come back but with the amount of contact involved, some sports are more vulnerable than others to this pandemic.  Which brings me to Wisconsin.  Graham Mertz had a great game this past weekend.  Almost perfect passing the ball.  Wisconsin already looks good despite the fact they only played Illinois.

So now we find out that Mertz tested positive for COVID.  So he’s out for this coming week’s game.  Backup Jack Coan is dealing with a foot injury so he won’t play.  And now we find out that third stringer Chase Wolf has also tested positive for the Coronavirus.  So the Badgers are down to their fourth-string quarterback.  Wow.  So that means Danny Vanden Boom (great name by the way) gets the start on Saturday.  Luckily it’s Nebraska that’s the opponent.  But if Wisky loses to the Huskers, they can flush any College Football Playoff hopes down the drain no matter how much The Committee will give them some slack for what happened.  This will happen again this season.  Guaranteed.  Wisky is just the highest profile team so far.  What if it happens to a unit for Alabama or Clemson?  Shit will hit the fan then for sure.

UPDATE: So after that amazing intro, it was all for naught.  Wisconsin-Nebraska has been cancelled after more positive COVID-19 tests.

Alright, enough about the Wisky Covid situation.  Sounds like something the military would say in a battle.  Anyway, the schedule!

Thursday​

		US	Canada
South Alabama at Georgia Southern	7:30 PM
Colorado State at Fresno State	10:00 PM

We are getting close to football every day but we aren’t quite there.  Saying that, I am getting a bit more excited for weeknight football, especially weeknight football that lasts past midnight.  It’s not like these are huge games because they aren’t but it’s football so I will watch.  I mean what else are you going to watch?  Baseball is over.  I will let you know about the Thursday nighter later on this post but it’s not exactly a barnburner itself.  So instead you can sit down, watch the Sun Belt and then the Mountain West, and be happy.

Friday

		US	Canada
Minnesota at Maryland	7:30 PM

Hey remember when Maryland had two amazing games to start last season and everyone was heralding Mike Locksley as a great hire?  Since then, the Terps have been nothing short of awful and, surprisingly, a guy who could barely win a game at New Mexico has struggled at Maryland.  And by surprisingly, I mean not surprisingly.  At all.

Saturday Early​​

		US	Canada
Boston College at #1 Clemson	Noon
#20 Coastal Carolina at Georgia State	Noon
Purdue at Illinois	Noon
Memphis at #7 Cincinnati	Noon
#16 Kansas State at West Virginia	Noon
Michigan State at #13 Michigan	Noon
#5 Georgia at Kentucky	Noon

This feels like a lot of games where a ranked team is facing an unranked team where the ranked team should slaughter the unranked team.  Not exactly a stellar Noon schedule but I digress.

Memphis-Cincy could be the most interesting game since that is your best shot at an upset in this timeslot.  MSU-UM is a lot less important than it was before the Spartans’ upset loss to Rutgers.  The Sun Belt game isn’t huge but it will be interesting to see how long Coastal can keep this up.  I hope they make it so at least The Committee becomes a bit uncomfortable with the Group of Five selection for the New Year’s Six.

Saturday Afternoon

		US	Canada
#4 Notre Dame at Georgia Tech	3:30 PM
#17 Indiana at Rutgers	3:30 PM
LSU at Auburn	3:30 PM
Northwestern at Iowa	3:30 PM
TCU at Baylor	3:30 PM
Texas at #6 Oklahoma State	4:00 PM
Ole Miss at Vanderbilt	4:00 PM

What was thought to be a huge CBS game is now no longer nearly as big.  We shall see whether LSU has found their new quarterback and if Bo Nix can get back into the good graces of Auburn fans.  It could be a God-send for Brad and Gary though since this might end up being a pretty close game, something the SEC on CBS isn’t exactly known for these days.

One good thing about 2020 is it might have (MIGHT HAVE) killed reverse mirrors for good.  There is really no reason for them anymore in this day and age.  It’s really just a headache for all involved.  Most Americans get both ABC and ESPN2 in some form or fashion so it has become a moot point to use reverse mirrors.  Without specialty packs (as far as I know), this wouldn’t affect Canadians but man was it ever a crock of shit to deal with a reverse mirror that isn’t figured out properly and you got the same game on two different channels.

Saturday Primetime​​

		US	Canada
#25 Boise State at Air Force	6:00 PM
Mississippi State at #2 Alabama	7:00 PM
#3 Ohio State at #18 Penn State	7:30 PM
Navy at #22 SMU	7:30 PM
#24 Oklahoma at Texas Tech	8:00 PM

Ohio State-Penn State.  What else do we need to say?  How about that this matchup lost a LOT of its luster after last week’s crazy loss by PSU to Indiana.  ABC was hoping for a Top 10 matchup and won’t quite get it.  They should still dominate the timeslot though.

This feels a bit better than the afternoon timeslot.  But it’s close.  I am hoping there could get be some good games here and it looks like there might be some gems.  Alabama has to show they are still CFP-worthy and not fall to a Mike Leach speedbump, SMU has a test hosting Navy and could Air Force pull the upset and really cripple the Mountain West’s NY6 chances in its second week?

Saturday Late Night​​

		US	Canada
San Diego State at Utah State	9:30 PM
Western Kentucky at #11 BYU	10:15 PM

Pac-12 After Dark finally returns next week.  For now we get a Mountain West matchup and BYU’s march to….something.  BYU has ascended to #11 but they have to keep beating teams and beating them badly to keep in the Top 12 and have a legitimate shot at the New Year’s Six.

Games to set your eyeballs on

Ohio State at Penn State (7:30, ABC/TSN1) – No one should sleep on the Nittany Lions despite their crushing loss to Indiana.  James Franklin is still one of the better coaches in college football right now.  They have Sean Clifford at quarterback who is fairly underrated.  They have a team that could still sneak into the College Football Playoff (although the chances are slim now).  We know what can happen here.  PSU is still looking up at tOSU in the Big Ten East but the Nittany Lions hold their fate in their hands.  Win out and it’s off to Indianapolis.  Ohio State, on the other hand, is sneaking up on nobody despite the late start to the Big Ten season.  Justin Fields is still awesome and it looks like even with the loss of Chase Young to the pros, they have reloaded with another amazing defense.  This could end up being a Game of the Year candidate if Penn State leaves it all out on the field.

Memphis at Cincinnati (Noon, ESPN) – Another huge American Conference game.  You can expect one pretty much every week from now on from the conference who considers themselves part of the Power 6.  The Bearcats are definitely in the driver’s seat after their win over SMU last week.  But they can’t look ahead to, well, anything when a team like Memphis comes to town.  The Tigers have only lost once and have been a good team the past few years.  This is ripe for an upset.

Texas at Oklahoma State (4:00, FOX) – I would be surprised if even Cowboy fans thought that Oklahoma State would be this high up in the rankings at this point.  The Big XII has had a rough year and the Pokes are the only bright spot at this point.  Anyway, Tom Herman’s Longhorns could pretty much destroy the Big XII’s season on Halloween with an upset here.

Kansas State at West Virginia (Noon, TSN4) – OK it severely drops off a cliff after the first three games.  Somehow, WVU is 3-2 at this point of the season.  Neal Brown is doing a hell of a job in Morgantown.  And Chris Klieman may be doing even better in Manhattan.  One of these teams will actually have a legitimate shot at the Big XII Championship with a win here.  I do have to remember, however, that the regular season goes into mid-December now.  So I can’t be making too many crazy predictions when there is still a month-and-a-half left to go.

Indiana at Rutgers (3:30, BTN) – Fuck it, let’s go crazy here.  Undefeated (yes, UNDEFEATED) Rutgers hosts undefeated (yes, UNDEFEATED) Indiana.  Rutgers has never been in the games of the week section and I figured this was as good a time as any.  One of these teams will most likely be tied with Ohio State and Michigan at the top of the Big Ten East.  Going into November.  No that is not a misprint.

Honourable mention: Boston College at Clemson (Noon, ABC/TSN1); UCF at Houston (2:00, ESPN+); Arkansas at Texas A&M (7:30, SEC Network)

Some gambling fun and games

OK I got none of my upset picks correct.  For a bit, I thought SMU and Georgia Southern would pull it off but no.  As for the rest of my picks I was almost perfect so let’s see if we can keep that ball rolling this week.

Oklahoma State over Texas

Clemson over Boston College

Cincinnati over Memphis

West Virginia over Kansas State (big upset!)

UCF over Houston

Texas A&M over Arkansas

Indiana over Rutgers

Ohio State over Penn State

BYU over Western Kentucky

Utah State over San Diego State (let’s call it a mild upset)

Georgia State over Coastal Carolina (massive upset)

We are oh so close to football every day for like four weeks.  I can feel it!

Thursday Night Football again!  We get Atlanta heading to Carolina.  Not the greatest game but they can’t all be.  I have heard a few people marvel at the games that TNF gets.  I have to say that once FOX paired up with the NFL Network the quality of games improved a bit.  This is good.  It really has replaced Monday Night Football as the second-best night game of the week.  I’ve said this before and it may sound like blasphemy but I know MNF is an institution but to be honest, I could do without it.  I think most teams would agree as well now with the advent of TNF.  And in this COVID world, making things easier on the teams should be an idea worth looking into.

Will I watch like 26 hours of football this weekend?  No.  But I will do my best to watch as much as I can.  I’m sure I will have other plans at some point but it’s mostly a free weekend.  Not making excuses.  Just saying that some of my recaps might make it seem like I barely watched the game.  And that might be true.  Enjoy the games everyone!

From bad to worse: First my CFB predictions, now my NFL ones

I figured my college football predictions were bad.  They weren’t awful but they weren’t good by any stretch of the imagination.  My Stassen score put me near the bottom of the list again.  I don’t do this blog for a living so I am fine with this.  Now I turn my attention to the NFL predictions I made.  Did this work out better?  I’m sure you know the answer.  Same way as the past two seasons: I will take snippets of my NFL predictions post and put them here and see if I was right or if I might have been drunk when I made that prediction.  Let us begin.

Just like I thought last season, I think parity may end up being the name of the game.  I only have five teams getting at least 11 wins: New England, Kansas City, LA Chargers, New Orleans and LA Rams.

I got the Patriots right!  Twleve wins on the nose.  And the Chiefs were close with 12.  A huge miss, though, on the Chargers although the Melvin Gordon holdout was a harbinger for bad times in that soccer stadium outside Los Angeles.  The Saints were arguably one of the best teams to ever play on Wild Card weekend and the Rams were juuuuust outside the playoff picture.  So four out of five isn’t bad.  There was less parity than in recent years as the best teams were a TON better than the merely average teams so I got that one really wrong.

Where will the good division races be?  The AFC North, AFC West, NFC East and, especially, the NFC North should be quite close races.  The Patriots will win by their usual five games and I can’t see the Rams having any trouble this season winning their division.

Man I was awful with this prediction.  The Patriots were good but the Bills gave them a run for their money most of the season.  The Rams finished THIRD and missed the playoffs.  The NFC East was a great race but that’s because there were no good teams.  The other three divisions there were not close at all.  Baltimore won by six games and KC by 5.  Yikes.  At least I knew the NFC South wouldn’t be close.  Small consolation for this statement.

The NFC Wild Card race should be exciting down to the end.  The Bears should get in easy.  I have the Eagles one game ahead of the Falcons, Panthers, Niners and Seahawks and in a virtual tie with the Vikings for the final Wild Card spot in the conference.  I think they somehow win whatever convoluted tiebreaker they have to clinch that spot, sending many upset Viking fans to the bars to drown their sorrows for another season.

Good lord where the fuck do I start with this?  All garbage.  All of it.  The Bears struggled to get to .500.  The Eagles actually won the NFC East but wouldn’t have qualified for a Wild Card spot otherwise.  The Falcons and Panthers were awful.  The Niners were one of the best teams in football and the Seahawks weren’t that far behind.  And the Vikings actually got in to the playoffs rather easily and pulled a first-round upset.  So yeah, this was a disaster of a prediction.

In the AFC, not as much of a race but still a few teams in the mix.  The second-place team in the AFC West should clinch by American Thanksgiving.  I have Lamar Jackson fueling the Ravens to the other Wild Card spot ahead of the Steelers, Texans and Titans.  I doubt anyone else would even be close.

The AFC West, other than the Chiefs, was a joke.  The Ravens were the best team in football.  Again, other than the playoff teams, no one was better than .500.  The Steelers did just lose out on a Wild Card Spot so I was right on that account.  Houston and Tennessee both made the playoffs so do I count that?  I’d say no just to be fair to all the actual experts who probably picked the Texans or Titans to win the AFC South.

There won’t be much of a race to the bottom this season.  As hilarious as it would be if Arizona finished last again, it won’t happen since the Dolphins are so bad that I cannot foresee a way they escape the basement.  The odds for them to win 7 games should be 10,000 to 1.

Arizona and Miami were both bad.  But the Dolphins weren’t as bad as I, nor anyone else, thought.  Instead it was the lowly Bengals, Lions and Redskins filling the bottom three spots.  I wasn’t that far off since I had Cincinnati and Detroit only winning five games and the Skins getting six.  Miami fans should be pretty stoked that they were better than almost anyone figured they would be and that they could get their franchise quarterback in the upcoming draft.

I don’t think Patrick Mahomes will win the MVP award.  Going back-to-back is super difficult and despite the fact he’s a great talent, I can see at least one other guy having an amazing year.  I will go with Drew Brees this year.  I also think that if the Saints somehow win it all that Brees would go out on top.

Mahomes was damn good this season.  Many seasons he would have won the MVP.  But Lamar Jackson was a revolution.  He is slowly redefining the way more and more quarterbacks play.  As for Brees, if he hadn’t been injured, he might have cracked the Top 5 but no one was touching Jackson this season.

As for the Rookie of the Year choices, I will go with David Montgomery and Ed Oliver.  To be honest this is quite a bit of a crapshoot so who the hell knows with these picks.

I took a flyer on Montgomery to be honest since I figured he’d be a bigger part of the Bears offense to take the load off of Trubisky.  I was wrong.  Kyler Murray was the Offensive ROY which is not surprising considering the offensive weapons surrounding him in Arizona.  Nick Bosa was the Defensive ROY and rightfully so.  I am going to go out on a limb and say him and his brother Joey are the first brothers to both win Rookie of the Year awards.

And now my playoffs preview.  Let’s see how good/awful I did:

• I had the Chiefs losing in the divisional playoff and the 49ers missing the playoffs.  Well isn’t this just a great start.
• I also had Chicago losing the NFC Conference Championship so yeah, another shitty pick.
• I am looking through these predictions and I did not have one game where both teams actually ended up making the playoffs.  Can you believe that?  Holy fuck is that ever awful.
• And out of all the shitty playoff predictions, the Chargers were EASILY the worst pick of the bunch.  I’m gonna blame Philip Rivers for this.  Hey Phil, why don’t you just call TLC and have them create a show about your fucking ridiculously massive family and retire from football?

Phew!  Well that was brutal.  I think I could have picked at random and done better.

OK so there is some realignment news.  UConn becomes an Independent starting next season in the FBS.  The American Conference are going with eleven teams (for now) and scrapping the divisions.  I wish all divisions were scrapped but that’s a different story for another day.  However, when it looked like nothing else would happen, the realignment gods (or realignment devils depending on how you want to look at) gave us a gift.  Boise State is rather pissed off with the Mountain West’s new broadcast agreements.  Boise State is taking the conference to court over the agreement they signed with the conference seven years ago.  That agreement basically kept the Broncos in the MWC.  With the new TV deal, commissioner Craig Thompson said it would be the last time BSU’s home games would be negotiated separately.  Boise State says nuh-uh.  So if they decide to take action and leave the Mountain West they could end up being that twelfth team in the AAC.  This would be huge as the former Big East would get that much closer to creating that Power 6 they have wanted for years.  It also drops the Mountain West closer to the level of the other Group of Five conferences in terms of prestige.  Also, who knows what other dominoes would stop because of this.  BYU?  Army?  Possibilities are endless.  So this could be an interesting rest of the winter on this front.

The next post will be the conference tournament schedule and it’s still a while away from now.  The conference tournaments don’t officially start until March 3rd.  As has been the case the past few years, the Atlantic Sun is the New Mexico Bowl of CBB conferences as they begin the festivities.  We will be able to see none of that.  However, the Ohio Valley Conference will not be the first set of tournament action we see.  The Mountain West Conference starts things off on channels we can actually see on March 5th.  I wonder if I should actually set up an FA Cup-style NCAA Basketball tournament, for experimental and fantasy purposes only.  It would be hilarious to see some team from the MEAC go on a crazy run and then they get San Diego State in the sixth round and the Aztecs put up 140 on them.  I’d watch.

Anyway, enjoy your week everyone.