Wyld Stalions (and the Week 9 College Football TV Schedule)

Posted on October 24, 2023 by guelphbossman

Sign stealing. Cheating or an art? Or both? Or neither?

Look, this whole University of Michigan sign-stealing controversy is sounding a bit like the Houston Astros sign-stealing horseshit of a few years back, albeit with less garbage can banging and more just buying tickets for games involving conference opponents. It isn’t just the person above who is involved though. That man’s name is Connor Stalions. For fuck’s sake. Connor Stalions. Sounds like the name of a spy in a Tom Clancy novel or a jobber in WWE.

Anyway, Stalions was just hired a little over year ago by the Wolverines after being a volunteer with the team for seven years. A volunteer for seven years? OK then. On his LinkedIn (Corporate Facebook) profile, he mentions he can identify and exploit critical vulnerabilities and centers of gravity in the opponent scouting process. OK then. And over the past three years he has bought tickets for over 30 games at eleven different Big Ten schools and that many times it’s tickets on the exact opposite side of the season where the other person can hold their smartphone up to film the home team’s sideline. OK then.

Does this sound like something that is illegal? Yes. Yes it does. Well, not illegal in a criminal sense but illegal in a “that shouldn’t happen in a sporting event” kind of way. And yes, the NCAA, as corrupt an organization as it is, prohibits doing this and rightfully so.

So the question is who else knew. Stalions isn’t buying all those tickets himself. Not on a $55,000 per year salary. Someone is doing it for him. That person should be given a hell of a lot more than a slap on the wrist. And if Jim Harbaugh knew (which is the issue EVERYONE wants to know), he should be punished as well.

Will these punishments for Harbaugh, everyone involved and the school happen this season? Are you crazy? Of course not! The Wolverines are probably the favourite at this moment to win the national championship and there’s no way they will be derailed by this. Next season, sure why not. Relegate all their games to the Big Ten Network. Fine them. Suspend everyone. Do whatever. But don’t expect to see any 2023 punishment for the Michigan Wolverines football team. Besides, won’t Captain Khaki be in the NFL next season anyway?

Well that was…interesting………Wyld Stalions AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA *ahem* sorry about that. Let’s just get to the schedules alright?

Tuesday

		US	Canada
New Mexico State at Louisiana Tech	7:00
Liberty at WKU	7:30

We have a potential conference championship preview here…OK it’s pretty much going to be the conference championship unless something crazy happens in November. I guess the question will be if that game will be in Bowling Green (Kentucky) again or in Lynchburg, Virginia. Also, the Aggies look to take another giant step towards two straight years of bowl eligibility, cementing Jerry Kill as one of the most underrated head coaches this century.

Wednesday

		US	Canada
Jacksonville State at FIU	7:00
UTEP at Sam Houston	8:00

Well……it’s football. Enjoy it. I just hope one of the games is close.

Thursday

		US	Canada
Long Island at CCSU	7:00
Syracuse at Virginia Tech	7:30
Georgia State at Georgia Southern	7:30
South Carolina State at NC Central	7:30

We are looking at some seriously important Modern Day Hate down in Statesboro. With James Madison not eligible for the division title, the Sun Belt East could very well come down to this game. Both teams are playing well but think of this: if Georgia State wins, they would be 7-1 and could end up hosting 8-0 James Madison next weekend. Not saying College Gameday should go there (they won’t) but it’s not often that a Sun Belt game itself deserves that honour.

Also, yes, the Long Island University Sharks will be on your television screen this Thursday night. Funny how CBS inks a contract with the NEC to show their football games and they lose two of their schools just the other day with Merrimack and Sacred Heart moving on. The conference is now down to six schools and is teetering on not even having an automatic bid to the FCS playoffs which has to be up to like 60 teams or something like that now (it’s actually 24 teams but still….that’s quite a few teams).

Friday

		US	Canada
Brown at Penn	7:00
FAU at Charlotte	7:30

I think it could be -4 degrees out and Biff Poggi would still wear the cut-off sleeved shirt. Got to respect that.

Saturday Early

This schedule is not the greatest to be honest. It’s not bad. But really, nothing stands out except maybe Oklahoma travelling to Lawrence to face Kansas in what can, for the first time in a long time, be considered a speed bump kind of game for the Sooners. Other than that, there are quite a few teams playing games that could dictate whether they go bowling or not, including South Carolina, Army, and Boston College.

Saturday Afternoon

		US	Canada
Clemson at NC State	2:00
BYU at #7 Texas	3:30
Virginia at Miami	3:30
Michigan State at Minnesota	3:30
Florida vs. #1 Georgia (in Jacksonville)	3:30
Miami-OH at Ohio	3:30
#20 Duke at #18 Louisville	3:30
#8 Oregon at #13 Utah	3:30
Pittsburgh at #14 Notre Dame	3:30
Mississippi State at Auburn	3:30
#22 Tulane at Rice	4:00
Prairie View A&M at Florida A&M	4:00
USC at California	4:00

We have a ton of games in the afternoon window with quite a few of the day’s best games. Oregon and Utah in another Pac-12 Cannibalization Game, the Blue Devils and Cardinals face off where the winner might have the inside track to facing Florida State for the ACC Championship and, of course, the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party. Look, maybe Gary Danielson would be a whole lot more likeable if he was shitfaced. “Brad, this is a good game and I love how Duvalllllllllllllll County smells *BURP* but I have to profess my love for the Alabama God Damn Crimson Tide. They are GOD’S TEAM GOD DAMMIT (as he points a finger in Brad’s face). But this red team here is pretty good…too……” *immediately vomits all over the broadcast booth* OK, maybe not.

Saturday Primetime

		US	Canada
Marshall at Coastal Carolina	6:00
#19 Air Force at Colorado State	7:00
#21 Tennessee at Kentucky	7:00
Colorado at #23 UCLA	7:30
#3 Ohio State at Wisconsin	7:30
Vanderbilt at #12 Ole Miss	7:30
#17 North Carolina at Georgia Tech	8:00
Cincinnati at Oklahoma State	8:00
Old Dominion at #25 James Madison	8:00
Washington State at Arizona State	8:00

Hmmm….one of the weaker primetime schedules since early September. I don’t think anyone thought it would be that way, though. Many would have picked Tennessee-Kentucky as a huge game and tOSU-Wisky as another super important game. Not saying it isn’t important at all but probably a whole lot less important than it was predicted to be.

Saying all that, just remember the old college football adage: the weaker the window, the more chaos we see.

Saturday Late Night

		US	Canada
New Mexico at Nevada	10:30
#11 Oregon State at Arizona	10:30

The Beavs cannot afford to lose here against a pretty good Wildcats team. The other game is borderline-unwatchable. Remember, Nevada beat San Diego State 6-0 last week. Yawn.

Hey, Watch This!

Oregon at Utah (3:30, FOX) – Is there any doubt that this is the Game of the Week? Well there would have been about a month ago but now we’re here and this is the easy choice. With both teams at 3-1 in the conference, there is a very good chance that the loser here has their hopes dashed of a Pac-12 Championship game berth. Forget the College Football Playoff. Forget the New Year’s Six. It’s off to like the Holiday Bowl or something like that. Not bad. But not what they played this season for.

Oklahoma at Kansas (Noon, FOX) – I think we have all figured out that you can’t sleep on Lance Leipold’s Kansas Jayhawks. Last season was a revelation and this year it continues as they are just getting better which is bad news for the rest of the Big XII. The Sooners were going along quietly until they beat Texas and held off UCF at the end. Now, everyone is watching. I said it above: this is a big speed bump game for OU. Win and you head to Stillwater and Bedlam for the biggest game of the season. Lose and the playoff might be just out of reach.

Duke at Louisville (3:30, TSN+/specialty pack) – I do wish that TSN had picked this game up. To put it on their online platform seems like a bit of a slap in the face to both programs. But, for once, it feels like every channel is showing live sports and big-time properties from NASCAR to Formula 1 to the CFL to the Rugby World Cup. So I understand. Look, the Cardinals are not out of this race yet. Win out and they probably head to Charlotte for the ACC Championship. Duke also has an opportunity if they run the table but they will need some help.

Ohio State at Wisconsin (7:30, NBC) – Please don’t be Jac Collinsworth, please don’t be Jac Collinsworth, please don’t be Jac Collinsworth…..hey Noah Eagle is calling the game! Good. Eagle is good. Comes by it honestly with his dad one of the best at calling the NFL. Jac on the other hand is fucking terrible. He is there because his name is Collinsworth and not something else. Hopefully, NBC does the right thing and puts him elsewhere next season. As for this game, the Buckeyes should not take the Badgers lightly as an upset loss here would screw over a potential 1 vs. 2 matchup in The Game in late November.

Sickos Game of the Week

UConn at Boston College (Noon, TSN+/specialty pack) – The battle for Northeastern supremacy starts and ends with this game since UMass sucks. Amazingly enough, if the Eagles win here they are 5-3 and closing in on bowl eligibility. That’s huge for Jeff Hafley who started the season on a massive hot seat. That doesn’t take away from the fact that the bottom half of the ACC is not good and last season’s UConn might be an aberration.

Hubba Bubba Blowout of the Week

Indiana at Penn State (Noon, CBS) – A lot of people are questioning whether James Franklin is the guy that can get Penn State over the hump and into the CFP. Next year will be the ultimate test. If they can’t get in with an expanded field, they should move on. Putting all that aside, the Nittany Lions played awful last week and will be taking out their anger on the lowly Hoosiers, I can pretty much guarantee that.

Wanna Bet?

Man, looking back most of my picks fucking sucked. UAB over Memphis? Woof. UNC over Virginia? Yikes. USC over Utah. Oh no. I would say let’s keep the ball rolling but the ball, at this point, is a square. Need to start over and get some of these picks right.

FIU 40 Jacksonville State 27 (upset pick!)

Georgia State 26 Georgia Southern 21

FAU 38 Charlotte 7

Oklahoma 43 Kansas 30

Kansas State 34 Houston 23

SMU 44 Tulsa 9

Clemson 49 NC State 16

Louisville 23 Duke 19

Utah 24 Oregon 17 (slight upset)

Auburn 37 Mississippi State 20

Air Force 32 Colorado State 6

Ohio State 31 Wisconsin 17

Oregon State 49 Arizona 35

The Bossman Top 26

It’s time for another rousing version of the Bossman Top 26. OK, it’s the second time doing this many teams. Let’s just get going with it.

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

Yep, I have added Liberty in at the final spot. Sure, their schedule is arguably the easiest in the land; but if they run the table and get some help they might sneak into the New Year’s Six much to the chagrin of many college football fans. James Madison continues to wait for a waiver that may never come but at least we know that if there aren’t enough bowl eligible teams, they would be the first call to fill a bowl spot. And yes, I have Michigan in the top spot. Despite their cheating ways (it seems), they still look like the best team in college football, even better than UGA. I know SEC fans will scrunch their noses at that since they think their conference is the be-all-and-end-all and that the CFP should be Georgia, Alabama, Ole Miss and LSU. Well you know what? Fuck you. This is my rankings. Make your own.

Getting these blog posts out before the Tuesday night games is basically impossible for me. Not complaining since it means there’s Tuesday night football. It’s still not easy though. Enjoy the games everyone!

We’re looking ahead again (and giving you the Week 8 College Football TV Schedule)

Posted on October 17, 2023 by guelphbossman

Last year I decided to do some looking ahead in the middle of the season. Did it work out then? Eh. So why not try it again? What’s the worst that could happen? Why so many questions?

Will one of the surprise Group of Five teams keep things going into November? Air Force realistically has a clear path to 10-0 now. They end up with UNLV and Boise State and that’s where their mettle will be tested. If they don’t get there undefeated then they may not deserve that Group of Five New Year’s Six spot. James Madison, at this point, really has nothing to play for although that could be scary. They could run the table almost to spite the NCAA at this point. Finally, if things go awry for the AFA, JMU (and Liberty), watch out for Miami-Ohio. Quietly they are 6-1 and have the biggest game of the MAC season against the other 6-1 team in the conference, Toledo. Win that and they could conceivably go 11-1 and pout a lot of pressure on the top G-5 teams.

Is there anyone who will stop a Georgia-Alabama SEC Championship? Are there some small landmines left on UGA’s schedule? Sure. And now with Brock Bowers out for the season, any one of Tennessee, Missouri and, yes, Florida could upend the apple cart so to speak. Out in the SEC West, Bama has a much tougher road to hoe but if they can get through their next two games against the Vols and LSU, it might be clear sailing to Atlanta.

Can Penn State finally push through in the Big Ten East? Yes. This might be their best chance ever. They have to show that, though, this coming Saturday. Lose to Ohio State and forget about it. Win and they will make all Michigan fans nervous until their mega-matchup. This next month will define James Franklin’s tenure at State College.

Which conference will miss the College Football Playoff? Or will it be conferences…plural? If UGA and Bama make it to conference championship weekend undefeated then it will be two conferences being left out almost guaranteed. If not, then it will be a dogfight but I still worry about the Pac-12 and what feels like the inevitable cannibalization which has kind of already started. Washington is their best best but absolutely cannot lose more than one game the rest of the way.

The biggest upset the rest of the way will be…I am going to go with Oklahoma losing to either Oklahoma State in Bedlam or TCU on Black Friday. Something tells me they will not get through unscathed.

Now who will win the Heisman? Caleb Williams isn’t out of the race but man he looked awful in South Bend. Michael Penix Jr. is now the frontrunner but he will have to basically outlast Bo Nix, Jordan Travis, Drake Maye and J.J. McCarthy of all people who is slowly and efficiently powering Michigan through everyone on their schedule. This might be one of the tightest races in recent memory.

OK enough Nostradamusing….it’s sked time!

Tuesday

		US	Canada
Middle Tennessee at Liberty	7:00
Southern Miss at South Alabama	7:30
WKU at Jacksonville State	7:30

Time for some CU(SA) Next Tuesday action as the two conference favourites play…in two separate games. Some Fun Belt action alongside it as well. I am so loving football every day for damn near two months.

Wednesday

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

Maybe, just maybe, Sam Houston can finally get their first FBS win. Also, the Battle of I-10 (now a conference game!) is later on as the Aggies and Miners play for the Silver Spade. I also love these less-well-known trophy games. You can always tell it means a lot to these teams even if they don’t mean much in the grand scheme of things.

Thursday

		US	Canada
James Madison at Marshall	7:00
Rice at Tulsa	7:00
NC Central at Morgan State	7:30

Easily the highlight of the weeknight games is the Dukes travelling to Huntington to face off against the Thundering Herd. I hope that JMU can get a waiver to go bowling because if they keep going like this they deserve it. Also, the first of two HBCU games this weekend that you can see up here. Other than Week Zero that is something that almost never happens.

Friday

		US	Canada
SMU at Temple	7:00

Look, there’s nothing else on…maybe baseball. So hopefully this one gets weird.

Saturday Early

The absolute main course of the week goes off at noon hour with PSU and tOSU facing off. Many hate the fact these big games are on at Noon but I saw a tweet that said this is a good way to get people to watch college football all day as since they introduced the ABC Saturday Night game, viewers shifted their viewing habits and were watching the games starting 3:30 and after way more than the Noon games. Not anymore.

We also have a big Group of Five matchup as Air Force looks to continue their undefeated run in a Commander’s-In-Chief Trophy game against Navy. Finally, Rutgers (RUTGERS!) could clinch bowl-eligibility with a win over the lowly Indiana Hoosiers.

Saturday Afternoon

Could the Vols upset the Tide? It’s entirely possible considering how average Bama has sometimes been. Wazzu and Oregon face off in a Pac-12 elimination game of sorts. The two most surprising teams in the Big XII will try and keep their surprising runs going. Imagine one of Texas or Oklahoma loses out on a Big XII Championship spot in their final year in the conference because of Oklahoma State? Or even worse, West Virginia? Big XII fans would never let either school live it down.

Saturday Primetime

		US	Canada
Virginia at #10 North Carolina	6:30
Utah State at San Jose State	7:00
#13 Ole Miss at Auburn	7:00
TCU at Kansas State	7:00
Appalachian State at Old Dominion	7:00
#16 Duke at #4 Florida State	7:30
#2 Michigan at Michigan State	7:30
Army at #19 LSU	7:30
Clemson at Miami	8:00
Georgia State at Louisiana	8:00
#14 Utah at #18 USC	8:00

The biggest game of the night is…*checks notes*…Florida State hosting Duke? DUKE? Yep. This could be a massive upset if the Blue Devils can pull it off. Also, let’s not understate that if the Noles win it counts as a big win and gives them another big push towards the College Football Playoff.

The rest of the primetime schedule features another Pac-12 elimination game. Imagine saying that the Trojans and Caleb Williams are eliminated from the Pac-12 race over a week before Halloween? Say that at the start of the season and some would have thought you were crazy.

Also, we have a potential Fight Night II as Michigan heads to East Lansing to face Baby Brother, the Spartans. If there’s even a sniff of a potential brawl it will get a lot of attention. I’m sure Captain Khaki will tell his players to steer clear of any of that shit because they have national championship aspirations and any suspensions could cause serious problems.

Saturday Late Night

		US	Canada
#25 UCLA at Stanford	10:30
Montana State at Sacramento State	10:30

Wow this is….this is technically the late night schedule. Look, if the Montana State-Sac State game is anything like the Montana-Idaho game last Saturday night then this could be a fun one to watch.

Hey, Watch This!

Penn State at Ohio State (Noon, FOX) – There is no other game that could occupy this top spot. This is one of the three-team Big Ten East Round Robin Games of the Year (along with the games against Michigan) where one or even two teams will be eliminated from the CFP conversation for having the audacity to be in the same division as the other teams. A loss here doesn’t fully eliminate either team from contention as you will know from my preview posts back in August.

Duke at Florida State (7:30, ABC) – The Blue Devil Dream Season could hit a crescendo at around 11:00. Weeks after, arguably, their biggest win in program history over Clemson they could one-up that if they pull off the monumental upset here. On the other hand, Jordan Travis could re-introduce himself into the Heisman race if he can put on a big performance and lead FSU to victory.

Tennessee at Alabama (3:30, CBS) – Gee, I wonder who Gary Danielson will be pulling for in this one? Look, I am sure there are some people who are surprised that the Vols are only 6 spots behind the Tide in the rankings. You shouldn’t be. As I said above, Bama has looked entirely average at times this season (see their game against USF). Saying all that, this is still the Alabama Damn Crimson Tide and you know Nick Saban will have the players up for this game so UT can’t afford a slow start here.

Utah at USC (8:00, FOX) – If USC hadn’t played poorly last Saturday in South Bend and if the Utes hadn’t looked terrible against Oregon State a couple weeks back, this game could have been close to number one on the list. Instead, both squads will be fighting for their Pac-12 lives which is something no one figured for this game considering there is still more than a month left in the season.

Sickos Game of the Week

Northwestern at Nebraska (3:30, Big Ten Network) – This is why conference networks exist. To bury games like this far away from many eyes while still being able to say it’s being broadcast to a fairly wide audience. I can’t see there being much interest in this game anywhere, except for Wildcat and Cornhusker fans (and even then).

Hubba Bubba Blowout of the Week

Army at LSU (7:30, TSN+/SP) – There are speed bump games and then there is this. Unless LSU shits the bed, this is not going to end well for the Black Knights. So no, this is not a speed bump game or a lookahead game or anything else you want to call it. It will probably end up being a good old fashioned beatdown.

Wanna Bet?

Who called the Pitt upset? This fucking guy….I’m pointing at myself. Enough said. Let’s get on to this week’s picks!

UTEP 29 New Mexico State 23

Ohio State 34 Penn State 24

Air Force 39 Navy 38

Ohio 20 Western Michigan 16

Arkansas 21 Mississippi State 14

UAB 38 Memphis 35 (upset!)

Oklahoma State 27 West Virginia 23

Alabama 31 Tennessee 28

North Carolina 41 Virginia 33

Michigan 45 Michigan State 17

Florida State 30 Duke 13

USC 20 Utah 16

Louisiana 25 Georgia State 24

The Bossman Top 26!

It’s baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack! Yeah, I figured it was about time to whip out the Bossman Top 25 so here it is in all its….well, glory might be too strong a word…wait hold on…oh no. Not the Top 25. I’m going one better. Top 26, motherfuckers! Let’s ride!

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

“Bossman, why don’t you have Michigan at #1?” “Bossman, why do you have Bama up at #8?” “Bossman, why don’t you have James Madison in the Top 25?” Look, I try to base this on how good a team is, their record, and who they have played. You could exchange Air Force and JMU and it makes not a lick of difference. You could flip flop Georgia and Michigan. You could have Oregon State above Alabama. You could do all these things, sure. And it may end up working out that way. I find it much easier (now) to start the rankings in the middle of the season because I have a better idea of where most of the teams should be. Plus I know that all the big games coming up will actually alter how the season plays out, something that can’t be done with a preseason poll.

Football every day, folks. FOOTBALL….EVERY DAMN DAY! Until American Thanksgiving Eve. Embrace it. Everyone have a great rest of the week and enjoy the games!

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

Posted on October 10, 2023 by guelphbossman

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

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

Posted on October 9, 2023 by guelphbossman

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!

49! (and the Week 6 College Football TV Schedule)

Posted on October 4, 2023 by guelphbossman

49…ok then. What do you mean by that Bossman?

What do I mean? Oh, I will tell you what I fucking mean. Starting today, there will be either college football or the NFL for 49 straight days.

FORTY-NINE. STRAIGHT. FUCKING. DAYS.

If I am not mistaken, this is the longest string of days with football in the history of ever. So embrace it. Drink it in. Enjoy yourself. This might be one of the greatest times ever to be a football fan.

And with that in mind, let’s get right to the college football schedule for this week, Week Six.

Wednesday

		US	Canada
Jacksonville State at Middle Tennessee	8:00
FIU at New Mexico State	9:00

This starts Conference USA’s October of Weekdays! No games on Saturday. None. I’m not kidding. It’s not MACtion or Fun Belt but football on a Wednesday night is always welcome in the Bossman home.

Thursday

		US	Canada
Sam Houston at Liberty	7:00
WKU at Louisiana Tech	8:00

More ConFUNerence USA action. Actually, no that sucks. I’m not using that again.

Friday

		US	Canada
Cornell at Harvard	7:00
Kansas State at Oklahoma State	7:30

The weekday sked? More like weak-day sked am I right? Ugh. Anyway, we have some Ivy action in Haw-vud and the possibility that Captain Mullet himself, Mike Gundy, could be put on a serious hot seat if his Cowboys don’t show up for this one.

Saturday Early

One of the biggest Red River Shootouts of all-time and the final one for both teams in the Big XII headlines the early slate. Really, nothing else comes that close to the RRS but LSU-Mizzou will also have their share of eyeballs as it’s a huge game for the Tigers. See what I did there?

Saturday Afternoon

		US	Canada
Marshall at NC State	2:00
Howard at Northwestern	3:00
#13 Washington State at UCLA	3:00
Virginia Tech at #5 Florida State	3:30
Wake Forest at Clemson	3:30
#11 Alabama at Texas A&M	3:30
North Texas at Navy	3:30
Syracuse at #14 North Carolina	3:30
Kent State at Ohio	3:30
Texas State at Louisiana	3:30
USF at UAB	4:00
UCF at Kansas	4:00
Vanderbilt at Florida	4:00

A lot of games in the afternoon schedule with no real breakout games. Saying that, the Aggies could do the most ridiculous thing so far this season if they can upend the Tide. Seeing Wake and Clemson relegated to the ACC Network afternoon slot is jarring to say the least. Florida State has to better than they have been lately even if it is just the Hokies. And the most fun team in this timeslot? That would be the Texas State Bobcats who could take a major step towards bowl eligibility with a win over Louisiana.

Saturday Primetime

		US	Canada
Colorado at Arizona State	6:30
#20 Kentucky at #1 Georgia	7:00
Florida A&M at Southern	7:00
#10 Notre Dame at #25 Louisville	7:30
#2 Michigan at Minnesota	7:30
Arkansas at #16 Ole Miss	7:30
Georgia Tech at #17 Miami	8:00
San Jose State at Boise State	8:00
Texas Tech at Baylor	8:00
#24 Fresno State at Wyoming	8:00

I believe FOX is finally putting their main event on in primetime. The Mountain West on actual FOX! Love to see it. And this may essentially be a Group of Five elimination game with both teams playing great football to start the season. That’s not to belittle ND-UL and UK-UGA which will also be huge games in a pretty damn loaded timeslot. I will say though that it is a bit odd to see FAMU-Southern on actual network television in a group of games like this. We are seeing more Group of Five and FCS games ending up on network television because of Peacock and conference networks. I’m not complaining. At all.

Saturday Late Night

		US	Canada
#15 Oregon State at California	10:00
Arizona at #9 USC	10:30

Normally I would say this looks like a bit of a piss-poor Pac-12 After Dark slate. But we see what happened last week with Arizona keeping it very close with Washington. So either we get a good game or two or an early bedtime! Sounds like a win-win.

Hey, Watch This!

Oklahoma vs. Texas (in Dallas) (Noon, ABC/TSN3) – This is going to be possibly the most heavily hyped Red River Shootout ever. Both teams having legitimate national championship aspirations (if they win this game) and in their last season in the Big XII Conference. And both teams with not exactly tough schedules the rest of the way. I honestly can’t see there ever being the same amount of hype again when they both go to the SEC. They will always be a bit buried in the sheer amount of good SEC games every year.

Kentucky at Georgia (7:00, TSN+/specialty pack) – Too bad TSN couldn’t pick this up but we know how it is until the CFL is finished for the season. And with the CFL doing Saturday playoff games it will be extended a couple of weeks. Anyway, this is a chance for the Wildcats to shed the basketball-school moniker (possibly for good) and shut the naysayers up with a win here. And man, a win would be epic and earth-shattering (in a college football sense). After this, the Dawgs have an easy one with Vanderbilt then four relatively tough games so a win here is imperative to keep atop the SEC East.

Notre Dame at Louisville (7:30, ABC/TSN+) – The way things are looking the Irish will have this game and next week’s game against USC as their final two true tests of the season (especially with Clemson Clemsoning hard this year). So this game becomes very important. Win the next two and they can, unless they shit the bed, pretty much lock up a New Year’s Six spot. The Cards, on the other hand, haven’t felt like this good of a team since Lamar Jackson was under centre. This would be Jeff Brohm’s signature win in his first year back at his alma mater.

LSU at Missouri (Noon, TSN+/specialty pack) – Who would have thought Mizzou would be here at this point of the season? Probably nobody, let’s be honest. Now this is their chance to really prove they are the second-best team in the SEC East and the biggest threat to Georgia. This is the first of a four-game minefield for this team and if they even go 3-1 they are in great shape. LSU needs to win to have any shot of making waves in the SEC West.

Sickos Game of the Week

Howard at Northwestern (3:00, Big Ten Network) – Nebraska-Illinois is lucky that it’s on FOX Sports One and we can’t see it up here. I have to have rules for this section, otherwise it would be a shitty ESPN+ game every week. Normally, I wouldn’t include an FCS team in this section but I am making an exception here. You have to be some kind of sicko to watch any more than, let’s say, one minute of this game.

Hubba Bubba Blowout of the Week

Virginia Tech at Florida State (3:30, ABC/TSN+) – I still think the Hokies are one of the worst teams in the FBS and I have a feeling that the Noles are going to take out a lot of their frustrations of the past few weeks on VaTech in this one.

Wanna Bet?

So I tried doing scores last week. I think I am going to continue with it. I mean it’s no worse than me picking against the spread since I was average at best at that. So now let’s get to the section that you gambling heathens love.

Liberty 17 Sam Houston 14

Kansas State 33 Oklahoma State 20

Army 35 Boston College 21

LSU 28 Missouri 19

Texas 56 Oklahoma 54 (5OT)

Mississippi State 30 Western Michigan 26

North Carolina 24 Syracuse 21

Ohio 38 Kent State 24

Navy 45 North Texas 16

UAB 37 USF 35

Georgia 41 Kentucky 30

Notre Dame 42 Louisville 29

Miami 28 Georgia Tech 14

Reader Gordo asked me on Saturday why Texas A&M-Arkansas wasn’t on the specialty pack. So I figured I would ask a customer service rep about it since it should have been. The response from the CSR? “It looks like Texas is only available on ESPN.” I give up with Rogers/Cogeco/Eastlink/any other companies using the Super Sports Pak. Same with Bell and their college sports package. They don’t understand so no point in asking.

I will be live-tweeting…live-Xing? That sounds dirty. Anyway, I will be online on Saturday and for good portions of the other three weeknights. Should be another fun week of college football. Enjoy the games everyone!

The Week 5 College Football TV Schedule and an Intro that might hurt some

Posted on September 28, 2023 by guelphbossman

Hey Miami fans, remember this guy? It’s Al Golden (and Al Golden’s tie)! He parlayed a fairly decent run at lowly Temple (I mean they were really bad before he got there) into a head coaching job at Miami where he was absolutely mediocre. Canes fans couldn’t wait for this guy to get shitcanned and they finally got their wish in 2015 after four-and-a-half seasons in Coral Gables.

So where’s Al been since? He spent six seasons in the NFL before getting hired to be Marcus Freeman’s defensive coordinator at Notre Dame. The move made sense. As a DC, he was pretty good. One of those guys who probably fits best as a coordinator but should never be a head coach.

Which brings us to what happened this past Saturday in South Bend. Good god. I will say, it was a good defensive battle although both offenses did their part in the low scoring affair. Ohio State got one last chance to drive for the win. On the final two defensive plays for the Irish, they had ten men on the field. OK…to have that happen once, it sucks and chances are a player missed an assignment. For it to happen TWICE IN A ROW? What in the hell? Marcus Freeman took the blame for it. As he said, he is the head coach so it falls on him. Admirable. But not fully correct. Golden has to know what the fuck is happening and it seems like he had no clue.

Will Golden be the defensive coordinator beyond this season? Quite possibly. It was a huge fuckup that cost them a win but the Notre Dame defense has been pretty damn stout otherwise so it will take more than that for him to get fired. That’s no consolation to Irish fans who saw their team snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Also, a reminder of a not-so-good era in Miami Hurricanes football that they are still struggling to recover from.

OK enough about that. Time to think of the future. Week 5 to be exact. Let me get you your Canadian college football television information for the upcoming Saturday (and I’ll throw in Thursday and Friday for no charge).

Thursday

		US	Canada
Middle Tennessee at WKU	7:30
Temple at Tulsa	7:30
Jacksonville State at Sam Houston	8:00

Interesting start to the week. Conference USA begins their no-Saturdays schedule with these games on Thursday night. It is feeling like WKU and Liberty will end up in the Conference USA Championship game but watch out for newcomer Jacksonville State. The Fighting RichRods are playing WAY better than anyone thought they would and could surprise.

Friday

		US	Canada
Louisville at NC State	7:00
Columbia at Princeton	7:00
Louisiana Tech at UTEP	9:00
Cincinnati at BYU	10:15

Hey, Louisville is pretty good although they better not look ahead to their huge showdown with Notre Dame. NC State has a knack for making teams struggle in games like that. Also first game between new Big XIIers (Big XII-ites?) as Cincinnati travels to Provo to face the Cougs.

Saturday Early

You read it correctly: USC and Colorado are playing at Noon. 10:00 am local time in Boulder. I guess that’s the price the Pac-12 has to pay to be in early games. Although that ends this year so not too much of a deal to do it once. A few other intriguing games with Clemson playing Syracuse and almost feeling like an underdog and Florida facing Kentucky where Kentucky feels like they should be the favourite.

Finally, there’s the story of James Madison. Huge game against USA here. As of right now, the Dukes are ineligble for the Sun Belt Championship and a bowl game. Would the Sun Belt push for them to become eligible if they end up running the table the rest of the way? It’s possible since it would put them right in the mix for that one Group of Five spot (and would be the first Sun Belt team to earn that spot if it happens). A big question as long as JMU stays undefeated.

Saturday Afternoon

		US	Canada
Virginia at Boston College	2:00
Arizona State at California	3:00
#24 Kansas at #3 Texas	3:30
Bowling Green at Georgia Tech	3:30
Indiana at Maryland	3:30
Wagner at Rutgers	3:30
#1 Georgia at Auburn	3:30
USF at Navy	3:30
Northern Illinois at Toledo	3:30
#2 Michigan at Nebraska	3:30
Boise State at Memphis	4:00
#23 Missouri at Vanderbilt	4:00

Yep, it’s time for the SEC late doubleheader ESPN windows which means no ESPN game at 3:30. I guess with the clock changes the three-hour windows would work except for the people who believe that they’ve cut 17,000 plays from every game because of the new clock rules.

KU-UT is obviously the standout game here but watch for UGA heading to Auburn and Boise State facing off against Memphis. Those two games could be sneaky good.

Saturday Primetime

		US	Canada
#13 LSU at #20 Ole Miss	6:00
#9 Oregon at Stanford	6:30
Coastal Carolina at Georgia Southern	7:00
#11 Notre Dame at #17 Duke	7:30
Charlotte at SMU	7:30
Michigan State at Iowa	7:30
South Carolina at #21 Tennessee	7:30
Pittsburgh at Virginia Tech	8:00
San Diego State at Air Force	8:00
West Virginia at TCU	8:00

Alright things get better but it’s not like it’s a huge jolt and a bunch of great games in the primetime slot. Two games containing ranked-on-ranked violence, two more games involving ranked teams and SDSU-AFA which will be huge in the Mountain West with no divisions this season. I still don’t agree with the short ESPN window but there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. This is the final year of these SEC tripleheaders. The reason? No exclusivity around the CBS 3:30 window now that the SEC is moving fully back to ESPN and ABC and the Big Ten will pick up the afternoon mantle going forward. Thank fucking God. My prayers have been answered!

Saturday Late Night

		US	Canada
#12 Alabama at Mississippi State	9:00
#7 Washington at Arizona	10:00

An extremely light schedule. Doesn’t happen too often. Both games feature ranked teams. Might be an early bedtime (for college football season) if the latest game goes the way most believe it will.

Hey, Watch This!

Notre Dame at Duke (7:30, ABC/TSN+) – A lot of good/not great games this week. I will put this one at the top but it could really be anywhere in this section. This should be the most-watched football game in Duke history and if they can pull off the upset, the rest of the ACC will have to take notice. The Irish, however, might want to take out last week’s frustrations on the Blue Devils.

Kansas at Texas (3:30, ABC/TSN+) – I honestly don’t know why the ABC games are also being shown on TSN+. For completion’s sake I guess? Anyway, this could end up being the most exciting of the games this weekend just for the fact that almost every college football fan remembers “that upset” that the Jayhawks had over Texas a few years back. And now that the Jayhawks are actually good, the Horns cannot overlook them with the Red River Shootout coming up next week.

Utah at Oregon State (Friday, 9:00, FOX Sports One) – Well it’s about time a game that we couldn’t get up here would appear on this list. It happens less than ever but it makes sense it would happen at least a few times this season. And it’s a big Pac-12 game although any game with two of the top seven teams in the conference will be a big game this year. The Beavs probably can’t lose this game because, with two conference losses, it would pretty much eliminate them from any chance at the Pac-12 Championship game (unless true chaos happens which, considering it’s the Pac-12, could very well occur).

LSU at Ole Miss (6:00, TSN+/specialty pack) – I remember back in the days when I had to set up my PVR because I would be busy doing stuff with my kids. And this is the type of situation that would infuriate me because I’d either have to record this game and leave a bunch of games out or just forget this one because it didn’t follow the normal TV windows. This actually may be a big game for the Rebels as the rumour is that the locals are souring a bit on Lane Kiffin. As silly as it sounds, he may end up on a serious hot seat if they can’t at least keep things close with a very good Tigers squad.

Sickos Game of the Week

Virginia at Boston College (2:00, The CW) – Hey, the CW! This is the first time the CW appears on this list (or any list for that matter). Many feel this is the first leg of the ACC Basement Round Robin which also involves Virginia Tech. I still believe the Hokies are the worst of the bunch but these two teams don’t look a whole lot better so far.

Hubba Bubba Blowout of the Week

Penn State at Northwestern (Noon, Big Ten Network) – The Wildcats have somehow won two games this season. I don’t think they win any more to be honest with you and that streak will start here. Sure, the Cats beat a Minnesota team that played super-poorly last week but this is the Nittany Lions we are talking about. If this is within 40 by the end I will be shocked.

Wanna Bet?

Yeah that wasn’t the greatest showing for me last weekend that’s for sure. Good thing I don’t bet actual money on college football (anymore). Let’s move on to this week’s picks which may or may not be any better. And you know what? I’m going to do something different. I’m actually going to post my predicted final score. This will go well, right?

Tulsa 42 Temple 14

NC State 26 Louisville 25

Utah 28 Oregon State 20

Kentucky 35 Florida 13

James Madison 30 South Alabama 24

USC 52 Colorado 23

Boston College 27 Virginia 21

Maryland 39 Indiana 7

Navy 44 USF 34

Texas 45 Kansas 16

Ole Miss 34 LSU 31

Coastal Carolina 35 Georgia Southern 14

Notre Dame 44 Duke 28

As far as I can tell, everything is up as far as the specialty packs are concerned. I have to watch for what BTN shows and I’m starting to wonder if it makes a difference where you are in Canada as to which game you get. It probably shouldn’t but you never know. This is Rogers/Bell/Eastlink/Shaw/Cogeco we are talking about.

I will be on the Twitter machine on Saturday and probably Thursday and Friday night as well so follow along or join there for some college football banter and try your best to avoid the assholes (it’s a fun game albeit sometimes frustrating). Enjoy the games everyone!

Man, oh man, were there some overreactions this week…oh and the Week 2 College Football TV Schedule

Posted on September 7, 2023 by guelphbossman

Look, did Colorado surprise a lot of people this past weekend? Absolutely. No doubt about it. Deion Sanders is proving, whether you like him or not, that he can flat-out coach. And overhauling the roster like he did was not a bad idea at all. It does suck for the players that had to transfer out but unfortunately it’s football and the name of the game is winning.

Saying that………the amount of people I saw on Twitter that said Colorado will win 10 or 11 games this season was way too much. It should have been zero. Colorado may be better than advertised but they aren’t all of a sudden a New Year’s Six possibility. But hey, that’s the reactions from Week 1 of college football. Every. Single. Fucking. Year.

So let’s do it again on here! It’s overreaction time! Let’s look at some of the other overreactions you may (or may not) have heard after the Week 1 games were complete:

Ohio State is just an average team. Do we expect more from the Buckeyes against a team like Indiana? Sure. But they are bringing in a new quarterback and their best receiver was not 100%. The defense was amazing. Now the offense does have to be ready since in about a week and a half they get Notre Dame and that could get ugly if they don’t produce more points.
Colorado will have not one, but TWO Heisman finalists. What in the fuck? Who are the morons saying this? They are out there for sure. I saw them. Sure, they did great in their opening week win over TCU but calm the fuck down. TCU isn’t the TCU of last season for one and it’s only WEEK ONE. Anyway, moving on…
Gene Chizik has finally got the defense cooking in Chapel Hill. Again, it’s one game. Do the Heels look improved? Sure. But it’s not like South Carolina played well at all because, for the most part they didn’t. That, and the chain gang wouldn’t eat their hot dogs fast enough. Let’s see how UNC does when a top-notch offense is staring them in the face.
Jalen Milroe is already looking like another Alabama Jalen…that being Hurts. My God where do these people come up with this shit? Milroe looked OK but it was Middle Tennessee and he’s playing for Ala-frickin-Bama. We will see how he handles SEC competition before crowning him anything.
Washington has the best offense in the country. Could that end up being the case? Possibly. Michael Penix Jr. has already started his Heisman campaign in style. But let’s slow our roll here. There are at least four teams who looked better on offense (Colorado, Florida State, Oklahoma, Oregon) during Week 1. And I wouldn’t even say any of those teams will be the best offense in the country so why go ahead and put the Huskies at #1?
Book the Sooners for the Big XII Championship NOW! As I said, their offense was on fire but they were playing Arkansas State. We are all waiting to see if Brent Venables can have a Venables-type defense in Norman. If that happens, this could very well happen. But for now, I wouldn’t book any tickets yet if I were a Sooners fan.
Miami is BACK. Ho boy. Pump the damn brakes.

Let’s just put Week 1 behind us, shall we? Let’s move on to Week 2 which…oh my. Well, it’s better than Week 1. That’s really all I can say. But you know what that usually means. That’s right…chaos!

Thursday

Yep, that’s a new logo you see. TSN+ will be showing college football games this year. It kind of mimics the specialty pack but there are a few differences. But if you want to get TSN+ rather than the specialty pack for your college football fix, you are getting close to the same. Not a bad alternative and a good move by TSN to copy ESPN for the 10,000th time.

Friday

		US	Canada
Indiana State at Indiana	7:00
Illinois at Kansas	7:30

It kind of feels like this could be a relatively important game when the Illini travel to Lawrence to face the Jayhawks. Imagine saying that even two years ago. You’d be laughed out of whatever building you were in.

Saturday Early

Is the quality there? Eh, not really. But there’s choice. A lot of it. Can’t ask for much else. Also…MORNING FOOTBAW! The ACC Network’s weird annual Week 2 quadrupleheader hits again with the odd three hour-and-fifteen-minute windows. This will be a lot easier to do next year when Stanford and California join as you know one of them will host the ACC After Dark Week 2 matchup, guaranteed.

Saturday Afternoon

Is the afternoon slate better than the Noon slate? Sure. Not by much though. Some intriguing matchups though. As per the rules, one of Texas A&M or Miami must win their game against each other. Ties were outlawed almost three decades ago. Will CyHawk feature more than 30 points? Can App State and UNC put up ridiculous numbers like last year? And this will be Tulane’s opportunity to get a huge leg up in the Group of Five. A win over Ole Miss would be massive.

Saturday Primetime

		US	Canada
Ohio at FAU	6:00
Cincinnati at Pittsburgh	6:30
#11 Texas at #3 Alabama	7:00
#13 Oregon at Texas Tech	7:00
Houston at Rice	7:00
#19 Wisconsin at Washington State	7:30
Eastern Michigan at Minnesota	7:30
Temple at Rutgers	7:30
UCLA at San Diego State	7:30
Grambling at #14 LSU	7:30
McNeese State at Florida	7:30
Charlotte at Maryland	7:30
Arizona at Mississippi State	7:30
Air Force vs. Sam Houston (in NRG Stadium)	8:00
Southern Miss at #4 Florida State	8:30

FIFTEEN GAMES! Holy shit! I think this has to be the most in one timeslot ever on this blog. I don’t feel like checking so let’s just say we have a new record! Plenty of games but most people will be watching one game in particular, that being the Longhorns and the Crimson Tide. If Texas can somehow do what they were robbed of last season and upset Bama, this season turns on its head. This game is so big that they are also showing it on ESPN2 in the US and on TSN+ and the specialty packs. But it’s not the same broadcast. It’s the Pat McAfee Show alternate broadcast. So if you like that kind of thing, have at it.

Also, you will notice we have a new network showing college football. That’s right, the CW, with such hits as 7th Heaven, Gilmore Girls, Smallville and LIV Golf (well it was a hit with the golfers who got fucking PAID with that Saudi blood money) will be showing ACC football (and later on, ACC basketball) this year. This replaces Bally which, for all intents and purposes, is flat broke. There will be games most weeks and, it looks like, at odd times. 6:30? Weird.

Saturday Late Night

		US	Canada
UC-Davis at #16 Oregon State	9:00
Auburn at California	10:30
Stanford at #6 USC	10:30

FOX quadrupleheader? Don’t mind if I do. TSN2 quadrupleheader? Yes, please. A good week if you are a Canadian as I don’t remember seeing this much college football being shown up here in a while. Maybe things are turning around. Looks like TSN finally gives a shit about things that aren’t the CFL, NFL, and NHL (which they don’t even have the national broadcasting rights to).

Hey, Watch This!

Texas at Alabama (7:00, TSN2/TSN+/specialty pack) – Unequivocally the game of the week and there’s nothing else close. That also means there will be some wild and wacky finishes that might overshadow this game. That is, unless, this is a close one and the Longhorns pull off the upset. Then it will be THE story in college football no matter what else happens.

Ole Miss at Tulane (3:30, TSN+/specialty pack) – As I mentioned above, if the Green Wave pull off a win here in front of what should be a raucous crowd in hot and humid New Orleans, there’s not a whole lot that will prevent them from a perfect regular season and another New Year’s Six spot. Normally I would say this is a lose-lose situation for any Power Five team in this situation but when the Group of Five team is ranked it can count as a big win (as long as that team doesn’t totally shit the bed the rest of the way).

Texas A&M at Miami (3:30, ABC/TSN2) – I made the joke above that one of these teams has to win, as per the rules of college football. We may actually see which one of these teams is back (for the most part) and which team still has some work to do. Now watch it be a 13-10 almost-unwatchable slog.

Nebraska at Colorado (Noon, FOX) – Alright, I’ll bite. Let’s see if the hype matches what ends up happening. Some might have put this higher but that’s crazy. It makes this list because of the talk, not because of the teams involved. And Colorado can’t just win this game by a little. That would prove nothing. If they beat the brakes off the Huskers, then we all have to take notice and maybe think the Buffs could be for real.

Sickos Game of the Week

Temple at Rutgers (7:30, specialty pack) – Look, Rutgers is probably going to start 2-0 which really doesn’t mean a whole lot considering their schedule but still, that’s something right? With everything on at this time, you would have to be a complete psychopath to watch this game. I will make sure to tune in and watch at least a few plays. I feel like I owe it to everyone and myself.

Hubba Bubba Blowout of the Week

Ball State at Georgia (Noon, TSN+/specialty pack) – Time to bring back the blowout of the week segment. And this could be the dictionary definition of blowout. I could see UGA putting up 60 on the poor Cardinals.

Wanna Bet?

Nebraska was actually a good bet. That game ended up exactly how I thought it would (for the most part). Florida, however….well the less said about that one the better. Time for my gambling picks for the second week of the college football season. Use them at your own peril.

Indiana (-30.5) over Indiana State

Purdue (+3) over Virginia Tech (and the outright win)

Ohio State (-41.5) over Youngstown State

Utah (-8) over Baylor

Nebraska (+2.5) over Colorado (and the upset win…definitely going out on a limb with this one)

Michigan (-37.5) over UNLV

Tulane (+7.5) over Ole Miss (but the Rebs will hold on for a close victory)

Texas A&M (-4) over Miami

Alabama (-7) over Texas

Washington State (+6) over Wisconsin (with the Badgers winning a tight affair)

Minnesota (-20.5) over Eastern Michigan

Mississippi State (-9) over Arizona

Stanford (+29.5) over USC (I feel a backdoor cover in this one)

I will be on the Twitter/X machine again this weekend. Even without Tweetdeck I am figuring out how to navigate fairly well. We shall see if I can make it two Saturdays in a row making it all the way to the end. Enjoy the games everyone!

The G-5. It’s like that big vat of McDonald’s orange drink…

Posted on July 23, 2023 by guelphbossman

Many of the better teams have gone on to greener pastures. They have been replaced (kind of) by weaker teams from FCS. So yeah, they keep watering down the Group of Five. How far can they water it down? Groundskeeper Willie thinks we need to stop. I sort of agree with the angry Scot.

As you already know, Houston, UCF and Cincinnati left the American Conference for the Big(ger) XII. BYU joined them from the Independent ranks but the Cougs were always a weird hybrid since leaving the Mountain West. Not quite Power Five but better than Group of Five. Either way, they moved up as well.

Coming up from FCS is Sam Houston (not the wrestler) and Jacksonville State (two Gamecocks? What is this, the CFL?). Kennesaw State joins next season. All three teams will be in Conference USA. Yeah, the teams coming in don’t exactly measure up to the teams leaving.

What this does, though, is open the door for other teams to ascend to a level where they are almost always competing for the Group of Five crown. Boise State is the only program left who constantly contends for the one G-5 spot in the New Year’s Six. Tulane went last season and looks like a team that should continue that kind of success this season. UTSA, SMU, San Diego State and a few Sun Belt squads also have their eye on that singular prize. Let’s get to the conference standings and see where I believe thing will head this season.

Man, imagine the Big East was back? That conference would be…well, it would be pretty good. Not amazing. But a step above the Group of Five. Anyway…

The cream of the crop among Group of Five conferences is the AAC until further notice. The Mountain West has tried their best but it feels like that competition is over, even if Boise State does win the G-5 title. The Sun Belt is gaining but I can never see them catching the American under the current format. So let’s look at the predictions for the Kings of the G-5 followed by some marinations:

	Conference		Overall
	W	L	W	L
Tulane	8	0	11	1
UTSA	7	1	10	2
Memphis	6	2	8	4
SMU	6	2	8	4
FAU	4	4	6	6
East Carolina	4	4	7	5
Navy	4	4	5	7
North Texas	4	4	7	5
UAB	3	5	4	8
Tulsa	3	5	4	8
USF	3	5	3	9
Rice	2	6	4	8
Temple	2	6	4	8
Charlotte	0	8	1	11

Marinating in American Sauce

Honestly, that sounds disgusting. I am surprised no one has created it…whatever it might end up being.
Look, Tulane is not coming down from their perch. The schedule is, once again, in their favour and other than a huge matchup against South Alabama to start their season and their season-ending matchup with UTSA, the rest of the schedule is more than manageable. Expect the American Championship to go through New Orleans for the second straight year.
No surprise with the Roadrunners of UTSA (I just said that in Greg Gumbel voice) being the team that will end up facing the Green Wave for the conference title. This program is seriously on the rise and could soon enough be called the premiere Group of Five team (until they are poached by the Big XII).
Memphis and SMU will be good once again. But as has been the case, both teams will probably drop at least one game they should win and that is what will ultimately cost them the chance to upset Tulane for the league title.
Some people are very high on Florida Atlantic with their new head coach Tom Herman. I am taking more of a wait and see approach. The same goes for North Texas as they break in a new head coach as well.
I believe Navy will go into the Army-Navy Game needing a win for bowl eligibility. Well, you can tell by their record what I think will happen. I wonder how bowl committees will deal with this. Maybe some bowl gives them the first ever conditional bowl bid? That would actually be kind of exciting. Win and you’re in. Lose and your bid goes to James Madison.
As for the AAC Championship, I see Tulane winning their second game against UTSA in as many weeks to be crowned the AAC champion. I don’t see the Green Wave having an easy time in either game though but they will feel lucky not to be in the Alamodome for either of these games.
Seven projected bowl bids for a conference with fourteen teams. Not exactly great but I think it will take some time for teams like Charlotte and Rice to get acclimated to their new surroundings. Especially since they weren’t that great in the conference they came from.

I am a bit worried that I won’t be ready to do the long Saturday nights that the Mountain West (and Pac-12) give us. Don’t even mention the Hawaii Tests. And this is at a time when I am desperately trying to restrict my caffeine intake. Ugh, this could be very interesting. Maybe I’ll just drink the entire time.

This is the second year of the Mountain West deal with FOX so we won’t see nearly as many MWC games. Yes there will be at least one every week on CBS Sports Network and we get some early-season CBS affairs but with no conference games on any of the ESPN networks, it really hinders our ability as Canadians to watch this conference. Hell, we can probably watch more Conference USA this season.

OK let’s get to this season’s predictions followed by sleep deprived lunacy:

	Conference		Overall
	W	L	W	L
Boise State	8	0	10	2
San Diego State	6	2	8	4
Fresno State	6	2	8	4
Air Force	5	3	9	3
Wyoming	5	3	7	5
San Jose State	4	4	6	6
UNLV	4	4	5	7
Utah State	3	5	4	8
Nevada	3	5	3	9
Colorado State	2	6	3	9
New Mexico	1	7	2	10
Hawaii	1	7	3	10

Juuuuust a tiny bit of Sleep-Deprived Lunacy

You will notice something different with these standings compared to all the others I have predicted in the past. No divisions! About damn time. Divisions are just useless in this day and age. And soon enough, no FBS conference will have divisions. I am certain of that.
Reader John might not be too pleased with this but I think Boise State runs through the conference schedule with relative ease. Not saying teams like SDSU, FSU or Air Force aren’t good. It’s just that the Broncos’ schedule is so favourable you’d have to be crazy to think they don’t have a great shot not just to win the conference, but that one New Year’s Six spot. Really, their September will shape their season. Be at least 3-2 at the end of the month and they will be on their way. Less than that and the conference might just be up for grabs.
In terms of teams just below that top tier, Wyoming should ho-hum their way into another bowl game. I can’t believe Craig Bohl has been in Laramie for almost half of the life of the Mountain West conference it self. SJSU and UNLV will be in a dogfight for a bowl spot and I could honestly see it going either way. But no, I don’t agree with that one voter who thinks the Rebels will win the conference crown. I think that person was obviously coming off a gambling-coke-and-booze fueled bender when they made that choice.
I’ve got the Aztecs winning the tiebreaker with Fresno to get the other MWC Championship spot opposite Boise on the frigid smurf turf. I think the weather is what gives the Broncos the edge in this one as I have them winning the conference championship and then awaiting to see what happens in the rest of the Group of Five.

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd we’re back down to four teams. Liberty and New Mexico State fucked off to Conference USA and BYU headed to the Big XII, leaving Notre Dame less little brothers to have to hang around with. The thing is, if you took UMass out of the equation…well, you’ll see. Let’s get right to the short set of predictions followed by some actual team-by-team analysis (which is much easier with just four teams):

	Overall
	W	L
Notre Dame	10	2
Army	6	6
UConn	6	6
UMass	1	11

Actual Team-by-Team Analysis (I wasn’t lying!)

Of course we have to start with the team that doesn’t belong in this entire post, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. It was tough going through their schedule because I don’t know how much they will improve from last year. But they have Sam Hartman. A bonafide Heisman contender at quarterback for the first time in I don’t know how many years. So my ten win prediction for them doesn’t seem too far off the mark and it wouldn’t surprise me if they were able to get to eleven either and get in the College Football Playoff converstaion.
Hey, remember what I said about Navy earlier? That they would be playing for their bowl-eligibility lives in the Army-Navy game? Well, guess who else I think will be in the same boat. Oh yes. I think this will be, easily, the most important Army-Navy Game in a long time. I now wonder if the provisional bowl selection will be a winner-take-all type of deal. Which would be so damn awesome to see.
Will UConn get back to a bowl game? That seems to be a huge question. And to be honest, I think bowl eligibility is almost the floor for this program. Amazing what can happen when you get the right coach in the right spot. Is Jim Mora Jr. an amazing coach? Not really. But he’s good and he landed in the perfect spot for him and the Huskies. Now they have to avoid what happened in the past even when they were somewhat decent: lose games to teams they should beat. Do that and they should be in the postseason once again.
And finally we get to the Minutemen and yes, they will be awful. Quite possibly the worst FBS team once again. I predict them to win one game. That’s it. And it won’t be against Merrimack. I think they squeak by New Mexico and that’s all. And even then, I could see this team go winless. I’m not as huge an advocate of moving teams back down to FCS as I used to be but I do wonder if UMass just needs to drop down. There’s nothing keeping them up in FBS. No conference affiliation and no possibilities in the near future. It might be time to pull the trigger on this program’s demotion.

The Sun Belt (and MAC) are being joined by Conference USA when it comes to mid-week action this season. I will have to check but we may have football every day for over a month.

Other than that, there are less similarties than ever between the Sun Belt and the MAC or Conference USA. The Fun Belt has set themselves up pretty well as the third best Group of Five conference. They are actually closer in quality to the Mountain West than the MAC which is something that never would have been said even five years ago. Also, they seem to be pretty safe from any realignment unless some doomsday scenario comes about and college football conferences as we know it change forever. And I’m not going to say that won’t happen.

Anyway, for now, let’s get to my predictions for the eighth-best FBS conference followed by some upbeat comments:

	Conference		Overall
East	W	L	W	L
Appalachian State	7	1	8	4
James Madison	6	2	8	4
Coastal Carolina	6	2	9	3
Marshall	5	3	7	5
Georgia State	2	6	4	8
Georgia Southern	2	6	5	7
Old Dominion	0	8	1	11
West
South Alabama	7	1	9	3
Troy	7	1	10	2
Southern Miss	5	3	6	6
Louisiana	4	4	7	5
Arkansas State	2	6	4	8
Texas State	2	6	3	9
ULM	1	7	2	10

Upbeat Comments

Well…upbeat for some teams.
The top of each of the divisions continue to be exciting. It’s the one conference that defies my No Divisions preference. In the East, you have four legitimate contenders and you can possibly say the same for the West. Parity rules the day in the Sun Belt once again.
App State, after an odd year that saw some pretty extreme highs and lows, should be back on top of the mountion in the East, barely beating out JMU and Coastal.
South Alabama will finally get their shot at the Sun Belt Championship with what I believe will be a late-season win over Troy.
As for bowl games, officially only seven of the contenders I’ve mentioned would be able to go to a bowl. But, I have a bit of a surprise for Dukes fans once I put out my bowl predictions post.
I still say the Sun Belt champ should get a shot at an SEC team in New Orleans. Imagine how many fans they would get for that?

As I said above, the Sun Belt and Conference USA have a lot of weekday night games now. But it still isn’t MACtion. The originators to us sickos that love more and more and more football. I don’t even care about the attendance issues that these games cause. The MAC is getting their ESPN money and I am getting my football fix. Everyone wins!

Alright, predictions time followed by some points in a Midwestern accent:

	Conference		Overall
East	W	L	W	L
Ohio	7	1	8	4
Miami-OH	5	3	7	5
Buffalo	4	4	5	7
Bowling Green	3	5	4	8
Akron	3	5	4	8
Kent State	0	8	1	11
West
Toledo	7	1	9	3
Eastern Michigan	6	2	9	3
Central Michigan	4	4	4	8
Northern Illinois	3	5	5	7
Western Michigan	3	5	3	9
Ball State	3	5	4	8

Points with Pork Chops and Aeeeplesauce

I mean I’m not gonna lie: I like pork chops and applesauce. I just think it’s way more of a staple in a place like Minnesota than here.
Looks like two teams who are used to being near the top should head back to the MAC title game. Not that Toledo and Ohio won’t have their speed bump games in the MAC but I feel they have the best talent to win their respective divisions.
Only two teams that will be with new head coaches this season and both of them are going to struggle. Lance Taylor takes over for Tim Lester at Western Michigan where Lester just couldn’t do what P.J. Fleck did there. Tall order but most were hoping he would be close and he wasn’t. As for Kent State, they lose Sean Lewis to Coach Prime and Colorado. Bring in Kenni Burns. Yes Kenni with an i. And ho boy is it going to be a long season in Kent for Mr. Burns.
I only see four bowl-eligible teams from the MAC. I have done this before and I was wrong. I just can’t see most of these teams doing enough in their non-conference schedule to get them to a bowl game in December.
Ford Field should see another dandy for the MAC Championship. I’ve got Ohio winning a close one over Toledo with the prize being to go back to Ford Field a few weeks later. At least the tie-in there states that they should face a Big Ten team. That’s the way it should be.

Hey remember what I used to say about Conference USA? Well, it has pretty much come to fruition. You would have to be some kind of dumb or not watch college football to know that this is now the bottom of the barrel when it comes to FBS conferences. I warned them. I’m sure others did too. And now they are stuck. Could they end up being not last place? Sure, maybe. But other than WKU and Liberty, what other teams are really pushing things here? That’s what I thought. Luckily they were able to snag a contract with ESPN to show games on weeknights in October. And when I say weeknights I mean all weeknight games. No Saturday conference games that month. I will be happy though because it means there will be college football on like four consecutive Tuesdays. Not a bad thing at all.

Now it’s time for predictions for the new-ish Conference USA followed by some weeknight non-sitcom commentary:

	Conference		Overall
	W	L	W	L
WKU	7	1	9	3
Middle Tennessee	6	2	8	4
Liberty	6	2	9	3
UTEP	4	4	6	6
New Mexico State	4	4	7	6
Louisiana Tech	2	6	4	8
Sam Houston	2	6	3	9
Jacksonville State	2	6	3	9
FIU	1	7	2	10

Weeknight Non-Sitcom Commentary

Look, with Austin Reed back at QB, he may throw over 5,000 yards. They should win the regular season title pretty easily and it wouldn’t surprise me if they ended up running the table as well.
There are some newcomers! Liberty is that one newcomer, though, that most are saying will win the conference title in their first year in C-USA. I say not so fast my friend. I don’t even see them getting to the conference title game. The Flames will most likely lose a game they should win and it will cost them that spot.
Yes, I have NMSU making a bowl game again! Jerry Kill has really turned things around in Las Cruces and with this new conference I see them already in the middle if not near the top.
On the other hand, Jacksonville State and Sam Houston make their FBS debut this season and it won’t be a kind one. They will struggle and need some time to find their way. Down the road, though, at least one of these programs will turn into one of the conference’s best, if not both of them. But at least they won’t be as bad as…
FIU. Yeesh. Mike MacIntyre will be pulling his hair out by the time this season is over.
So yeah, it’s Middle Tennessee against WKU and I don’t see it being that close but you never know. The Hilltoppers should win going away. Do you think these two teams are regretting not heading to the MAC?

We have completed the journey! Well…half of it. Next up is the Power Five conferences. Then, finally, a nice little bow to tie this whole thing together. Have a great week everyone!

ALL. THE. SCHEDULES!!!!

Posted on July 9, 2023 by guelphbossman

OK not all the schedules but quite a few. I mean there’s some I may not even take a guess at.

Just like last year I am going to put all my schedule predictions in one long-ass post. So wait until you have to take an absolute monster of a shit before taking this one into the bathroom to read. Let’s go!

This is a crazy transition year for CBS. Out with the old (SEC) and in with the new (Big Ten). A few sprinkles (Mountain West) and you have a brand new college football sundae. Sorry fans, Gary Danielson, as far as I can tell, is still around. Worst part is we have heard him be one of the best analysts in the business. More often than not, though, he goes off on some stupid tangent that ends up with him declaring he has a college football boner for Bama.

As is the norm, I will let you know which games are confirmed. The ones that are not…well, some of them will be right because it makes sense and the rest will be not right because one or both of the teams I predicted to play at that time or not nearly as good as I thought they would be and/or I’m an idiot. So let’s start this bizarrely stupid puzzle and follow it with some It Just Means More Sweet Tea Analysis (which may or may not contain grits):

It Just Means More (Games other than the SEC on CBS) Analysis:

I feel like I shouldn’t have to remind you but in all these tables, a game in bold means it has been confirmed. Not bold? Bossman used his dumb brain to try and figure it out.
The appearance list will look a bit different this time as it will have a few conferences involved so let’s start with the SEC appearances:
- 5 times – Alabama, Georgia
- 3 times – Ole Miss, LSU
- 2 times – Kentucky, Arkansas, Auburn, Tennessee
- 1 time – South Carolina, Mississippi State, Florida, Missouri
- No times – Vanderbilt, Texas A&M
Wait, WHAT? No TAMU on CBS? Wow, I honestly didn’t notice until now when I started breaking out the different schedules. Crazy. I guess they will have to prove it this season to maybe get on late in the year.
Now we have the Big Ten appearance list:
- 3 times – Iowa
- 2 times – Ohio State, Rutgers, Penn State, Nebraska
- 1 time – Indiana, Northwestern, Michigan, Purdue, Maryland, Minnesota
- No times – Michigan State, Wisconsin, Illinois
I look at these numbers and can glean….well, nothing from it. Wisconsin is good and appears no times and Rutgers appears twice. However, tOSU also appears twice and Michigan State doesn’t appear at all. Seems all very random. Which could very well be the case at least for this first season.
I’m not going to get into the Mountain West game count since there aren’t enough games to see any trends.
The Army-Navy game heads to New England for the first time ever. Foxborough gets the game this year and I like this idea. Not saying they have to move it around all over the place but every two or three years to take it out of Philly is a smart move.

What is ABC going to do for this one season without the Big Ten and with the SEC showing up in 2024? They will have to lean heavily on the other three Power Five conferences to carry the load, especially when it comes to the primetime schedule. Don’t worry though: there are enough good teams in these conferences to fill most of these spots where it looks like the network won’t have missed a beat. Then next year, might as well pencil (or pen…or Sharpie) the SEC in for the majority of those primetime games.

But hey we haven’t hit 2024 yet. It’s still 2023 so let’s get to the ESPN on ABC regular season college football schedule for the FBS for this season. I will follow it up with some Power(ful) Two Thoughts:

Power(ful) Two Thoughts

Once again, ABC puts on a mega-matchup on the night before Labour Day. LSU-FSU, if it is anything like last year’s game, should be a massive ratings success. Oh and also a game that could shape the entire college football season.
With the Big Ten saying adios to ESPN/ABC, the primetime slots really opened up. I expect the ACC to pick up most of those times the Big Ten has left behind with the Big XII and Pac-12 coming in just behind. Right now I have 6 ACC primetime games, 5 Pac-12, and 4 Big XII. Even if I’m wrong with which games go where I see this being pretty equitable.
I am not doing a TSN schedule because there is no point right now. TSN struggles to get anything that’s not the CFL scheduled out more than a couple of weeks. Right now I have 23 ABC games that would be simulcast on TSN. That seems high but I am going off of last year’s numbers and it was actually very close to that. So we shall see.
I am calling for three games to be on Black Friday on ABC. Miami-BC at Noon and TTU-UT at 7:30 are set. I think they select an American conference game in the middle so that there isn’t a gap in the middle of the day with nothing to show AND to fulfill the American’s contract. Now watch it not happen at all that way.
First few weeks are confirmed but that’s pretty much it. The rest is a bit of a crapshoot. Also, if you couldn’t tell Week 2 was a pretty bad week, look at the ABC schedule. Woof. Wisky-Wazzu as the primetime game? Ouch. It’s been a while since there has been that poor a game for the ABC Saturday Night game.
Finally it’s time for the conference breakdown. Remember I am doing things slightly differently. Every time a team appears, they get counted as an appearance. So Miami-Boston College, for example, counts as two appearances for the ACC. Here we go:
- ACC – 37 (including conference championship)
- Big XII – 29 (including conference championship)
- Pac-12 – 12 (including conference championship)
- AAC – 5 (including conference championship)
- SEC – 5
- Notre Dame – 4
- FCS – 2
- Mountain West – 1
- Big Ten – 1
The ACC is really picking up the slack here. The Big XII is not all that far behind and, ho boy, is the Pac-12 lagging here. Problem is other than their top five teams I don’t feel right putting the rest of the teams in any of the ABC timeslots and that includes Colorado. Also, I have not included bowl tie-ins here because we know that bowls break them all the time.
Speaking of bowl games, ABC has SEVEN this time! That’s great! A step in the right direction. I still think the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl should move back to ABC as well but that’s just my opinion (and the opinion of a lot of other people).

For quite a long time it felt like there was quite a drop-off in play-by-play prowess after GUS JOHNSON. But now with Jason Benetti cemented as the number two man, you know you have two solidly called games every week on FOX. Tim Brando is the #3 guy and is pretty good although I still think it would be great to hear him back in the studio.

OK so the Big Ten is a bit more in with FOX meaning the Big XII and Pac-12 might suffer because of that. Let’s find out! Here’s the predicted 2023 FOX college football broadcast schedule followed by some Johnsonian rhetoric.

SOME JOHNSONIAN RHETORIC…..WOAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

So FOX has abandoned putting a game on Labour Day for putting a game on the Thursday before it. Interesting. Not a bad strategy as they can try and get a jump start on the season. Sure Florida-Utah could get more eyeballs but starting with a Big Ten conference game? That will get their fair share of looks for sure.
With the Big Ten leaving ESPN/ABC, it means most of their big games will land on FOX. That is a huge coup for the network. Couple that with the few huge games out of the Big XII and Pac-12 and you can finally, honestly, put their Big Noon Saturday schedule up against ABC’s Saturday Primetime schedule. Of course that may all change next year when ESPN/ABC gets the SEC. But for one year, let’s savour this.
FOX only going with two Black Friday games again this season and they are both confirmed. And it is two huge games (or could be). TCU-OU could be for a spot in the Big XII Championship. Same with the Civil War game between Oregon State and Oregon. I guess they will be moving WWE Smackdown to FS1 for this night which I’m sure won’t upset wrestling fans in the least.
Conference breakdown time! Remember, a conference game I am counting as two appearances for that conference:
- Big XII – 32
- Big Ten – 30 (including conference championship)
- Pac-12 – 17
Shockingly, the Big XII has moved to the top of the list. Now, this has more to do with the Big Ten moving some games to NBC and CBS than anything but still, it proves that the Big XII carries a bit more weight than the Pac-12 these days.
I have no Mountain West games on the main FOX network. They have quite a few on FOX Sports One, though. I don’t know if FOX’s strategy is to eventually put more than the MWC conference championship on the main network or if they just stay the way they are. I suspect starting next year we will see at least a couple of Mountain West games on the main network, especially when there’s a quadrupleheader.
And speaking of quadrupleheaders, I have a feeling we will see two of them just like last season. One is confirmed for Week 2 and I believe the other will land, just like last year, during Week 11. I love the quadrupleheader idea, especially if you only do it twice since it feels special.
FOX has only one bowl game and it is the only bowl game, at this time, without a confirmed date. The Holiday Bowl, I believe, will end up on December 27th but that is definitely subject to change.
I honestly don’t know what will happen come October with the MLB playoffs. I know during the early rounds, FOX tends not to be used nearly as much as FS1 for their baseball games. Come World Series time though, expect FOX to scale back on college football broadcasting windows.

Alright let’s get to the Notre Dame on NBC sched…WAIT JUST A MINUTE! THAT’S THE BIG TEN’S MUSIC!!!!

For the first time in a loooooooooooong time, Notre Dame will share NBC’s college football coverage with other teams under other contracts. The Big Ten will have games almost every week on the network and usually in primetime going forward. So yeah, this will be the longest NBC schedule I will ever predict unless the network really goes all-in with college football and invites another party (COUGH*Pac-12*COUGH) in to the pool. Let’s get to it!

Touchdown Jesus, Meet Purdue Pete

Look, it’s not like the Irish haven’t seen Big Ten teams before. They play at least one every year and probably will until the Earth explodes. But sharing the entire network with them? I have a feeling this may impact Notre Dame’s next contract talks with NBC which will start soon with the contract ending at the conclusion of the 2025 season.
Only two primetime Notre Dame games this season but they add a game during Week Zero against Navy over in Ireland. I have the Big Ten moving their game to Noon when the Irish are on in primetime.
As for the Big Ten, let’s look at the breakdown:
- 4 times – Penn State, Purdue, Michigan State
- 3 times – Michigan
- 2 times – Maryland, Ohio State
- 1 time – Northwestern, Illinois, Iowa, Rutgers, Indiana, Wisconsin, Northwestern
- No times – Nebraska
I think more so than the CBS breakdown for the Big Ten, the better teams, for the most part, will appear on NBC more often. I believe that will be the case going forward as well.

Let’s be honest here: nothing much will change for this network. It’s not like they will all of a sudden be showing Michigan-Ohio State. Saying that, it’s one of the channels you almost need to complete your college football viewing experience. I don’t want to speak for anyone else but I love watching close finishes, regardless of the game, so if Rutgers and Northwestern are going down to the wire, I want to watch that shit. Alright let’s get to my projected schedule:

September 2nd	Fresno State at Purdue	Noon
September 2nd	Towson at Maryland	3:30 PM
September 2nd	Toledo at Illinois	7:30 PM
September 8th	Indiana State at Indiana	7:00 PM
September 9th	Youngstown State at Ohio State	Noon
September 9th	UTEP at Northwestern	3:30 PM
September 9th	Richmond at Michigan State	3:30 PM
September 9th	Eastern Michigan at Minnesota	7:30 PM
September 9th	Temple at Rutgers	7:30 PM
September 16th	Louisville vs. Indiana (in Indianapolis)	Noon
September 16th	Georgia Southern at Wisconsin	Noon
September 16th	Western Michigan at Iowa	3:30 PM
September 16th	Virginia Tech at Rutgers	3:30 PM
September 16th	Bowling Green at Michigan	7:30 PM
September 21st	Louisiana Tech at Nebraska	7:30 PM
September 23rd	Akron at Indiana	Noon
September 23rd	Maryland at Michigan State	3:30 PM
September 23rd	Florida Atlantic at Illinois	7:30 PM
September 30th	Louisiana at Minnesota	Noon
September 30th	Wagner at Rutgers	3:30 PM
September 30th	Indiana at Maryland	7:30 PM
October 7th	Howard at Northwestern	3:00 PM
October 14th	Iowa at Wisconsin	Noon
October 14th	UMass at Penn State	3:30 PM
October 14th	Indiana at Michigan	7:30 PM
October 21st	Rutgers at Indiana	Noon
October 21st	Wisconsin at Illinois	3:30 PM
October 28th	Maryland at Northwestern	2:30 PM
November 4th	Ohio State at Rutgers	Noon
November 4th	Iowa vs. Northwestern (in Chicago)	3:30 PM
November 4th	Nebraska at Michigan State	7:30 PM
November 11th	Northwestern at Wisconsin	Noon
November 11th	Minnesota at Purdue	3:30 PM
November 18th	Michigan State at Indiana	Noon
November 18th	Purdue at Northwestern	3:30 PM
November 18th	Rutgers at Penn State	7:30 PM
November 24th	Indiana at Purdue	3:00 PM
November 25th	Maryland at Rutgers	Noon
November 25th	Northwestern at Illinois	3:30 PM

B1G Country Notes (no, not Bryant Reeves)

The first three weeks are completely booked. After that…nothing. Well, that’s not entirely true. There are a few homecoming games that are almost guaranteed to hit BTN but I won’t call them confirmed until, well, they are actually confirmed.
Let’s get right to the appearance list (with the conference and non-conference split) and then some explanations on the numbers:
- 8 times – Indiana (3 non-con, 5 conference)
- 7 times – Northwestern (2 NC, 5 C), Rutgers (3 NC, 4 C)
- 5 times – Maryland (1 NC, 4 C)
- 4 times – Purdue (1 NC, 3 C), Illinois (2 NC, 2 C), Michigan State (1 NC, 3 C), Wisconsin (1 NC, 3 C)
- 3 times – Minnesota (2 NC, 1 C), Iowa (1 NC, 2 C), Penn State (1 NC, 2 C)
- 2 times – Ohio State (1 NC, 1 C), Michigan (1 NC, 1 C), Nebraska (1 NC, 1 C)
Every school must make at least 2 BTN appearances. Plus, one of those appearances has to be a conference game. My predictions satisfy that criteria and I think the amount of appearances will be failry close to what actually happens. I was a bit surprised to see what I had done with Nebraska. Maybe I am drinking a tiny bit of Husker Kool-Aid.

Alright now we have what could be the longest schedule of the bunch. Surprisingly though, it has the most confirmed games, easily. I guess when you have a good portion of the Group of Five stationed here, you will have a lot of games. And if you don’t watch college football on CBSSN? Shame on you. There are some great games on there and you get to see teams you wouldn’t normally see. Time for the huge-ass schedule followed by a few G5 musings:

Gee-Five Musings

Really, CBS Sports Network doesn’t have to lock in over 80% of the games. Nice to see that they do though. Honestly, over the past few years, CBSSN has had their fair share of exciting games so waiting to see what ESPN doesn’t take really doesn’t make sense for them. It won’t change the amount of viewers they get (for the most part). Just scoreboard watch like I do.
CBSSN lands a couple of Black Friday games this season, which seems to be the norm now. One is confirmed and the other is a MAC game. Which leads us to…
The non-confirmed games. Most of them are MAC-controlled games. They will be 12-day selections during the season. The others might not end up happening as those timeslots may be used for something else.
Conference breakdown time!
- Mountain West – 49
- Conference USA – 33
- MAC – 21
- Army – 7
- AAC (other than Navy) – 6
- UConn – 5
- FCS – 5
- Navy – 4
- ACC – 3
- Sun Belt – 3
- Pac-12 – 2
- SEC – 1
- Big XII – 1
- UMass – 1
OK so it was more than conferences but it gives you an idea of what is happening this year versus previous years. During October, Conference USA will have all their conference games on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. A crazy idea but hey, that’s how MACtion was born. It also means we will go nearly two months with football almost every day! What’s wrong with that?

We made it! Schedule Journey 2023 is over! Christ, that was long. And no, I will not do a TSN schedule. That would be a complete guess. Up next are the season predictions. Expect that post (which will also be a stupidly long one) some time in late July.

Have a fantastic rest of your Sunday and let’s hope for nice weather this coming week…for people who aren’t stuck working in an office. For those people, I am sure you are fine if it rains all week.

Realignment: One of college football’s dirtiest words

Posted on February 5, 2023 by guelphbossman

Realignment. It excites and infuriates people. It has changed college football (and college basketball) forever. Money rules the day as some of these conferences don’t even make sense anymore. The Big Ten will soon have sixteen teams with two of them based in California: thousands of miles away from all the other teams in the conference. The SEC will have sixteen teams and, sorry, Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma and Missouri really don’t qualify as “Southeastern” unless you are terrible at geography. Don’t even get me started on how the Sun Belt and Conference USA have bungled realignment in the past. At least the Sun Belt a) has Fun Belt football and b) acquired some good programs. Something Conference USA just hasn’t figured out.

I figured, since I’m bored and there’s not a ton to post about and we are about to go into the football dead season (don’t say XFL or USFL), I would make this post on realignment. Don’t run away! I plan to look at realignment the way I would have had it done or what I thought would have made sense. I’m not going to put Texas State in the SEC or anything stupid like that but I will take a thoughtful look at what has happened and what I think should have happened. In some cases, they may be the same! Let’s get started before I regret doing this.

Now I don’t plan on going back to 1962 and say “Well, the Border Conference never should have been disbanded.” Before my time so I don’t really care. I also won’t say the Georgia Tech or Tulane shouldn’t have left the SEC. Of course they shouldn’t have. But they were going to at some point, be it in the mid-60s or even in the 80s. It was going to happen. I will start with a year that is not paramount at all in the minds of realignmentheads but will contain something from earlier in the 80s that many know about…

(WARNING: This will be a very, very long post so strap in.)

1987

Wichita State drops football for good. Akron moves up from Division 1-AA (remember that?) to be an Independent. Nothing big. Oh wait…

Hey, remember the Big East? In football? OK it wasn’t a thing in 1987 but the conference had been formed back in 1979. In ’82, Penn State applied for membership. Georgetown, St. John’s and Villanova voted against the Nittany Lions joining. This would have been on that Freezing Cold Takes Twitter account if it Twitter existed like 30 years ago. If I had been in charge, I would have made sure at least one of those schools changed their vote to include Penn State. And instead of waiting until the 90s, I would have started Big East football in 1987 because why the hell not. So nine Independent schools would form this new conference:

Penn State, Syracuse, Rutgers, Boston College, Pittsburgh, Miami, Temple, Virginia Tech and West Virginia

Way to go Georgetown, St. John’s and Villanova. Idiots. Also, this means Penn State doesn’t move to the Big Ten in the early 90s.

1989

Louisiana Tech moves up from 1-AA to 1-A as an Independent. Also, SMU returns from the death penalty that, in hindsight, was a terrible move. Either go after more of the schools that had issues (like the entire Southwest Conference) or just ban SMU from bowl games for a bunch of years. What they did set SMU football (and only SMU football) back 20 years. Notice how they have never done it again in football despite the fact they could have easily done it on a few occasions? That’s why.

1991

In one of the biggest moves at the time, Florida State joins the ACC.

1992

Look, I get it. The Southwest Conference was a complete mess for most of its existence. Sure, they had some great football teams but more often than not they were mired in some sort of scandal.

Saying that, I would have done my darndest to keep Arkansas in the SWC. And I wouldn’t have stopped there. Rice, sorry, you gone. There’s no reason to keep you around since you’re terrible in football and not much better in basketball. Yes, it’s one of the top academic schools in the nation and no, I don’t care. They can become an Independent. So at this point, the SWC would look like this:

Arkansas, Baylor, Texas, Texas A&M, SMU, TCU, Texas Tech, Houston

That’s still a good, competitive conference at this point.

South Carolina, on the other hand, does join the SEC, moving that conference to a somewhat awkward eleven teams. Akron moves to the MAC. Fresno State goes from the Big West to the WAC and Long Beach State drops their football program altogether. To replace LBSU and Fresno, Nevada moves up from 1-AA to 1-A and the Big West. Finally, Arkansas State also moves up from Division 1-AA to Division 1-A as an Independent.

1993

Penn State DOESN’T join the Big Ten since they are part of a better Big East (in my opinion). Cal State-Fullerton becomes the second Big West team in as many years to drop football altogether. Because of this, the Big West went on an invitation spree, bringing in Arkansas State, Louisiana Tech, Northern Illinois and Southwestern Louisiana (which is now just Louisiana), meaning they really had forgot about the West part of their conference name.

1994

Northeast Louisiana moves up from Division 1-AA to 1-A. They are now called ULM. Ho hum.

1995

Another almost-nothing year. North Texas moves to 1-A. Big whoop.

1996

This was a huge year in realignment as the Big XII came into existence, with the Big Eight absorbing four programs from the Southwest Conference. I wouldn’t go that route. I think it would be the reverse. The Southwest Conference keeps their name and absorbs all eight of the Big 8 schools. The new sixteen-team conference would be huge. I just hope they don’t go to pod scheduling. Wait, I’m running things. So no, they won’t go that route. Anywhere from two-to-four yearly opponents with the rest being filled in based on order of finish the previous season, like it should be almost everywhere.

Now, because of this, Conference USA loses one member, Houston. With some foresight, they should have kept the other five teams they had and added Rice, Tulsa, Louisiana Tech (from the Big West) and North Texas. This would give this conference the following:

Cincinnati, Louisiana Tech, Louisville, Memphis, North Texas, Rice, Southern Miss, Tulane, Tulsa

That’s a pretty good start for a new mid-major conference in football.

The WAC also has to change. See, they now don’t get Rice, SMU, TCU or Tulsa. So time to pick up some other teams. Time to basically fuck the Big West over. Bring in Nevada, Utah State, UNLV and New Mexico State. This would give the conference the following teams:

BYU, Utah, New Mexico, UTEP, Wyoming, San Diego State, Colorado State, Air Force, Fresno State, San Jose State, Hawaii, UNLV, Nevada, Utah State

That’s a lot of realignment and we aren’t even done yet. The Big West is pretty much ravaged by what the WAC did. Boise State and Idaho move up from 1-AA to 1-A to replace some of the teams but Pacific drops football altogether. The Big West sticks at six teams as Northern Illinois stays in the conference rather than going back to Independent status. Same with Louisiana and Arkansas State although it’s obvious the Big West is on its last legs as a football conference.

Finally, UCF and UAB move from Division 1-AA to 1-A as Independents.

1997

The MAC only gets Northern Illinois (from the Big West) as I would have Marshall head to Conference USA along with East Carolina.

With only five teams remaining, the Big West Conference is dead as it pertains to football. Boise State and San Jose State are invited to the WAC, while the other three teams (Arkansas State, Idaho and Louisiana) become Independents.

1998

Army does not join Conference USA. We all know how that worked out and even at the time, a lot of people thought it was a bad idea.

1999

Yeah sure why not. Let’s form the Mountain West. Arkansas State might as well stay Independent for now. The Big West doesn’t exist and there’s no reason for them to head to the WAC. Buffalo moves up from 1-AA right into the MAC. Middle Tennessee also moves up but as an Independent. Idaho moves into the WAC. Finally, UAB finds a conference home as they head to Conference USA.

2000

Two fairly benign moves: USF and UConn join the Division 1-A Independents from Division 1-AA.

2001

The Big West died (in football) and the Sun Belt started sponsoring football. Thing is, I eliminated the Big West five years ago. So Idaho and New Mexico State, now in the WAC, will not move to the Sun Belt because they don’t have to. Also, Utah State can stay in the WAC now. So the Sun Belt would comprise of Arkansas State, Louisiana, ULM, Middle Tennessee and North Texas, who moves from Conference USA. They bring in Troy State so the Trojans aren’t an Independent.

2002

Another skipped move: UCF just doesn’t bother joining the MAC because it’s the fucking MAC and they don’t need a team in Florida. Instead they just move to Conference USA a year early.

2003

Utah State doesn’t move to the Sun Belt because WHY? They are in the WAC and they can stay there. USF does, however, move. They head to Conference USA to join brother UCF.

2004

Oh baby here we go. Miami and Virginia Tech will NOT be moving to the ACC! They will stay in the Big East as UConn joins. I mean we don’t get ACC Coastal Chaos but I think we can live without it.

Florida Atlantic and Florida International transition up from Division 1-AA to Independent status.

2005

This leads us to the next year where Boston College also doesn’t leave for the ACC. And with Cincinnati, Louisville and USF joining the Big East, it is becoming quite the conference. TCU doesn’t go to the Mountain West because they are already in the Southwest Conference which has weathered the storm until now. SMU also stays in the SWC and doesn’t move to Conference USA. UTEP does move from the WAC to Conference USA as it makes a bit more sense for them. FAU and FIU, one year after joining Division 1-A, move to the Sun Belt Conference. Finally, Temple does not get dropped from the Big East despite their terrible football program. I’m doing a lot of nothing with this which I am sure people will find actually refreshing. I’m sure that will change soon.

2008

WKU joins Division 1-A. I’m just going to put them right in the Sun Belt.

2011

Things were quiet for almost six years. Then the big bang hit in college football and everything went haywire went it came to the conferences and realignment. Will this be the same in Bossman’s Realignmentpalooza? No.

First off, Nebraska does leave for the Big Ten. Since Penn State never went to the Big Ten back in the 90s, this puts the new Big Ten at eleven teams. To make it even, they also invite KANSAS! Yes, I am serious. Kansas wasn’t too far from a few seasons of great football. And their basketball team was awesome as always. So this makes a lot of sense.

As for the Pac-10, they decided they wanted to bring in six schools from the Big XII. Instead, they will bring in those same six schools from the SWC: Colorado, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas A&M and Texas Tech. This also means Utah does not join the now Pac-16 conference.

The SWC is now down to eight schools and, chances are, would lose their automatic BCS bowl bid. With a roster of Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas State, Missouri, TCU, Houston, SMU and Arkansas they can’t make a claim to be worthy of one now. And because of that, Arkansas finally accepts the SEC’s overtures and heads there, dropping the SWC to a seven-team conference.

The trickle down effect was in play. Utah stayed in the Mountain West and was joined by Boise State. BYU also doesn’t leave the Mountain West for Independence at this point.

2012

Another crazy year in realignment that won’t be as crazy when I’m done with it. First off, Texas A&M won’t move to the SEC since they are happy in the somewhat new Pac-16. West Virginia also doesn’t move to the SWC since it would be even more ridiculous than their current move there is (although with Cincinnati in the fold it now makes more sense). Fresno State, Hawaii and Nevada leave the WAC for the Mountain West as it happened in real life. This leaves the WAC with four teams (New Mexico State, San Jose State, Idaho and Utah State). Texas State and UTSA joined to make six. For now, this leaves the WAC as a football conference…but barely.

Oh and Missouri does not go the SEC. I still believe this makes absolutely no sense. For now they stay in the SWC but it won’t be for long.

South Alabama moves up from an FCS Independent right to the Sun Belt conference.

Finally, UMass does not join the MAC. Another weird move by the MAC that doesn’t make sense now and didn’t back then.

2013

First of all, no American Conference. It’s still the Big East. If the basketball schools don’t like it, they can fuck off for the Patriot League or whatever. Also, Pitt and Syracuse do not leave the Big East for the ACC.

Now this becomes an issue because some schools were slated to head to the new American Conference. This is how I would plan to deal with this. Houston and SMU, instead of going to the AAC, stay in the Southwest Conference. They are joined by Memphis, who leaves C-USA for the SWC.

Remember TCU, Boise State and San Diego State heading to the Big East/American? I don’t see that happening now. Instead, Boise State and San Diego State head to the SWC.

San Jose State and Utah State put the final nail in the WAC football coffin by accepting bids to the Mountain West. Idaho and New Mexico State are, once again, Independent teams. Texas State heads to the Sun Belt with UTSA going to Conference USA.

UCF heads to the Big East (not American). Then Conference USA raids the Sun Belt for four teams: FAU, FIU, Middle Tennessee and North Texas. Finally, the Sun Belt reloads, kind of, by accepting Georgia State from FCS.

2014

Louisville does decide to leave the Big East for the ACC. A bit surprising but I feel they belong there a bit better than the Big East.

I know the Big Ten wants to expand into new markets. But it won’t be happening in New York and Washington as Rutgers and Maryland do not leave their current conferences. They’ve been outliers since they moved there so I want to rectify that issue.

East Carolina heads to the Big East. An odd fit but between that and Conference USA, no one conference is a perfect fit for them so might as well move them up, so to speak. Tulane and Tulsa, on the other hand, do not go to the Big East. They head to the SWC, which is finally renamed the Big XII.

Conference USA backfills their losses with WKU from the Sun Belt and Old Dominion from FCS. After that, Appalachian State and Georgia Southern head to the Sun Belt from the FCS. Idaho and New Mexico State stay right where they are as Independents.

2015

The big happening in 2015 was UAB shuttering their football program. I am here to say it won’t happen! I don’t know how I would make that happen but I’ll figure something out.

Navy joins the Big East, ending over 100 years of Independent football and Charlotte transitions to FBS by joining Conference USA.

2017

One item: Coastal Carolina joins the Sun Belt from FCS.

2018

Poor Idaho. You would have thought they could have stayed up in FBS but it wasn’t to be. The Mountain West, the one conference it made sense for them to be in, didn’t want them. And the Sun Belt, which had them in reality for a few years, might as well have been on the moon compared to where they were situated. So they are gone to FCS, probably never to return.

In actuality, Liberty replaced them as an Independent. I’m just moving them straight to Conference USA instead. Take out the middle man.

2021

I’m not including any COVID-related moves like Notre Dame being in the ACC for one season (and almost winning the conference title).

UConn left the American to go back to the basketball-oriented Big East. In my world, that doesn’t happen. Actually, nothing happens at all here because the next year, the realignment bubble doesn’t burst: it gets blown up. So I have to put new pieces together in a brand new puzzle to make it work. Should be fun right?

2022

Who’s idea was this? Good lord. At least now we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

This season had some movement but at the low end of FBS. James Madison, an FCS powerhouse, finally moved up to FBS and joined the Sun Belt. Joining them would be three Conference USA teams: Marshall, Old Dominion and Southern Miss.

Now, if you have read my blog before, you know how I feel about the Sun Belt and Conference USA. I find them to be unwieldy conferences with massive geographical footprints that, especially in C-USA’s case, make no sense. I plan on fixing it but not this year. Let the new teams breathe in their new conference before I blow things up with enough C-4 to level a city.

2023

Alright, let’s blow shit up.

Let’s start with the SEC which has been left behind a bit in my version of realignment. Consistency was the name of the game in the conference where it just means more. Well now they get the infusion they always hoped for. Sorry ACC. Sorry Big East. It was bound to happen. The SEC invites Florida State, Miami, Georgia Tech and Clemson. They finally have attained that superconference status.

The ACC is gutted but won’t be for long. We will get to that in a bit.

The Big XII gets an infusion of teams as well. BYU, from the Mountain West, along with Cincinnati and UCF from the Big East, move to the Big XII. Because Houston was already in the Big XII, they now sit at fifteen teams. Not the best idea, especially for scheduling purposes. So they invite one more team: Utah. After missing out on the Pac-10/12/16/whatever years ago, they finally get into a power conference and deservedly so.

Hey remember what I said way back at the start. You know, the point about Penn State not going to the Big Ten. Well, it’s time they moved. With the Big East losing some teams and some conference strength, it’s time for the Nittany Lions to move up. They will bring with them Pittsburgh. Sure it’s not a brand new market but it gives PSU a travel partner and doesn’t go too far outside the current Big Ten geographic footprint, something I find important (although college sports most definitely does not).

New Mexico State gets a conference home again when they move to Conference USA. They are joined by Sam Houston and Jacksonville State who move up from FCS.

Done for this coming season but wait, there’s more!

2024

You really think I would have USC and UCLA go to the Big Ten? Fuck that noise. What I will be doing, however, is rather seismic.

The ACC is going to raid the Big East yet again. With only seven teams for the 2023 season, they were looking like a sorry-ass football conference. So they take Boston College, Rutgers, Syracuse, UConn, Virginia Tech and West Virginia from the Big East. I’m not a fan of odd-numbered conferences, so they also pluck UCF from the Big XII.

Now we start the trickle-down effect. The Big XII (now Big XVI) will take Colorado State from the Mountain West. The Mountain West responds by grabbing New Mexico State from Conference USA.

And then, the coup de grace. I am going to totally remake Conference USA and the Sun Belt and finally put the nail in the coffin of Big East football, all in one fell swoop. This is how it will work (pay close attention):

Conference USA will be the western-most conference of the two with the Sun Belt being the eastern-most. Why did I do this? Who knows.
All four former Big East teams (East Carolina, Navy, Temple and USF) join the Sun Belt.
Arkansas State, Louisiana, South Alabama, Southern Miss, Texas State, Troy and ULM move from the Sun Belt to Conference USA.
Then Charlotte, FAU, FIU, Liberty and WKU move from Conference USA to the Sun Belt.

Look at that; two sixteen-team conferences that have a tighter geographic footprint. Makes travel easier and fosters better rivalries. Like college sports had been like for DECADES. Oh and if Louisiana Tech complains even once about being in the same conference as Louisiana or ULM they can be sent to FCS for all I care.

Alright, so now I bet you want to know what this all looks like. So here it is, in chart form with NO DIVISONS because divisions suck:

SEC	Big Ten	Pac-16	ACC	Big XVI
Alabama	Illinois	Arizona	Boston College	Baylor
Arkansas	Indiana	Arizona State	Duke	Boise State
Auburn	Iowa	California	Louisville	BYU
Clemson	Kansas	Colorado	Maryland	Cincinnati
Florida	Michigan	Oklahoma	NC State	Colorado State
Florida State	Michigan State	Oklahoma State	North Carolina	Houston
Georgia	Minnesota	Oregon	Rutgers	Iowa State
Georgia Tech	Nebraska	Oregon State	Syracuse	Kansas State
Kentucky	Northwestern	Stanford	UCF	Memphis
LSU	Ohio State	Texas	UConn	Missouri
Miami	Penn State	Texas A&M	Virginia	San Diego State
Mississippi State	Pittsburgh	Texas Tech	Virginia Tech	SMU
Ole Miss	Purdue	UCLA	Wake Forest	TCU
South Carolina	Wisconsin	USC	West Virginia	Tulane
Tennessee		Washington		Tulsa
Vanderbilt		Washington State		Utah
Mountain West	MAC	Sun Belt	Conference USA	Independents
Air Force	Akron	Appalachian State	Arkansas State	Army
Fresno State	Ball State	Charlotte	Jacksonville State	Notre Dame
Hawaii	Bowling Green	Coastal Carolina	Louisiana	UMass
Nevada	Buffalo	East Carolina	Louisiana Tech
New Mexico	Central Michigan	FAU	Middle Tennessee
New Mexico State	Eastern Michigan	FIU	North Texas
San Jose State	Kent State	Georgia Southern	Rice
UNLV	Miami-OH	Georgia State	Sam Houston
Utah State	Northern Illinois	James Madison	South Alabama
Wyoming	Ohio	Liberty	Southern Miss
	Toledo	Marshall	Texas State
	Western Michigan	Navy	Troy
		Old Dominion	UAB
		Temple	ULM
		USF	UTEP
		WKU	UTSA

Holy crap that took forever. But look at those conferences. I think they look way better than what we will see in reality, if I do say so myself. And if another team is moving up from FCS, they may just have to be an Independent for the near future…dammit Kennesaw State is moving up in 2024? Nope, not anymore. Not in Bossman’s realignment. I’m done.

So I wonder how he got back from Ireland? Oh, and the Week 1 college football schedule

Posted on August 31, 2022 by guelphbossman

I can’t see the Nebraska team and staff and everyone else who made the trip to Dublin allowing Frosty the Coachman to board the same flight as him. Probably safer for him anyway. He would have been thrown out of the plane over the Atlantic somewhere. All because of a horrible onside kick playcall that was not needed (among other poor coaching decisions). Just a complete fucking disaster for that team and now Frost’s hot seat is basically the surface of the sun.

Finally we have made it! Week One! And a full schedule. Hell, more than a full schedule it feels like. So much football and I will watch as much as I can because come January, it feels bad when it’s all gone. Let’s right to the (true) opening weekend schedule.

Thursday

		US	Canada
West Virginia at #17 Pittsburgh	7:00 PM
Central Michigan at #12 Oklahoma State	7:00 PM
Ball State at Tennessee	7:00 PM
VMI at #22 Wake Forest	7:30 PM
Alabama A&M at UAB	8:00 PM
Louisiana Tech at Missouri	8:00 PM
Penn State at Purdue	8:00 PM
New Mexico State at Minnesota	9:00 PM
Northern Arizona at Arizona State	10:00 PM
Cal Poly at at Fresno State	10:30 PM

As I said during the Week Zero schedule post, I would be including games that most Canadians won’t get up here, even with the specialty packs. I’m doing this because some have switched to an IPTV provider and can get some (or all) of these games. So while the NAU-ASU game might not look exciting (and it probably won’t be), I will still list it.

Nice to see the Backyard Brawl back as WVU and Pitt get a bit of a national spotlight for this one. Also, you have to wonder if Mike Gundy has the last game the Pokes played against CMU in his mind when the Chips won on a Hail Mary play that shouldn’t have even been allowed. Also, FOX will show a Thursday night game on the network to start the season. I wish they did that more often and they honestly could with the NFL’s Thursday Night Football package moving to Amazon Prime.

Friday

		US	Canada
Western Michigan at #15 Michigan State	7:00 PM
Virginia Tech at Old Dominion	7:00 PM
Temple at Duke	7:30 PM
Illinois at Indiana	8:00 PM
TCU at Colorado	10:00 PM

3-hour windows. Good lord. Yes, TSN’s schedule says that the TCU-CU game starts at 10:30 but that’s not true. Stupid ESPN.

UPDATE: If you were planning on watching the WMU-MSU game on ESPN, you will have to move to ESPN2 as ESPN is now showing US Open tennis.

Saturday Early

First full slate of Saturday games. Feels good. Nothing big here. The UNC-App State game could be the most intriguing as you don’t often see Power Five teams travel to Group of Five teams so there is some upset potential there.

Saturday Afternoon

Now we get to the meat of Week One. I am not really a fan of neutral-site games but let’s be honest: we are all watching a good portion of that UGA-UO matchup. Perhaps a College Football Playoff elimination game there (although we know one loss almost never kills a Power Five team’s chances). I’m interested to see what the brand new era of Sooner football will look like with Brent Venables now at the helm. And CBS opens with SDSU’s brand new stadium as they finally left the cavernous Murph for a more intimate viewing arrangement.

Also, you will notice a couple of other things. First, no games on ESPN2. As is usually the case, the U.S. Open tennis tournament is on ESPN2 all Saturday so that’s why there are no games airing there. It’s also why most of the TSNs aren’t available to show games this week. Secondly, the odd timing of the Pac-12 Network games. Well, thanks to the brains of Larry Scott (and others, yes, I know, but he was the commish), the Pac-12 Network has a national feed and regional feeds for all the schools. Each pair of schools shares a region. In this timeslot, the UCD-Cal game is actually only available on the P12N Bay Area feed. The BGSU-UCLA game is the P12N National game. Confused? Yeah it’s dumb.

Saturday Primetime

		US	Canada
Rice at #14 USC	6:00 PM
#7 Utah at Florida	7:00 PM
Illinois State at #18 Wisconsin	7:00 PM
#5 Notre Dame at #2 Ohio State	7:30 PM
SMU at North Texas	7:30 PM
Memphis at Mississippi State	7:30 PM
Utah State at #1 Alabama	7:30 PM
Louisville at Syracuse	8:00 PM
Colgate at Stanford	8:00 PM

Game of the year in the opening weekend? You could argue that. The Irish and the Buckeyes face off in a massive non-conference matchup (I don’t know why I’m even saying that since the Irish will NEVER join a conference, right?). This will hopefully be worth the hype (and boy is ESPN/ABC going to push the hype to the next level for this one). So you could watch that OR you can watch Bama beat the snot out of USU. Your choice. Now watch that game be closer than the ND-tOSU game.

Saturday Late Night

		US	Canada
Idaho at Washington State	9:30 PM
Boise State at Oregon State	10:30 PM
Kent State at Washington	10:30 PM

One of the more interesting matchups of the weekend goes down in Corvallis. I would normally say Boise is the favorite here but the Beavs have been a much improved team as of late. Also, there’s a true Hawaii Test if you can find a way to stream it (it starts at midnight).

Sunday

		US	Canada
Florida A&M vs. Jackson State (in Miami)	3:00 PM
Tuskegee vs. Fort Valley State (in Montgomery)	7:00 PM
LSU vs. Florida State (in New Orleans)	7:30 PM

Speaking of interesting matchups, LSU-FSU is a juicy one down at the Superdome. Both teams are popular picks to improve this year. Let’s see how definitely Southern Brian Kelly fares in his opening contest in the SEC.

I am not sure about the two non-FBS games appearing on the specialty pack. Over the years, these opening Sunday games have been hit or miss so stay tuned.

Monday

		US	Canada
#4 Clemson at Georgia Tech	8:00 PM

Geoff Collins wouldn’t be fired after Week 1 would he?

Big Games O’ The Week

Notre Dame at Ohio State (7:30, ABC/TSN2) – Sure there is another game that’s huge but this is THE big game of the week. I don’t remember the Irish starting with a game like this in recent memory and no, Texas doesn’t count. Now we have to hope ND doesn’t play like shit and makes the game unwatchable in the second half.

Georgia vs. Oregon (in Atlanta) (3:30, ABC/TSN2) – A new head coach for the Ducks up against a team trying to do the toughest thing in sports: repeat as champs. If you want, you can call this Game 1A of the Week (especially if you are a whiny SEC fan). A few questions will definitely be asked here, chief among them being can Bo Nix thrive outside the SEC, because last season he certainly didn’t thrive inside it.

Cincinnati at Arkansas (3:30, specialty pack) – If you had said three years ago that this would be the third best game of opening weekend, I would have drove you to the nearest AA or NA meeting. It’s a new college football world, though, and the Bearcats are still the Group of Five’s signature team until they are beaten. And Arkansas is slowly moving up the SEC ranks under possibly the most underrated head coach in the land, Sam Pittman. The Cats lost a lot of talent so this will give everyone a good idea as to what we can expect from them this season.

West Virginia at Pittsburgh (Thursday, 7:00, TSN2) – The Backyard Brawl is BACK! I am sure we will see references to 13-9 up until and throughout the game. Let’s see if the ‘Eers can put a bit of hurt on a Pitt team that believes they can repeat as ACC champs.

Psycho Game of the Week

Temple at Duke (Friday, 7:30, specialty pack) – Every week now instead of listing honourable mentions in the games of the week section, I will list a game that we all can get here but you would have to be a complete psycho to watch the entirety of (or you are a fan of one of the teams and even then). This week we have Temple travelling to the Carolinas to face Duke. Ugh. This feels like it could be a torture device used by the military. Anyway, unless it’s close, just avoid it.

The Degenerate Portion of Our Show

This section is the section for all you gambling degenerates out there and you KNOW WHO YOU ARE! I do bet on the NFL from time to time but I stopped gambling on college games. I think it took the fun out of it to be honest. Also, I sucked at it.

Alright, this season I am going to do something different. I am going to pick AGAINST THE SPREAD. That’s right! Make things a bit more difficult for me and gives all the more reason for you to not use these picks for your own gambling. I’ve warned you. Let’s begin.

Pittsburgh (-7.5) over West Virginia

Missouri (-19.5) over Louisiana Tech

Purdue (+3.5) over Penn State (with the Boilermakers winning outright)

Duke (-7.5) over Temple

TCU (-14) over Colorado

Appalachian State (+1.5) over North Carolina (with the Mountaineers winning outright)

San Diego State (-6) over Arizona

Oregon (+17) over Georgia (with the Bulldogs winning the game)

Florida (+3) over Utah (Gators win outright in upset)

Notre Dame (+17.5) over Ohio State (tOSU wins but game will be close)

Oregon State (-3) over Boise State

LSU (-3) over Florida State

And there you go! We are at Week 1 so rejoice, college football fans! I am so happy we have made it to this point. I will try to keep things updated over the next couple of days (if need be). I will be on Twitter (@TheBauceman) for a good portion of the action so check me there if you wish. And everyone enjoy the games!