Welcome to the Defector College Football Watch Guide, where Israel Daramola and Ray Ratto will tell you which of the weekend’s college football games are worth giving a crap about.
Israel: We had ourselves the hell week of all hell weeks last Saturday. And in the aftermath, the top of the sport is upside down and everyone sounds incoherent—babbling and whining about which teams are good and which are bad, in tones you can otherwise only find from Old Testament prophets. Is Florida secretly good? Is Texas truly a tire fire? Is it going to come out that Cooper Manning never even showed Arch a football before college? Why can't Notre Dame close? Why would Oregon bench Dylan Raiola, just to play him in the fourth quarter against his former school? How did we end up with a first-ranked Miami? These are the questions left to us in the wake of some near-unprecedented football mayhem. The two directions left to go from here are either set the universal order right or make shit go even more left. I know what I choose.
Ray: After the pyro-spectacular of last weekend, with all those ranked teams either losing outright or barely escaping defeat, something needed to be done to restore normalcy. And so Maryland fired head coach Mike Locksley on Tuesday. Locksley is most recently noted for having guided the Terps to 12 consecutive conference losses, seven of the last eight by double digits, and the most recent coming against Rutgers. The last and decisive one was just a seven-point loss, but it may as well have been 49 when you apply the added "You lost to RUTGERS?" metric.
But we're not here to bag on Locksley, per se. He was hired to replace Randy Edsall halfway through the 2015 season, then didn't get the full-time gig because the athletic department thought it should rather have D.J. Durkin, who was fired after two years for conduct too odious for so middling a college football coach. From there, Maryland had Matt Canada fill in as interim, then ditched him to hire Locksley full time. It went OK for a while—who can ever forget that Duke's Mayo Bowl win over North Carolina State?—until it finally collapsed in a heap, which seems a harsh but not unfair way to describe this year's Rutgers team.
No, this is about how the industry went back to its old practice of kneecapping coaches midseason regardless of cost—Locksley is still owed more than $9 million post-canning—after weeks of firing nobody, unless you count the guy at Gardner-Webb who got the works after an opening-week loss to Austin Peay, or the defensive coordinator at Colorado State who walked off the job in the middle of a game and got fired after it ended. We will be fascinated to see if Locksley's dismissal reignites the hive psychology of the modern athletic director; if so, the next step will be calling HR. These are people who would fire a child in the middle of its own birth because, for them, firing shows initiative while hiring displays only ignorance.
And now, on to the reason that all these people get fired: the games.
UMass at UConn — Friday, 7:00 p.m. ET on CBSSN
Ray may have given up on UMass, but that doesn't mean you have to. They're very much underdogs against the Huskies, but that's just how the fightin' Minutemen like things. Plus, how much faith can you have in a team that lost to Late Locksley Administration Maryland, and Syracuse, which is Syracuse? — Israel
Air Force at Wyoming — Friday, 9:00 p.m. ET on The CW
Air Force is another overwhelming favorite, but Wyoming just scored 41 points on NIU—though they also allowed 23 points. This was also blood week, where all kinds of backward wackiness was going on. Maybe they've still got points in their system, which would help because they're going to need a lot of them to try and keep up in a boat race—or flyover 😎😎😎—from this Air Force team. — Israel
(6) Indiana at Michigan (which has less poll votes than Oregon State, so take that) — Saturday, 12:00 p.m. ET on FOX
This was supposed to be a big game a while back, but it isn't quite so now that Indiana has taken its very weird L to Ohio State and Michigan has revealed itself as Michigan. On the other hand, you can try your viewing luck with Iowa-Minnesota or USC-Wisconsin and be no better off entertainment-wise. At least nobody is mean-mouthing the Big Ten the way they are turning on the SEC, which is to say nobody is mean-mouthing the Big Ten as long as you forget that everyone hates the 24-team playoff that Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti ramrodded into existence. Therein lies the true beauty of college football: All the wrong people win for all the wrong reasons. None of this really helps sell Indiana-Michigan to you, but you already know your appetite for that sort of thing. — Ray
Pitt at (1) Miami — Saturday, 12:00 p.m. ET on ESPN
The new No. 1 team in the country catches Pitt in mid-plummet, as the Panthers have lost to North Carolina and Boston College since head coach Pat Narduzzi's rantlet about not being ranked. Well, they're back to being unranked, as is the lot of any team that's can't beat Boston College, while the Canes are trying to stay sufficiently focused before the Week 10 weird-off at Notre Dame. Maybe they weren't fully locked in against Florida State either, but Miami survived two Hail Marys and remain one of the five unbeaten teams in the FBS, with UCLA, BYU, Utah, and Jimmy Mad. — Ray
The only case against Pitt winning this game is that they are typically better at taking down No. 2 ranked teams than actual top-ranked ones. Either way, I guarantee Mario Cristobal is having nightmares about this game. — Israel
(18) LSU at Auburn — Saturday, 12:00 p.m. ET on ABC
We'll learn a lot about what kind of weekend this will be by the various ebbs and flows of this game. Is Auburn a team to take seriously, having just gained a great deal of confidence after beating Georgia, and now ready to take on a vulnerable LSU? Or is Auburn just a chaos agent? And if so, are they finished creating chaos, or do they have a little bit left in store? Will Lane Kiffin get out-coached again by another promising former Group of Five coach who's now at a bigger SEC program? This game will be the weathervane for the rest of this Saturday, I'm sure of it. — Israel
(2) BYU at Central Florida — Saturday, 3:30 p.m. ET on FOX
Michigan State at (9) UCLA — Saturday, 3:30 p.m. ET on CBS
The Cougars and Bruins are the two teams left in America that have covered the spread every week, which ought to be a category the playoff committee is required to apply when it figures out how to seed the teams. That's really the only reason you should bother with either of these games. BYU, powered justifiably by the clock error that allowed them to beat Notre Dame (or just finish beating them after leading for 47 minutes and 30 seconds), are giving 6.5 to UCF at the Bounce House (down from 9.5); UCLA is spotting Sparty 13.5 at home, which would give you an excuse to watch into the second half if that's your idea of a good time. — Ray
Texas A&M at (13) Alabama — Saturday, 3:30 p.m. ET on ABC
I would call this a "get right" game, but with Alabama, who knows. You cannot trust this team to dominate anything anymore. Everybody's treating them like they're some suckers now. Oh, how the mighty have fallen, Paaaaawl! — Israel
Hawai'i at Northern Illinois — Saturday, 3:30 p.m. ET on Mountain West+
This is your Mountain West palate cleanser. Two teams that literally have nothing in common—save their athletic directors having met each other at conference meetings a couple of times—get together to decide if either can claim the title of worst team in the nation. NIU is one of two remaining winless teams (Louisiana Monroe is the other, you ghouls) and is 136th (out of 138) in Bill Connelly's latest I Need Other Hobbies FBS rankings for ESPN. Hawai'i, which is 1-6, is traveling 37 time zones to the east to play at what is going to feel like breakfast time. This is your upset special, if you define "special" with unjustifiable elasticity. — Ray
Western Michigan at Toledo — Saturday, 12:00 p.m. ET on CBSSN
Eastern Michigan at Ohio — Saturday, 4:00 p.m. ET on ESPNU
The top of the MAC sorts itself out this weekend, which ordinarily would not mar your gaze, but there are almost no games next weekend—Sac State is playing Kent State, so you know what we're suggesting here—and then the schedule veers into the Tuesdays/Wednesdays part of the schedule. In other words, this is your last chance at MACtion without having to leave work early and lying to your boss about your emotional attachment to Ball State-UMass. — Ray
Virginia Tech at Clemson — Saturday, 7:00 p.m. ET on ESPN
Two of our weirdest Type A coaches are going at it with their similarly underachieving teams. This would still technically be a good win for James Franklin's Hokies, and an embarrassing loss for Dabo Swinney and the Tigers. The only thing I know for sure is that a press room hates to see these two coming. — Israel
(7) Ole Miss at (19) Texas — Saturday, 7:30 p.m. ET on ABC
I do not expect that Arch Manning will be benched for this game, but I do predict that the clamoring for it might be a lot louder when it's over. This is why you don't drop games you should win, because now the Longhorns are in a situation where they have to face off against a real big-time college quarterback. Ole Miss doesn't have a stellar defense or the skill players that a team like Texas should have, and they might be thinner in the trenches than you'd want from a great team. But they have Trinidad Chambliss, and he can do just about anything on that field. Even if they lose, they might show Texas what it is that they're missing despite all that oil-funded NIL money. Or maybe Arch will finally be pushed into a deep enough corner that he has no choice but to respond greatly. It's college! That's where the magical shit is supposed to happen. — Israel
(16) USC at Wisconsin — Saturday, 7:30 p.m. ET on NBC
Hey! USC is currently 6-1, even though I don't know anyone that trusts them or even likes them at all. This is also probably the easiest of their next three games, and shit might get very wicked for the Trojans real soon. Or maybe they will fuck around and get through it unscathed, or minimally scathed. I genuinely have no idea with this team, and I guess that's somewhat interesting. It would be funny if, in anticipation of the next couple weeks, the Trojans just lay an egg against Wisconsin because they overlooked them. — Israel
North Dakota State at New Mexico — Saturday, 10:00 p.m. ET on The CW
This is your Mountain West reward for having endured Hawai'i-Northern Illinois, as two of the most appealing candidates (with Jimmy Mad) for that last playoff spot go about the business of reducing the number of candidates by one. This will be one of seven remaining games for Lobos head coach Jason Eck (14-5 in a year and a half on the job, plus this spectacular sideline moment) and North Dakota State's Tim Polasek (32-4 in three), as both will enter into the Hot New Coaching Candidates portal in January. It also will be one of the best games all weekend for those seeking a less painful alternative to LSU-Auburn. — Ray
(14) Houston at (10) Utah — Saturday, 10:15 p.m. ET on ESPN
There are three important factors to recommend this game:
- Their combined records (12-1, with Houston having the 1)
- Their offenses (Utah is eighth in points and ninth in total yards, while Houston is 13th and 10th, respectively)
- This is the game that will make you watch until 2 a.m. while you wait to see just how badly your teenage children disregarded curfew.
The football may not fully satisfy, but the looks on their sallow pockmarked faces when they see you sitting in the family room, as they try to sneak back inside, will be a proper payoff for your endurance. — Ray
YOUR OBERLIN MINUTE
Here's a conundrum. Our Yeomen are still winless, coming off a nail-biting 79-20 loss to 2-4 Wooster, and yet the latest Division III power rankings list them ahead of six other teams despite having the second-worst point differential on Earth. How, you ask? Well, one answer would be strength of schedule, which is what one would expect when every other team is better than yours. Another answer is that polls are nonsense, especially at this level. And a third is that it doesn't matter, because we remain devoutly Yeo, even in this week's huge battle with Ohio Wesleyan (3-3).
OK, maybe not that devout. This plucky little Hilbert College team (0-6, minus-350 point differential) is tweaking our interest a bit. They have been playing NCAA football for five years, and have lost all 41 of their games by an average score of 52-7. We will never fully abandon the Yeo, but they have to know that the degree of our devotion is not only negotiable but highly transactional. — Ray
