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.
Ray: Only a few assistants got fired this week, so the coaching bloodletting is either easing, or the law of diminishing returns may be taking effect. After all, Bill Belichick isn’t gone until he’s stake-through-the-vampire’s-chest-gone. The season is entering its doggy period, where the number of can’t-miss games at either end of the success spectrum is diminishing. When your mind strays to UCLA-Michigan State just to see if kicking Penn State in the front makes the Bruins a serious operation again, you are having focus issues. But the nor’easter heading for the East Coast may (and let us pray to our local gods that “may” becomes “will”) turn some games into absolute dogfights, and that will do for hoots and whiskeys. Mud makes us all better, especially when we send relative children into the dreck without having to worry about hosing them off. It’s totally good with us if Charlotte-Army is delayed by flood.
Israel: Things can always get worse. Don’t ever think it’s as bad as it's gonna be. That especially goes for you, North Carolina. The fact that they’re writing the big, splashy, everything-sucks profile about you after five games only means that it will get so much worse, in ways you can’t even conceive right now. Jordon Hudson hasn’t even figured into things yet, and the nepo-baby coaches haven’t yet done anything stupid off campus. There are all sorts of possibilities for further dysfunction, so hold on tightly to whatever is bolted down over there. Clemson got a reprieve from sucking but don’t think the suck isn’t coming right on back, in Jesus’s name. Arch Manning’s wings are melting already? The sun has barely started beating down on them! Florida State is losing games again? Mike Norvell isn’t even in midseason form yet! Things can get bad in a hurry—and not just for the actual teams but for the sport in general. The Big Ten is staring at that private equity money and is trying to convince itself, "We’re not Red Lobster or Toys-R-Us, we can change them." Now the NCAA is gonna let its players bet on professional games outside of their sport. You can imagine the internal monologue: "Maybe this is a better way to maintain the integrity (don’t laugh!) of our game. If these kids are gonna gamble anyway, it's best they do it at home under our guidance." We’ve only scratched the surface on how left things can go once you lose a little control.
And now the games.
USF at North Texas – Friday, 7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN2
An AAC season-breaker for the loser, this is a worthwhile watch just to see NTSU quarterback Drew Mestemaker do stuff for everyone else on the roster (17 players have caught passes for the Mean Green this year, which is an achievement after five games no matter what you say). North Texas’s offense in general is nearly as much fun to watch as Texas Tech’s, and while it is not going to become a national marker, it is 210 minutes of football you could waste on any number of other games like—well, like UMass-Kent State, we suppose. — Ray
Ohio State at Illinois – Saturday, 12:00 p.m. ET on FOX
Illinois got its national comeuppance against Indiana and is now regarded as ordinary by college-football knowers, but this will readjust people’s vision further downward. The beauty is that Ohio State isn’t playing Illinois as much as it is the notion that it could lose some national support to Oregon in the brain-deadening fashion-show world of October football. Miami is off this week, so by the rules of OOSOOM (Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind) we have to ignore them until next Friday’s game against Louisville. In short, Ohio State has no reason not to try and run up the score here. — Ray
Pitt at Florida State – Saturday, 12:00 p.m. ET on ESPN
Don’t think for a second that I am not prepared for Florida State to keep their losing streak going. Pitt is not exactly the toughest team in the ACC but they’ve got a better in-conference record than we do and there is nothing that makes me feel confident about the Noles right now. Tommy Castellanos has come back down to Earth, the defense is capable and energetic but will give up yards to any competent offense, and we are still coached by Mike Norvell, a man who's never met an end of a half that he couldn’t mismanage. — Israel
Alabama at Missouri – Saturday, 12:00 p.m. ET on ABC
Alabama is back, I guess. They don’t exactly inspire a lot of confidence or joy, but they are winning games. Next up is undefeated Missouri, which feels like a typo but isn't. Missouri has been winning despite being quarterbacked by a guy named Beau Pribula, it’s really impressive. This game is gonna come down to whether or not Alabama can shut down Ahmad Hardy, because the Tigers go as he goes. The Bama defense will bend but if they don’t break, and if Ty Simpson doesn’t revert to pumpkin form, things should turn out in the Tide’s favor. But Missouri can do what Georgia couldn't, which is get to the quarterback. They have a much more capable defensive line, though everyone thinks they have a good D-line until they face Alabama. Mizzou needs to make Simpson uncomfortable if they hope to be in this game. — Israel
UMass at Kent State – Saturday, 2:30 p.m. ET on ESPN+
Wake Forest at Oregon State – Saturday, 3:30 p.m. ET on The CW
The former is a MAC showdown that isn’t good enough to be included as part of MACtion, but UMass is marching inexorably forward as the empirically worst team in Division I based on its record and the more arcane Total Spread Index; they are a combined 109.5-point underdogs in their five losses, and covered only the Missouri game, which they lost 42-6. This is not to dog UMass; it is doing the best it can, we are quite sure. But in the battle to find out if there can be a winless team in college football this year, they do seem to be preeminent. The other one we can verify is Oregon State (with an dishonorable mention for Sam Houston), which faces the plucky Demon Deacons in Corvallis Saturday and has been more competitive than expected. Frankly, we hope they both win because waiting for the final zero in the standings is a blot on our already microscopic sense of human dignity. So go Minutemen and go Beavers, just for the sake of the bit. — Ray
Oklahoma at Texas – Saturday, 3:30 p.m. ET on ABC
Is it a Red River Showdown or Shootout? It probably won’t be much of a shootout between Arch Manning and John Mateer, who'll be playing his first game since breaking his hand against Auburn a few weeks ago. Wouldn’t it be the most Red River thing in the world if, after looking like a catastrophe against an inept Florida Gators team, Texas somehow came out and beat Oklahoma? OU has one of the better defenses in football, Mateer is back, Texas is reeling, and Steve Sarkisian seems to have forgotten how offenses work. And yet, I can’t rule out something wacky happening in this game. The chances of an upset aren't particularly high, but if a thing like this could happen it would absolutely happen during Red River, a vortex in which time and space and AP Rankings have no bearing on what comes to pass out on the field. — Israel
Indiana at Oregon – Saturday, 3:30 p.m. ET on CBS
This is the game of the week by most standards. Oregon is still enjoying knocking Penn State off its high horse, which then set the Nittanies up for their season-destroying loss to UCLA, while Indiana still has that new-car smell as a national factor. This is easily the toughest game the Hoosiers have played since Curt Cignetti revivified the organization, but the two losses in his tenure have come at the hands of Ohio State and Notre Dame, so this is a litmus test for the idea that they cannot win the big one because they’ve lost the two big ones they’ve had. Oregon is a two-score favorite, if that helps you make up your mind. — Ray
Nebraska at Maryland – Saturday, 3:30 p.m. ET on BTN
It’s the Big Ten Network Bowl! Dylan Raiola vs. Malik Washington! This one's a conference matchup between two teams that are better than expected but probably still worse than their actual records. Maryland’s fourth quarter against Washington was awful and demoralizing, while Dylan Raiola has to be in his head watching Patrick Mahomes’s Chiefs struggle. Raiola might be thinking to himself, Is it my fault? Do I have to pick up the slack for the both of us? Football, man. It’s difficult. If we can be for real, only one of these teams is going to end up in some kind of New Year's Six bowl, and this game will likely decide which one has the best chance to get there. — Israel
Florida at Texas A&M – Saturday, 7:00 p.m. ET on ESPN
Florida’s fan base has been gearing up for the Billy Napier firing for a while now, and this game isn’t likely to mollify anyone. A&M is ranked fifth in the country and made its bones in large part by beating Notre Dame, but mostly it’s the nasty defense and quarterback Marcel Reed finding wide receiver Mario Craver behind hapless cornerbacks that is making the Aggies worthy of title consideration. It would mean sending medioids to College Station for much-requested Mike Elko profiles, a trip which can be its own punishment, but what care us? — Ray
Kansas at Texas Tech – Saturday, 7:30 p.m. ET on FOX
This is the other game you flip the channel for in this window, because Tech has the most breathtaking offense in the nation. Second in the country in points scored, fourth in points allowed, and with Texas now a mere shadow of itself, you’re way better off investing your corneal bandwidth in Behren Morton than Arch Manning. If nothing else, everyone in the world invested their inability to evaluate quarterbacks in Manning and left Morton alone, for which Morton should be eternally grateful. — Ray
Michigan at USC – Saturday, 7:30 p.m. ET on NBC
I guess you can make this part of your multiscreen experience, but the only thing to be said for this game is that it isn’t being played at 11. Although in fairness, 11 your time is only 8 our time, and we have no problem with it. If you don’t like late starts, move west where it gets late much later. Better still, move to Hawaii, where it’s never too late, and you can watch games as soon as you wake up. Or Vanuatu, where you don’t have to give a damn who’s playing because your only jobs are to hold up tall colorful umbrellaed drinks and laugh at the end of the world. Or Penn State-Rutgers, whichever comes first. — Ray
South Carolina at LSU – Saturday, 7:45 p.m. ET on SEC Network
A battle of dimwits between two teams that should be much better than they are. After a breakout year, the Gamecocks had high hopes for both coach Shane Beamer and quarterback LaNorris Sellers, but that has now been all but deflated. LSU, meanwhile, looks a lot like a Brian Kelly team. The defense is legitimate, the offense is pedestrian, and if you have the nerve point this out to him, Kelly will get all red and sweaty. I don’t think we’re quite in kitchen sink mode on either side, but whoever loses will likely get there real soon. — Israel
Arizona State at Utah – Saturday, 10:15 p.m. ET on ESPN
Utah has been quietly steady and Arizona State has played solidly behind Sam Leavitt. I have no doubt that ASU can stay in this game, at least for a while, but Utah is good at killing teams with a thousand paper cuts. Raleek Brown may not be Cam Skattebo but he’s a more than capable back, and he will need to give the Sun Devils much of their juice on Saturday night. Despite being underdogs, ASU is still undefeated in the Big 12, and the onus is on Utah to do something about that. — Israel
Utah State at Hawaii – Saturday, 11:59 p.m. ET on the Internet
It’s Midnight Hawaii Madness, which is not a type of weed. Get your best pajamas ready because it's a football sleepover, with pizza rolls and candy and soda, and we’re gonna wake up the next day feeling gross and a little embarrassed. Will Kansei Matsuzawa keep his field-goal percentage a perfect 100? Stay up to find out! — Israel
