Where to begin? We’ve got two top-ten editions of historic programs meeting at a historic venue. We’ve got one of the greatest coaches in the sport’s history trying to rally after two weeks of ignominy threatening irrelevance. We’ve got a playoff-contending quarterback possibly making his long-awaited return. We’ve got something we can and will call the Dylan Thomas Bowl.
Let’s just go through the games, one by one.
The Big Ones
We have more bona fide big games this weekend than we’ve had this season in the first three (+1) weeks combined. There was one big game in Week 1. There was one big game in Week 2. There were no big games last weekend. This weekend, there are five which comfortably meet the requirements, and a sixth which we’d be obnoxious not to include. College football usually gets better as the year goes on, but tomorrow is going to be difficult to top.
Saturday, 7:30 PM EDT: Ohio State @ Notre Dame (NBC)
Ohio State is, per our model, the second-best team in the country, and the third-likeliest to make the playoff. Why the discrepancy? They have to play Notre Dame in South Bend. A loss here hurts their chances more than a win helps.
Something rankings don’t do a good job of capturing is the gaps between their various places. The difference between 9th and 17th feels significant in a top-25 list, but in our model? It’s only an even 2.0 points. So, when we say our model only has Notre Dame as the 16th-best team in the country, don’t make too much of that. They’re 1.2 points from the top ten.
That said, our model’s enthusiasm for the Buckeyes is notable, because it’s an enthusiasm seemingly shared by neither the broader narrative nor betting markets. Ohio State is only ranked 6th right now in the AP Poll despite playing Georgia within a point last winter and winning its first three games by a combined 101 points. They’re also only a 3-point favorite on the road, and while that’s notable against a team as good as Notre Dame, it means our model is, combined, four points higher on the Buckeyes and lower on the Irish than famously efficient spread bettors.
What’s going on here? With the ranking, the story goes something like this: Ohio State looked like it had offensive issues against Indiana in a game a lot of people watched, and then when they beat Youngstown State, the number with which they did it wasn’t quite crooked. By last weekend, few were paying attention, with a competing slate that may have lacked big games but did not lack for action and excitement. Overall, then, the primary data point the media is referencing is that Ohio State only posted 23 in Bloomington, and they’re combining it with some preseason questions about Ohio State’s quarterbacking to make it out like this team has a significant issue. With no convenient NCAA-related excuse like the one keeping Michigan ranked 2nd even as the Wolverines have actually shown they have offensive problems (it’s very trendy among Associated Press members to blindly reject any NCAA rule or stance right now), Ohio State has slid past early impressers Texas and Florida State. What should the narrative be? The Buckeyes have allowed fewer than seven points per game against a Big Ten team, a competitive FCS team, and the Conference USA favorite. Kyle McCord appears to have his feet under him under center, and he still gets to throw to two of the best five or ten receivers in college football. These guys are nearly as much a national championship threat as Georgia, and they have done less to weaken that case than anyone else in their stratum. Georgia has been in more trouble than Ohio State. Texas has been in more trouble than Ohio State. Florida State has been in more trouble than Ohio State. Michigan has looked more underwhelming than Ohio State.
With the bettors, it’s a little different. What this line probably is for bettors is a credit to Notre Dame. Bettors know Ohio State is good. They knew it last New Year’s, only giving the Buckeyes six or seven points against thoroughly dominant Georgia. This line, then, is an expression of faith in the Irish, who behind Sam Hartman may be putting together their best team since 2015, if not earlier. (That 2015 team didn’t make the playoff, but it played Clemson within two at Clemson and played Stanford within two at Stanford back when Stanford was a good football program.) Notre Dame is not currently a national championship contender, but they’ll become a serious playoff contender if they can win three games these next four weeks, something which would require them to spring at least one upset in South Bend, against either these guys tomorrow or USC in mid-October.
Ohio State, meanwhile, has a loss to give, but they still have Penn State and Michigan on the schedule, with lurking threats around them. Maybe the narrative’s right, maybe McCord stinks, maybe Ryan Day’s program is stuck forever behind Michigan. More likely, what we have here is a national title threat meeting a playoff threat, and with the game on the playoff threat’s turf and with the two programs among college football’s ten or twelve most traditional powers, it lines up as a game every bit as big as Texas–Alabama was.
Saturday, 12:00 PM EDT: Florida State @ Clemson (ABC)
After Week 1, we wrote confidently about Florida State’s rise dethroning Clemson in the ACC. We included a caveat, something along the lines of, Clemson does get a chance to beat the Noles at home, but that was mostly base-covering on our part. After one week—and just as much after two weeks—it looked to all the world that Florida State’s day had returned and Clemson’s was finished.
The line on this game is only two points.
What’s happening?
Florida State is an unusual team. Mike Norvell’s leaned heavily on the transfer portal to build this roster, and the players he’s prioritized were a bigger deal as transfers than they were as high school recruits. Florida State has the roster, then, of a strong developmental program that didn’t recruit all that well—something coincidentally akin to the Clemson teams in the early years of that dynasty. That’s always going to keep people who really know things questioning the team’s ceiling. There’s a thought in college football—and it’s been borne out by a lot of results—which says you can only teach size and athleticism to some limited extent, and that a team like Florida State this year therefore has a lower ceiling than Georgia or Ohio State or Alabama or even Texas A&M, all teams loaded with former five-stars.
Meanwhile, results are noisy in college football. The average game misses the spread in college football by a magnitude almost 50% wider than one does in the NFL. It’s an unpredictable version of this sport, and that makes sense when considering how young and unpolished the men are who play it. Because of this, the best way to react to big results is often to react slowly. Clemson does not look like a playoff-worthy football team, but are they no longer among the country’s 25 best? That might be hasty. Florida State beat LSU like you’d expect a national champion to beat LSU, but does that mean they’re of that quality? That’s probably hasty too. I’m personally high on Florida State and low on Clemson, but I’m quite capable of being wrong, and as our 2.0–points–between–9th–and–17th example above points out, the five-point gap in quality this spread implies is actually quite a bit. To use Ohio State and Notre Dame as benchmarks: If we accept that Clemson’s a little bit worse than Notre Dame, which seems fair and reasonable, this means Florida State’s a little bit more worse than Ohio State. That’s probably also fair.
Consistency is key, and we thought Florida State might have it after they wiped Southern Miss from the face of the earth. Then, that Boston College game happened last weekend, and while it’s easy to write it off as a trap game, great teams still win their trap games by multiple scores when the competition is that weak.
The ACC is probably Florida State’s. But they do need to go through Clemson to get it.
On the playoff topic: Clemson is almost 100.00% done with a loss. Florida State might have a loss to give, but it would need at least a little help, and the bigger issue with losing this game is that it would cast serious doubt upon FSU’s chance of not losing any of its other games.
Saturday, 7:00 PM EDT: Oregon State @ Washington State (FOX)
“Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
It was Dylan Thomas who implored the dying to “not go gentle into that good night,” words which hold relevance often in the sporting world. Washington State and Oregon State are not dying, but a piece of their history is, and what follows is a dark, uncertain future. It’s hard not to think of death.
I’m sure there’s been rivalry at times between these two schools. I’d imagine there’s been rivalry at times between most conference rivals, but especially those in bordering states. Right now, though, the perception is that there’s a sense of camaraderie between the two schools left behind in the Pac-12’s dissolution. The reasons they’re being left behind—they’re the underdog schools in their states, they’re the bluer-collar schools in their states, they’re in a far-flung corner of the country which is especially far-flung relative to college football’s Midwestern and Southern base—correlate with similarities between the schools as institutions, too, making the connection deeper. It’s a connection I’ve experienced wearing Iowa State gear in Manhattan, Kansas. When your school’s never been accused of belonging to cake eaters, you get along well with others who don’t eat cake.
Adding to the aura in Pullman this weekend is each team’s record. Both Washington State and Oregon State are 3–0, the threshold at which belief starts to spawn in even a pessimistic college fanbase. There are few enough undefeateds remaining that they have a number (39), and both Washington State and Oregon State are among that number.
Oregon State is the playoff contender here, a gritty team which bucks some Pac-12 trends, had a lot of success last year, and brought in former five-star DJ Uiagalelei through the transfer portal to run their offense. Washington State is in a second class in the 2023 Pac-12, with Cameron Ward a strong player and the passing offense prolific but little realistic chance to win the conference. The Pac-12 is structured such this season that there are five very good teams and two solid teams, and then one Colorado floating somewhere hard to define. Washington State is among the solid teams. Unlike Oregon State, it’s built in the Pac-12’s image, pass-happy and a little suspect on defense. It’s not quite good enough at the things it does well to be a believable Pac-12 contender itself, but it’s good enough to mess things up royally for any of the three legitimate contenders on its schedule. It gets its first chance to do that tomorrow against its new best friends, the Beavers.
Saturday, 3:30 PM EDT: UCLA @ Utah (FOX)
Speaking of teams not built in the Pac-12’s image: It must be fun to be a Utah fan and have the biggest thing people know about your team be that “it hits hard.” At the same time, it must be a little miserable to be a Utah fan, having won the Pac-12 in back-to-back years and having entered the 2019 Pac-12 Championship with a fringe playoff shot and coming away with nothing to show from the run but those two conference titles.
The stakes of this game are particularly high for the Utes. Last year, Utah’s three regular season losses came against Florida, UCLA, and Oregon, with the UCLA loss an early dagger in Kyle Whittingham’s program’s playoff hopes. The team capable of making Caleb Williams look like Caleb Hanie couldn’t contain Zach Charbonnet and Dorian Thompson-Robinson, and as a result, they were 4–2 less than halfway through October, relegated to life as USC’s personal spoiler the rest of the way.
So, there’s a revenge element here, and there’s also an element where this is only the fifth or sixth-hardest game on Utah’s remaining schedule, making it one they justifiably feel they absolutely cannot lose if they want to make the College Football Playoff. Those five very good Pac-12 teams? Utah plays all of the other four, and it plays three of them on the road.
Complicating matters, Utah has been without quarterback Cam Rising all year so far, and while reports are optimistic on the senior returning this week from offseason ACL surgery, there is a lot that remains unknown, including how rusty he’ll be if he does play. It is a scary, scary game against a Chip Kelly-coached UCLA who occupies a similar position to Washington State in the Pac-12 pecking order but boasts a more powerful offense and a lot more talent.
Saturday, 3:30 PM EDT: Mississippi @ Alabama (CBS)
As plenty of others have cited, it’s been funny to see all the “first time since…” stats about Nick Saban’s program’s slow start consistently accompanied by, “…and then they won the national championship,” either that same season or the next year. It’s possible Alabama is really done, and it’s more possible they’re not good enough this year, but to go back to those betting markets: They know what they’re doing when they make the Crimson Tide a 6.5-point favorite. Mississippi hasn’t won the SEC since the conference racially integrated. They’ve beaten Saban here and there, but they haven’t done enough as a program to not be an underdog tomorrow.
As is kind of always the case, there is one question here about each of the two teams in play, and that question is how good they are. For Alabama, the question shapes itself as: Is Alabama going to rally and contend for a playoff berth? There are a few paths for this to happen, but the obvious one is winning out, and all believable ones include winning this game, with the most believable ones including winning by a whole lot of points against a team whose defense is not Texas’s. For Mississippi, the question reads: Is this program finally good enough to be a national player? They’ve finished second in the SEC West three times in the last twenty years, earning two trips to the Sugar Bowl for their trouble, but they’ve yet to make a serious run at a playoff berth. Win in Tuscaloosa and Lane Kiffin will be in the mix, regardless of how this Tide season ends.
Saturday, 3:30 PM EDT: Colorado @ Oregon (ABC)
Colorado has been a three-score underdog before, and they proceeded to beat TCU in one of the season’s most exciting games so far. They’ve also been a three-score favorite, and they proceeded to need multiple overtimes to beat Colorado State in another of the season’s most exciting games so far. What’s the common thread there? Excitement is one, but besides that: We’re all still struggling to figure out what to make of this Deion Sanders-coached team.
We also don’t have a great idea of what to think of Oregon. They’ve played Hawaii, Texas Tech, and Portland State, and they’ve looked like you’d want a playoff contender to look but “playoff contender” is a wide range. We know Bo Nix can be inconsistent, but we get some of that from back when Bo Nix was 19. He’s 23 now. He is starting his 50th college football game tomorrow. A lot has happened since that last-minute touchdown against…Oregon.
What we have here, then, is a crucial data point about both these programs, each of whom has aspirations—justified or not—of playing for the Pac-12 Championship and beyond. Colorado is back to being a three-score underdog, but that reads as a loud endorsement of the Ducks given how much our impression has risen of the Buffs. What is this really, then? It’s us either finding out that Colorado is even better than we think they can be or confirming Oregon is, as we suspected, a Pac-12 contender.
The Important Ones
That takes care of ten of our model’s 25 likeliest playoff teams. Here’s what the other fifteen are up to:
- Saturday, 12:00 PM EDT: Army @ Syracuse (ACCN)
- Saturday, 3:30 PM EDT: Boston College @ Louisville (ACCN)
- Saturday, 3:30 PM EDT: Duke @ UConn (CBSSN)
- Saturday, 8:00 PM EDT: North Carolina @ Pitt (ACCN)
It’s a busy day on ACC Network, with all three of Syracuse, Louisville, and UNC looking to take care of business. In the afternoon, Duke makes an appearance on a rival network, but it’s a similar situation there. Four fringe playoff contenders, none ranked among the nation’s twenty best teams by Movelor or SP+, each favored by more than seven points as markets stand right now.
In the Big 12:
- Saturday, 12:00 PM EDT: Oklahoma @ Cincinnati (FOX)
- Saturday, 7:30 PM EDT: Texas @ Baylor (ABC)
- Saturday, 8:00 PM EDT: UCF @ Kansas State (FS1)
Yes, our model still has Kansas State as a playoff contender. That’s how it works when your loss is a nonconference loss on the road by a field goal to a power conference team. That said, the Wildcats have a lot to prove. The 3.5-point line here implies that markets do not at all agree with our model’s perception of Chris Klieman’s team, because while UCF is a good team, it’s unlikely they’re really the Big 12 sleeper some are starting to make them out to be. That would be an exceptionally fast come-up.
For Texas and Oklahoma, it’s a different scene: Take care of business, prove you’re good. They come at this from different places—everyone agrees Texas is good, Texas hasn’t looked all that good in its games not against Alabama; people aren’t sure Oklahoma is good, Oklahoma has looked great so far—but it’s the same situation. These two really do operate in lockstep, I guess.
In the Big Ten:
- Saturday, 12:00 PM EDT: Rutgers @ Michigan (BTN)
- Saturday, 7:30 PM EDT: Iowa @ Penn State (CBS)
We could have included this second game in the collection above. Penn State is a national championship contender; Iowa has a fringe shot at the playoff which runs through winning the Big Ten West and then shocking the world in the Big Ten Championship. Oddly enough, that path is not very reliant on an upset tomorrow, but it would obviously change the whole situation for the Hawkeyes. Really, the deal with this game is that Penn State needs to win it and Iowa could use a win. Some of that circles back to where each program is at.
For Michigan, it’s about taking care of business, playing their toughest opponent yet—a 3–0 Rutgers team that’s somehow still less than 50% likely to make a bowl. Plenty of programs schedule cupcakes. Michigan has taken that to another level the last few years, and it hasn’t even played that well offensively in those games. The defense has been ferocious, though.
In the Pac-12:
- Saturday, 10:30 PM EDT: USC @ Arizona State (FOX)
- Saturday, 10:30 PM EDT: Cal @ Washington (ESPN)
I like what this league is giving us. Mayhem for the afternoon and primetime, then some comedown blowouts with chaos potential in the late-night slot. USC and Washington, of course, are national title contenders to some still-unknown extent. Each has a lot to prove, each looks good. Cal, meanwhile, would be thrilled to make a bowl, while Arizona State would be thrilled to at some point get its second win. At the moment, it hasn’t scored in six straight quarters of football, and it was only playing Oklahoma State and Fresno State for those quarters.
In the SEC:
- Saturday, 4:00 PM EDT: UTSA @ Tennessee (SECN)
- Saturday, 7:00 PM EDT: Arkansas @ LSU (ESPN)
- Saturday, 7:30 PM EDT: UAB @ Georgia (ESPN2)
Tennessee isn’t completely dead yet, but they need to rally and they need a lot of help. The offense is supposed to carry this operation, and it did nothing of the sort in Gainesville, so Josh Heupel should be hoping his guys can hang 60 against a respectable but mid-major UTSA.
Arkansas is theoretically a tough matchup for LSU, but they sure didn’t look good against BYU, and the early Sam Pittman hype is fading. We aren’t in Bret Bielema territory, but we’re saying Bret Bielema’s name. (Also, maybe we should be in Bielema territory. The results aren’t very different.) Anyway, don’t be surprised if LSU does the same thing it just did to Mississippi State. If they do, and if Mississippi gives Alabama a good game, LSU’s playoff stock is going to get intriguing, brutal though the path may be.
Finally, Georgia plays the Fighting Trent Dilfers. They can coast, but it’ll be interesting to see if they do. Coasting, for Georgia, is a baseline. It’d be nice to see a little fire in the belly from a program that looks like the most complacent reigning power college football has seen in years.
The Interesting Ones
Here’s a smattering:
- Friday, 7:00 PM EDT: Wisconsin @ Purdue (FS1)
- Friday, 10:30 PM EDT: Air Force @ San Jose State (FS1)
- Saturday, 12:00 PM EDT: SMU @ TCU (FS1)
- Saturday, 12:00 PM EDT: Auburn @ Texas A&M (ESPN)
- Saturday, 12:00 PM EDT: Virginia Tech @ Marshall (ESPN2)
- Saturday, 3:30 PM EDT: Maryland @ Michigan State (NBC)
- Saturday, 7:00 PM EDT: Appalachian State @ Wyoming (CBSSN)
- Saturday, 7:30 PM EDT: Memphis @ Missouri (ESPNU)
On the power conference side: Maryland has a great path to get to their Ohio State game at 5–0, but they’re only favored by a touchdown at Michigan State, and they’d be an underdog if Michigan State wasn’t in the process of firing its head coach for alleged sexual harassment. Auburn has yet to lose under Hugh Freeze, while Texas A&M is second only to College Gameday in its Miami fanhood. TCU would like everyone to think for a second about how good they’re saying Colorado is and what it means to lose to a team that good by three points (SMU continues to demand to be taken seriously).
Atop the Group of Five: We have Fresno State, Tulane, and Air Force as the three likeliest New Year’s Six representatives from mid-majordom, but others have Memphis in that mix. Memphis gets a chance to prove itself in Columbia; we’re curious whether Air Force will keep rolling in San Jose.
In and around the Sun Belt: Appalachian State and Wyoming are both a blast and a half, and they play one another in primetime if you want to get countercultural (or if all the other primetime games turn into blowouts, which is—I’m sorry, Notre Dame and Washington State fans—possible though not likely). Marshall is looking to stay undefeated, hosting a Virginia Tech program that thought it couldn’t get worse than the Justin Fuente days and is proving itself devastatingly wrong.
Wisconsin and Purdue play tonight, and they are the better game in that time slot.
The FCS
Around the top ten:
- Saturday, 4:00 PM EDT: Sacramento State @ Idaho (ESPN+)
- Saturday, 8:00 PM EDT: Montana State @ Weber State (ESPN+)
The Big Sky does not disappoint. Montana State is a national title hopeful. Weber State would like to get to that tier. Sacramento State and Idaho have a pair of FBS scalps, but the Vandals have more proving to do than the Hornets. These guys aren’t alone, either. UC Davis and Montana are also good. Per Movelor, the Big Sky’s six best teams are all better than Colorado State, and comfortably so. Maybe we’ll keep tabs on that.
Around the top 25:
- Saturday, 7:00 PM EDT: Austin Peay @ Stephen F. Austin (ESPN+)
- Saturday, 7:00 PM EDT: Abilene Christian @ Central Arkansas (ESPN+)
Hey, how about the UAC? The WAC–ASUN combination conference is putting some depth together. You may remember Austin Peay from its role in, “Uh oh, Tennessee might have problems” two weeks ago. You may remember Central Arkansas from being the school that felt like it was playing constantly at the beginning of the Covid season in the fall of 2020.
