We will be getting this matchup again in the years to come, just as ESPN and FOX will continue to broadcast exciting messes of games in the late-night hours until we are all too old to stay up that late anyway. There are some misunderstandings about what conference realignment will mean for Pac-12 football, but its overall effect is going to be larger on the individual schools than it will be upon the fanhood experience of the casual, national fan.
Still, there is plenty of cause for nostalgia over these next two months of Pac-12 football, nostalgia which calls back to everything from the Dennis Dixon days to the era of taking trains to football games. Next week, Washington State will travel to the Autzen Zoo. In three weeks, Washington will visit the LA Coliseum. In four weeks, it will be USC’s turn in Eugene. In five weeks, Washington will head down to Corvallis while UCLA goes across town to meet USC. In six weeks, the Civil War and the Apple Cup will likely serve as some imitation of semifinals for the final championship game in a league that, for intents and purposes, is roughly one hundred years old.
This week, though.
This week is the good one.
College football turns its eyes to the West Coast. Here’s what it’s going to find.
The Big One
Saturday, 3:30 PM EDT: Oregon @ Washington (ABC)
Oregon and Washington are, from certain angles, the exact same thing.
A powerful offense. A good but untested defense. A Heisman candidate of a quarterback whose college football career has been long, public, and not always pretty.
Off the field, these schools move in lockstep, carbon copies of one another within their state, Oregon’s Nike tie paralleling Washington’s Seattle advantage. On it, they are so similar this season, at least over the year’s first half. The winner of this game will become the Pac-12 favorite and likely a playoff contender of the caliber of Oklahoma, though Oregon’s schedule is a little more favorable than Washington’s the rest of the way. Is either team national championship material? Probably not. But they don’t know that, and they’re good enough that they shouldn’t.
These are, from what we know, the two best teams in the Pac-12, and the duel between Bo Nix and Michael Penix Jr. on a damp day in one of college football’s most beautiful settings is the exact kind of game that you want out of this glorious regional and national sport. You want Notre Dame and Ohio State in the Midwest. You want Texas and Alabama and then Texas and Oklahoma down South. You want Oregon playing Washington out West. College football is supposed to be a series of regional power struggles culminating in the best teams from each region duking it out on the national stage. That is exactly what this season is giving us so far, and this is just the latest chapter.
The hype will exceed its merit for whoever wins this, but these are top-ten teams, decidedly the two best teams west of the Great Plains from everything we know. Dan Lanning and Kalen DeBoer are each vying to push their program into that national championship contending territory. This is a college football game with ancient roots, played for the last time under the jurisdiction of its ancient conference of schools. I hope the atmosphere lives up to the script.
The Good Ones
Saturday, 7:30 PM EDT: USC @ Notre Dame (NBC)
Finally receiving some disrespect after a season and a half of a honeymoon is USC, and it is against this suddenly lucid narrative that the Trojans will be pushing in South Bend. They will also be pushing against a good deal of wind. And potentially a spot of rain.
Notre Dame is not a national contender, and they enter battered and bruised and discouraged, coming off a resounding loss at Louisville. USC likely isn’t either, but they can change that with a road upset in the sport’s biggest interregional rivalry. The defense is being mocked. We’ve gotten used to Caleb Williams. But perhaps USC is better than they’ve played these last three weeks, and perhaps they’ll tap into that, or perhaps they won’t but they’ll still live to see another undefeated day. Not bad for primetime.
Saturday, 8:00 PM EDT: UCLA @ Oregon State (FOX)
Heading back west, two more historic Pac-12 schools are playing in Corvallis in what is yet another elimination game for each, in both the conference race and the playoff picture.
We call a lot of games elimination games in college football, and we do mean it, but the way elimination happens in this sport is that first you are knocked down and then you are knocked out. With the playoff, it’s often a two-stage process. With conference races, it can drag on for a while. Pushing the non-final knockdown closer to finality is the trend where teams who are knocked down are likelier to be knocked out: We learn from the first loss that they aren’t as good as we thought their ceiling might be, and so their next loss is more expected when it comes.
For these two? The loser will not just be knocked down. The loser will be knocked out. At least as far as the playoff race goes, for all intents and purposes.
Saturday, 7:30 PM EDT: Miami @ North Carolina (ABC)
Was Miami looking ahead to UNC, or does Miami stink? Is UNC capable of contending in the ACC, or was Syracuse an early-season mirage whose regression came home to roost? This might be a terrible game, and it might be a UNC blowout which announces the Tar Heels to those who didn’t notice last week. It probably won’t be a sensational night of football—though it may be presented as such.
Saturday, 3:30 PM EDT: Texas A&M @ Tennessee (CBS)
Texas A&M and Tennessee are not great teams, but they are of the quality that it wouldn’t be shocking to see them compete with a Georgia or a Michigan or a Penn State or Ohio State in any given week. Also, Tennessee is doing a bit of lurking. They got popped in the mouth, they’ve had time to lick their wounds, now we see whether all that growth Josh Heupel managed before the 2022 season can also happen in the midst of the 2023 campaign. We are always getting answers about every college football program. The answers we get about the Volunteers tomorrow should be rather significant.
The Important Ones
Playoff hopefuls facing teams they should whomp:
- Saturday, 12:00 PM EDT: Ohio State @ Purdue (Peacock)
- Saturday, 12:00 PM EDT: Georgia @ Vanderbilt (CBS)
- Saturday, 12:00 PM EDT: Indiana @ Michigan (FOX)
- Saturday, 12:00 PM EDT: Syracuse @ Florida State (ABC)
- Saturday, 12:00 PM EDT: Arkansas @ Alabama (ESPN)
- Saturday, 3:30 PM EDT: UMass @ Penn State (BTN)
- Saturday, 6:30 PM EDT: Louisville @ Pitt (CW)
Louisville is the outlier here, favored by less than the others and not a national title contender so much as a playoff contender (though join us if you’re a Florida State skeptic again). For Ohio State, Georgia, Michigan, and Penn State, this is a pass/fail class. Win by a lot, and we know they’re fine. With FSU and Alabama, there’s more to prove: Is FSU clearly the team to beat in the ACC? Is Alabama capable of challenging for one of the four playoff spots? With Louisville, this is a difficult football game that they have to win.
There are a number of tropes in books and movies which parallel Louisville’s current situation, but the gist is that Louisville is new to this room and nobody else in the room is all that new. Louisville is awkward. Louisville is not exactly welcome. They’ve been handed a plate full of Pitt, and everyone is watching to see what fork they choose. Maybe they nail it, maybe they down the Panthers without a single trip to the napkin. But maybe they struggle, and we keep questioning how much they belong. Maybe they lose, and our question is answered.
The Interesting Ones
It’s a deep slate this weekend, with some of these interesting games both important and good. What we are witnessing in this blog post is category deflation.
On the fringes of the playoff picture:
- Saturday, 3:00 PM EDT: Cal @ Utah (P12N)
- Saturday, 8:00 PM EDT: NC State @ Duke (ACCN)
Utah and Duke are not quite playoff dead, each possessing the schedule and the ability and the win–loss record necessary to at least be in the 1-in-100 territory of playoff contention. In a hilarious twist, the immediate aftermath of the “We’re sorry, Cam Rising had no shot of playing those games” media tour is Utah not telling us whether Cam Rising is going to play. A similar situation is going on with Riley Leonard at Duke, though that is newer and more conventional. Neither team needs their first-string quarterback to beat this opponent, but each would surely prefer to have their guy under center. Without him, it’s going to be a tough slog against a team that’s a bug that’s hard to stamp out.
On the fringes of Power Five conference title races:
- Saturday, 3:30 PM EDT: Kansas @ Oklahoma State (FS1)
- Saturday, 4:00 PM EDT: Iowa @ Wisconsin (FOX)
- Saturday, 7:00 PM EDT: Arizona @ Washington State (P12N)
- Saturday, 7:00 PM EDT: Auburn @ LSU (ESPN)
- Saturday, 7:00 PM EDT: Kansas State @ Texas Tech (FS1)
- Saturday, 7:30 PM EDT: Missouri @ Kentucky (SECN)
With West Virginia already losing this week, the Big 12 race is looking even more likely to be just Texas and Oklahoma than it was at this time yesterday. Still, it wouldn’t be unprecedented for Texas to fall into the pack, and if they do, they’ll be swimming amidst a roiling wave. Kansas is in the mix. Texas Tech has gotten its feet under it enough to be in the mix. Kansas State is a giant disappointment, but they remain in the mix. Oklahoma State looked like an atrocious team but now might be ok? They’re in the mix.
In the Big Ten, Iowa and Wisconsin are playing what might be the Big Ten West championship. I’m not sure Iowa is as bad as everyone says. I appreciate the sentiment, but the team is 5–1, and they’ve won most of their wins by more than one possession despite having an offense which, in maybe its most telling stat, has scored all of four touchdowns this year in its four games against power conference teams. The defense is really, really good, and a very unproven Wisconsin has its work cut out for it. Wisconsin has looked good once. This is a tough recipe for a game.
In the SEC, LSU isn’t entirely out of the conference title hunt after the Mississippi loss, with the question mark that is Alabama’s offensive line leaving a potential power vacuum in the West. Auburn is in one of those seasons where any progress is great, and they’ve been a tough enough out that we can say LSU has their work cut out for them. Meanwhile, Mizzou and Kentucky play in the East in a battle of 5–1 squads. We can never not mention a game featuring two one-loss SEC teams.
Washington State hosts Arizona, and the Cougs are a one-loss team but they aren’t on the level of others in their league, despite having beaten Oregon State at home. They’re trying to bounce back; Arizona is trying to get a real victory after a dissatisfying moral victory; this is good football. There is so much good football happening in the primetime hour.
In the thick of the Group of Five New Year’s Six race:
- Friday, 7:00 PM EDT: Tulane @ Memphis (ESPN)
- Friday, 8:00 PM EDT: Fresno State @ Utah State (CBSSN)
- Saturday, 7:00 PM EDT: Wyoming @ Air Force (CBSSN)
Air Force has taken control of this race in a practical sense, while Wyoming is the darling of the moment. If Wyoming can pull off the upset in Colorado Springs, that’s going to really change things. Otherwise, we’re going to be more interested in which of Fresno State and Tulane is ahead of the other behind the Falcons in the Group of Five pecking order. We’ll also be curious if Memphis can crack its way into that room.
And in the Sun Belt:
- Saturday, 12:00 PM EDT: Georgia Southern @ James Madison (ESPN2)
- Saturday, 7:00 PM EDT: Marshall @ Georgia State (ESPN2)
James Madison looks to stay undefeated against a one-loss Georgia Southern team, while Marshall and Georgia State also battle in the heart of the East Division race. Not as much from the West this week, with Troy playing a nonconference game, but the Sun Belt continues to deliver.
The FCS
You know how we know the Pac-12 dissolving won’t take things away from us? Idaho plays Montana this weekend in an old-school Pacific Coast Conference clash. These schools find each other in the end.
The best FCS games:
- Saturday, 1:00 PM EDT: Furman @ Samford (ESPN+)
- Saturday, 2:00 PM EDT: North Dakota State @ North Dakota (ESPN+)
- Saturday, 2:00 PM EDT: Youngstown State @ South Dakota (ESPN+)
- Saturday, 4:00 PM EDT: Chattanooga @ Mercer (ESPN+)
- Saturday, 5:00 PM EDT: Stephen F. Austin @ Central Arkansas (ESPN+)
- Saturday, 8:00 PM EDT: UC Davis @ Weber State (ESPN+)
- Saturday, 10:30 PM EDT: Montana @ Idaho (ESPN2)
The game between the North Dakota teams is rarely expected to be this good. UND is having a good year, and NDSU is a little down, and that is great for the quality of that matchup. Youngstown State is visiting South Dakota atop the MVFC tightrope from which good teams are often plunged into the postseason pit. There are two good games between good teams in the SoCon, and there’s another in the UAC, and UC Davis and Weber State are each trying to get off the mat in the Big Sky. But the big clash of the weekend is Montana’s visit to Idaho, and it commands attention in the late-night slot specifically. The Kibbie Dome. The Vandals. The Griz. Some national title hopes on the side of Idaho, looking to catch fire. Some longterm frustration on the side of Montana, looking for a release. This is the second most fun game of the weekend, and it is such a good weekend of college football. This is the best weekend of college football we’ve had all year, and it has been a great year.
Others to know:
- Saturday, 1:00 PM EDT: Davidson @ Butler (Flo)
- Saturday, 3:00 PM EDT: Northern Iowa @ South Dakota State (ESPN+)
- Saturday, 3:00 PM EDT: Sacramento State @ Northern Colorado (ESPN+)
- Saturday, 5:00 PM EDT: Texas A&M-Commerce @ Incarnate Word (ESPN+)
- Saturday, 8:00 PM EDT: Cal Poly @ Montana State (ESPN+)
Back to the task at hand: Davidson and Butler are playing for a leg up in the Pioneer League automatic bid race (St. Thomas can’t take that, because of the D-I transition period). South Dakota State plays a good team in UNI but one they should beat handily. Other potential title contenders are facing highly overmatched teams, but you never want to be caught unaware.
