Every Saturday, millions of eyeballs turn towards screens of all sizes, watching the key matchups that ESPN, Fox, and CBS carry each week. These mostly P5 games are the talk of bars, smoke breaks, and group texts until the next Saturday rolls around. Then, like clockwork, millions of eyes turn toward the key matchups that ESPN, Fox and CBS carry, again. It’s a vicious cycle that keeps millions of drone-like men and women watching hours of meaningless football, when they could be watching something fun.
Each week, we’ll be bringing you info about games in time slots all Saturday long to set as the backup on the remote for all the P5 sheeple out there. When you get bored of a blowout and are tired of channel surfing, it’s totally normal to want to experience something special and more wild than you’ll ever find in the big conferences on Saturday afternoon.
Week 3
Instead of watching…
12:00 Eastern – Iowa State @ Oklahoma (ABC), Florida State @ Syracuse (ESPN)
Look, you don’t wanna watch both of these games for the exact same reason – they’re going to be awful. Iowa State vs. Big Okie is just going to end in sadness and punting, and I’m not even sure FSU is going to get the ball over the 50 at any point vs. Syracuse…and Syracuse isn’t even good! The Orange nearly lost to a freakin’ Directional Michigan in week 1. These games are best flipped past, instead of being your main watch.
Rather, check these out!
12:00 Eastern – Hawaii @ Army (CBSSN)
This game is at 6:00 am Hawaii time, which is just…unfair. Right now the line is -6.5 Army, but that seems like some #MainlandBias stuff. Come to watch Army run the hell out of the triple option against a sketchy Hawaiian defense, stay to watch Cole McDonald sleepwalk (sleepthrow?) his way to 400 yards through the air.
12:00 PM Eastern – Troy @ Nebraska (BTN)
Nebraska, despite nearly being Back, is going to have a lot on their hands with Troy. The Trojans took a beating vs. Boise State in game 1, but then turned around and blew out Florida A&M last week. If Nebraska comes out flat and Troy gets the offense moving behind their QB, this one could end up being another barn burner. The Huskers *should* win this, just on depth alone, but the speed differential really isn’t that wide, and Troy just might surprise the Huskers into being 0-2.
There’s only one game at 3:30 that matters.
3:30 PM Eastern – Boise State @ Oklahoma State (ESPN)
How I anticipate this game going in three gifs:
#MurderSmurfs vs. Cowpokes, y’all. This game is going to bump.
Don’t fall for it!
7:00 PM Eastern – Alabama @ Ole Miss (ESPN)
Ole Miss is 2-0 and putting a butt-ton of points on people. Unfortunately for them, Bama is also 2-0 AND managed to find a quarterback or two on top of their embarrassment of riches at every position. The Crimson Tide are basically the Goldman Sachs of CFB, and this game will probably be about as boring as banking TBH, after Bama’s defense anacondas Ole Miss in to their first loss of the season.
8:00 PM Eastern – USC @Texas (FOX)
It feels as if there is going to be way more punting and way less scoring in this game than there should be. Yes, this is an amazing rivalry matchup. Unfortunately, its with two football teams who should be playing at a much higher level, by virtue of their never ending supply of cash and blue blood status. Skip it. Don’t reward ’em for mediocrity.
Instead, enjoy this buffet of G5 v. P5 goodness:
7:00 PM Eastern – Oregon State @ Nevada (ESPNU)
Okay, so the Beavers aren’t exactly a great football team. Reno isn’t either, but the intrigue here is that the Wolf Space Pack has yet another shot to knock off a P5 opponent, this time at home, and it’s going to be interesting to find out if they can put it all together vs. Oregon State better than they did against Vandy.
8:00 PM Eastern – Eastern Washington @ Washington State (PAC12N)
Is WSU good? We’re gonna find out with the Eags come to Pullman. For an FCS school, EWU is a football powerhouse and should give the Cougs more than they can handle if they are, in fact, not back.
10:00 PM Eastern – Fresno State @ UCLA (FS1)
Fresno scared the crap out of Minnesota last week, but couldn’t keep it together at the end to get the W. UCLA is about the same level of good, but I would expect that by virtue of instate rivalry reasons, Fresno is going to be lit the f*ck up and ready to go. Chip Kelley vs. Jeff Tedford is going to be a really interesting chess match to watch.
Your P5 Candy Game of the Week:
10:00 PM Eastern – Washington @ Utah (ESPN)
Utes fans should be terrified about this game. So far that team has shown nothing that should lead a working human mind to believe that they can beat Washington… but weird shit happens during #Pac12AfterDark, and Utah has a tendency to start putting it all together about this point during the season. The Utes defense *should* be comparable to Auburn, if they’re clicking, and if they can do, really, anything on offense, this game is going to be a beautiful disaster. You know you wanna stay up until 1 am to see some kicker miss and then enjoy the tears of a Pac 12 fanbase get their hearts broken.