As a college football fan, these are the weekends you live for. Six weeks in, there has undoubtedly been some drama as expected, but we haven’t had a slate of games quite like this all season. That being said, you may want to reconsider your plans for Saturday, throw some sweatpants on and get friendly with the couch when you see these matchups.
Premier Thursday night game: (4-0) Arizona Wildcats at (4-0) Oregon Ducks (-23)
Kicking it off early on Thursday with two undefeated Pac-12 squads, going on the road as 3+ touchdown dogs in an environment like Autzen Stadium is certainly not a situation you want to be in. However, it is not the kiss of death for this Arizona team, if you remember the last time these two teams played, Arizona put it on them in Tuscon, beating the former number five team in the nation 42-16. Though, the Cats always seem to play the Ducks tight, you could also argue that last year plays into Oregon’s favor because they are clearly a better team this year and now they have a chance for some revenge. Either way you’re guaranteed to see some fireworks and big time offense to kick start this weekend of NCAA Football.
Premier 12:00 pm game: (5-0) Texas A&M at (4-0) Mississippi State (-3)
Saturday will waste not time jumping into the big time matchups, immediately following College Gameday this game will kickoff at noon eastern time. Coming home after a shocking dismantling of LSU in Baton Rouge, the Bulldogs are riding a wave of momentum. While A&M was in a dog fight last week with unranked Arkansas, they somehow pulled out an overtime victory, even though it was looking pretty bleak. Mississippi State had an extra week to prepare for the Aggies and have the home crowd behind them. Not to mention their quarterback Dak Prescott is in the running for the Heisman right now and is playing lights out. The higher ranked team could be in some trouble here.
Other 12:00 pm key matchups:
(2-1) Florida at (2-2) Tennessee (-3)
(4-1) Maryland at (3-1) Ohio State (-10.5)
(2-2) North Carolina at (3-2) Virginia Tech (-2)
Premier 3:30 pm game: (4-0) Alabama (-7) at (4-0) Ole Miss
The 3:30 pm window is definitely the best of the three windows on Saturday, so there are certainly arguments for the other key matchups listed below. However, it is tough to choose against an SEC matchup of this caliber. It seems like Alabama just point blank never loses football games, but going on the road against the best defense statistically in the SEC is not going to be a walk in the park. That being said Lane Kiffin has the Bama offense flying high right now so when Amari Cooper and TJ Yeldon take the field against Robert Nkemdiche and the Rebel defense it will be must watch TV. When asked about Alabama taking the last 10 matchups between these two teams, Hugh Freeze replied, “Something’s got to give at some point.” One thing is for sure, Freeze will have his guys all sorts of fired up coming out of that tunnel on Saturday afternoon.
Other 3:30 pm key match ups:
(4-0) Oklahoma (-6) at (3-0) TCU
(3-1) Stanford (-2) at (4-0) Notre Dame
(3-1) Wisconsin (-9) at (2-2) Northwestern
Premier night game: (4-1) LSU at (4-0) Auburn (-7)
This is another toss up of great games and again, a top 15 SEC matchup that cannot be passed up. After beating Wisconsin in week 1, LSU seemed to be cruising into this matchup undefeated as well until they were tripped up last week against Mississippi State. Auburn is also coming off of a tough game with Kansas State. All of that aside, Les Miles decided to throw his freshman QB Brandon Harris into the fire this week giving him his first start at Auburn in front of that tough crowd and against that mean front seven. Gus Malzahn’s offense has been sputtering the past two weeks as well so look for this game to be a low scoring defensive ball game (if those still exist in today’s generation of college football). Auburn’s players seem to think this season is on a straight path to another SEC championship and no one can take that from them, so we’ll see if LSU can come in and quiet that crowd and confidence early on Saturday night.
Other key night matchups:
(5-0) Nebraska at (3-1) Michigan State (-8)
(3-1) Arizona State at (3-1) USC (-12)
(3-2) South Carolina (-6) at (3-1) Kentucky
If there’s one thing I know for sure about weekends with these kind of games on deck, it is don’t make predictions because ‘any given Saturday’ will likely be the theme with upsets and you will likely be wrong. When it is all said and done this year and the committee is picking the final four, they will likely reference this week, so kick back and enjoy.
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