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Well, there's really no doubt about who had the best and most bizarre prediction last week that actually came to fruition. Step up and take a bow, Chuck.
2) Texas pulls off a stunner and for four glorious quarters manages to not throw three interceptions, snap the ball to Big Tex, wear their helmets backwards, or forget their shoes and be forced to wear Vibram Five Fingers instead. Bob Stoops gets that face on his head. Charlie Strong knows for 24 hours what it's like for people in Austin to love him, and those teenagers on his team get everyone to leave them the fuck alone for a week.
Let's get down to brass tacks.
oscarwildecat
OLE MISS @ MEMPHIS
11:00 AM - ESPN 2
Do you like conflict? Does your adrenaline surge when confronted by fight or flight situations? Have you ever consumed enough barbecue to cause instantaneous aortic blockage? Then welcome, friend to a backyard brawl of two very awkward neighbors.
ON ONE HAND: Ole Miss, frustrated by their stereotype as an uppity, alcoholic frathouse masquerading as a backwater education, and saddened by that more or less being fact. Hugh Freeze is Houston Nutt's genial, more suburban cousin; think of your preachy, annoying cousin, but from Katy rather than Longview.
ON THE OTHER: Memphis, a gritty, rough and tumble school, home to distinguished alumni such as Fred Thompson, Kathy Bates, Cybill Shepherd, Joey Dorsey, Tyreke Evans, Jerry Lawler, and a whole host of other human beings that cause me to sprint to the other side of Beale street. The Tigers also really disdain their neighbors to the south, primarily because the Rebels stand for everything Memphis despises, primarily old money, nighttime safety, and inbreeding.
Justin Fuente is about to become The Next Big Coaching Search Target and has his team playing quite well this season, but it might be asking a bit much for his young players to trade punches with Ole Miss. Then again, 11AM kickoffs don't exactly mix well with Chad Kelly's monkish lifestyle, so let's see what happens Saturday morning.
Dr. Norris Camacho
Texas Tech at Kansas | 11 a.m. | FS1
A-hurr durr Big Derpster Fire Vague Equation LULZ. We get it. The Big 12 is highly-disdained among much of Aggiedom. Don't worry, we're not going to get surreptitiously gerrymandered back over there in the middle of the night. We're good. Anyway...this game will pit a pair of former Sumlin assistants against each other as head coaches. Beaty and Kingsbury were roaming the Kyle Field sideline together in 2012, which is probably one of the major factors in them both having head coaching gigs.
The football here? It's gonna be cold, petrified shit. More bleached coprolites in the weak autumn sunshine of the prairie. Kansas is a long way from being back to decent and Tech will score obscenely when they sense a weakness. But it's an early kick in Lawrence, meaning Tim Brando and Spencer Tillman (a pair of CBS alums) will probably lay pretty heavily on this Sumlin coaching tree connection since
a) quality of football
b) the Ags are in a top ten matchup hours later
c) can only admire Kingsbury's sunglasses so many times
thereby exposing all 29,000 fans nationwide watching this game to a bunch of Aggie hype. Furthermore, we'll have Bruce Feldman roaming the sidelines. Bruce is the best in the business, and he's gone behind-the-scenes in the Sumlin machine, so he can tie all these pieces together like no one else. Nothing gets one more pumped for a huge Aggie game than watching one former KDS assistant dismantle another.
thacktor
Michigan vs Michigan State
2:30 PM
ABC
Jim Harbaugh is riding a three shutout streak into the second biggest rivalry game while coaching his alma mater in his first season. All hail the mighty Harbaugh. He hath returned from the NFL to bringeth his school out of the depths of hell and ascend to a top 10 ranking. Blah blah blah. Also, their fans are getting cocky again and defacing Magic Johnson statues at MSU. That's nice. Good job Michigan.
I thought there was a hole in my College Football soul when Michigan was bad. There are just teams that should be good in the CFB universe, and Michigan is one of those teams, right? Like, it's weird that Texas is bad right now, admit it. It's great, but it's weird. But now that Michigan is on the verge of becoming good again, we're about to get insufferable Michigan fans back.
Now we're going to have to read their comments on various blogs and have that insufferable accent invade our thoughts. They'll be in the playoff 4/5 of the next years, and we'll all be forced to hear the HARBAUGH VS MEYER BATTLES FOR THE AGES narrative every. damn. year.
But I'm not really watching this game, I just had to get that off my chest.
Chuck
VANDERBILT @ SOUTH CAROLINA - 3 PM, SECN
South Carolina and Vanderbilt are two opposing pitchers in a Little League match. On the one side, Vandy's dad is a little over involved. He didn't like the way the coach was teaching his kid to play defense, so he just stepped in there to show 'em how it's done himself. Sure the kid got better on defense and actually really fields a grounder pretty good these days, but now Dad's mad at him for not playing enough offense. You gotta get in there and take some cuts, son!
Meanwhile South Carolina has the opposite problem. They were all excited to show their parents what they could do, but Dad just went and got cigarettes in the 4th inning and everyone knows he's never coming back. But that Gamecock kid has just gotta keep playing the game even though he's crying and has a lot of mixed up feelings right now. You just play through those tears, buddy. We're gonna get you a pizza party at the end of the season either way.
This is the ass end of the SEC, which makes for entertaining football if you watch it right. For a proper tribute, make plans with someone else then don't show up and instead watch the game in a dark room and yell at the screen.
Shooter Flatch
Boston College at Clemson
6:00 PM CDT
ESPNU
As you may have seen, a reporter asked Dabo Swinney about "Clemsoning" after their most recent win over Georgia Tech last Saturday. Dabo sort of lost his shit over the question, which means he used a lot of words like dadgum, bullcrap, and malarkey. But this is also where Dabo screwed up. He went on a rant about how Clemson hasn't Clemson'd (i.e., dropped a dumb game to a lesser opponent) in several years. And how this team was past all of that, etc. Which is basically spitting in the face of the football karma gods. It's okay the question pissed him off, but he should have just said "That's a bull malarkey question that doesn't warrant an answer!!" and moved on.
So who would roll into town the weekend after his "We're not Clemsoning anymore!" speech? An unranked, over-matched, un-hyped Boston College team led by the Srgt. Slaughter of college football, Steve Addazio. Boston College is unimpressive on offense (they huddle after every play, its fascinating to watch) but really solid on defense (giving up an average of 7.1 points per game). This is the PERFECT game for Clemson to pull a Clemsoning. So Boston College is bringing a bunch of DUDES to Clemson for an under-the-radar night game which has Dick-Trip-Alert written all over it just a week after Dabo spit on Lady Luck.
I just hope 8-Ball saw his dealer this week and has enough of the Devil's Dandruff to help get him through Dabo's post game presser where he has to eat his dadgum words!!
Doug
Arizona State at Utah
9:00 PM CDT
ESPN
My love affair with late night PAC-12 contests has long been established. Like a smooth absinthe to finish off the day, PAC contests feature the sexiness of aesthetically appealing football paired with a mild sense of delirium from questionable officiating and lax ball security. It makes for a tasty nightcap sure to give you some fucked up football dreams.
(This Saturday's offering is actually a double dose, with Arizona State at Utah on ESPN and Washington at Oregon as a chaser on ESPN2. Salud! But please, consume PAC12 responsibly.)
The Utes are riding high after using a Jared Goff turnover implosion to take out Cal last week. Then kicking back and proudly pointing to that game waaaaaay back before Labor Day where they beat Michigan, which has since turned into the college football equivalent of Unicron from the original Transformers movie, mauling and devouring everything in its path. Utah is solid, but that Top 5 ranking is more than a little inflated given the lack of any dominating unit or true superstar.
On the other sidelines, Arizona State 2015, written off as South Carolina 2014 because Texas A&M narratives and parallels and stuff, has quietly pieced together some solid performances after being thumped by A&M and mutilated in an intoxicated Sark attack. Todd Graham got his cute little Britney Spears headset adjusted, ran his fingers through his Hank Hill haircut, and figured out how to keep QB Mike Bercovici upright.
Upset alert in the land of the best skiing Texans don't know about! Get toasty and watch the Devils cover that touchdown spread.