You’ve heard sportscasters use the term “go home and lose the remote,” as in, go home and watch TV all day.
Saturday is one day – if you’re a college football fan – that you definitely don’t want to lose the remote.
There are great games, at least it appears that there are, all day long, beginning in the 11 a.m. CST time slot, all the way until the end. Now, granted, Cal and Arizona State will have to step up their game for the late games to come through. But we’re looking good at least for the bulk of the day.
Here’s this weekend’s major college football schedule. All times are Central time, because that’s where thefootballbeat.com is located.
If you missed it, Georgia State topped Coastal Carolina, 30-17 on Thursday night.
On Friday, North Carolina State topped Virginia, 24-21, with a field goal after a costly penalty; Wisconsin beat Purdue, 38-17; Boise State edged San Diego State by a field goal, as well, 34-31; and Air Force beat San Jose State, 45-20.
Now, on Saturday:
Rutgers (undefeated Rutgers!) plays at No. 2 Michigan at 11 a.m. on the Big 10 Network.
No. 4 Florida State plays at Clemson (11 a.m., ABC).
No. 16 Oklahoma plays at Cincinnati (11 a.m., FOX).
Army plays at Syracuse (11 a.m., ACC Network).
Auburn plays at Texas A&M (11 a.m., ESPN. And I hate the term “sneaky good” – thank you, Mike Greenberg, for bringing that to our vocabulary – but this one could be)
Western Kentucky at Troy (11 a.m., ESPNU)
Kentucky at Vanderbilt (11 a.m., SEC Network)
Virginia Tech at Marshall (11 a.m., ESPN2)
SMU at TCU (11 a.m., Fox Sports 1)
Tulsa at Northern Illinois (11 a.m., CBS Sports Network)
Western Michigan at Toledo (12:30 p.m., ESPN+)
Georgia Southern at Ball State (1 p.m., ESPN+)
No. 19 Colorado at No. 10 Oregon (2:30 p.m., ABC)
No. 22 UCLA at No. 11 Utah (2:30 p.m., FOX)
No. 15 Ole Miss at No. 13 Alabama (2:30 p.m., CBS, and please, people, wake up and smell the coffee, it’s not ‘OLD MISS,’ it never HAS been ‘OLD MISS,’ and please don’t ever, EVER use that term around me)
No. 18 Duke at UConn (2:30 p.m., CBS Sports Network
No. 20 Miami at Temple (2:30 p.m., ESPN2)
Florida Atlantic at Illinois (2:30 p.m., Big 10 Network)
Maryland at Michigan State (2:30 p.m., NBC)
Louisiana Tech at Nebraska (2:30 p.m., Big 10 Network)
Boston College at Louisville (2:30 p.m., ACC Network)
BYU at Kansas (2:30 p.m., ESPN)
Texas Tech at West Virginia (2:30 p.m., ESPN+; and assistant editor Clayton Fletcher tells me West Virginia coach Neil Brown is number one on the Boot List – more on that below)
New Mexico at Massachusetts (2:30 p.m., ESPN+)
Texas A&M-Commerce at Old Dominion (2:30 p.m., ESPN+)
Ohio at Bowling Green (2:30 p.m., ESPN+)
Delaware State at Miami (Ohio) (2:30 p.m., ESPN+)
Texas-San Antonio at No. 23 Tennessee (3 p.m., SEC Network)
Oklahoma State at Iowa State (3 p.m., FS1)
Rice at South Florida (3 p.m., ESPNU)
Eastern Michigan at Jacksonville State (4 p.m., ESPN+)
Central Michigan at South Alabama, 4 p.m., ESPN+)
Gardner-Webb at East Carolina (5 p.m., ESPN+)
Liberty at Florida International (5:30 p.m., ESPN+)
Georgia Tech at Wake Forest (5:30 p.m., CW Network)
Arkansas at LSU (6 p.m., ESPN)
No. 14 Oregon State at No. 21 Washington State (6 p.m., FOX)
Charlotte at No. 25 Florida (6 p.m., ESPN+, SEC Network Alt.)
Sam Houston State at Houston (6 p.m., ESPN+)
Colorado State at Middle Tennessee (6 p.m., ESPN+, and I’m assuming CSU coach Jay Norvell will coach without his sunglasses and hat)
Arizona at Stanford (6 p.m., Pac-12 Network)
Nicholls at Tulane (6 p.m., ESPN+
Appalachian State at Wyoming (6 p.m., CBS Sports Network)
Southern Miss at Arkansas State (6 p.m., ESPN+)
Nevada at Texas State (6 p.m., ESPN+)
Alabama-Birmingham at No. 1 Georgia (6:30 p.m., ESPN2; your chance to get a glimpse of Trent Dilfer as a head coach – Dilfer is the coach at UAB)
No. 3 Texas at Baylor (6:30 p.m., ABC, and one of our staff photographers, Dennis Jacobs, will be at this game)
No. 6 Ohio State at No. 9 Notre Dame (6:30 p.m., NBC)
Akron at Indiana (6:30 p.m., Big 10 Network)
Memphis at Missouri (6:30 p.m., ESPNU)
Minnesota at Northwestern (6:30 p.m., Big 10 Network)
Mississippi State at South Carolina (6:30 p.m., SEC Network)
Buffalo at Louisiana (6:30 p.m., ESPN+; all I can think typing that is that I hope those guys from Buffalo got a flight. Wow, that’s a long freaking ride)
No. 17 North Carolina at Pittsburgh (7 p.m., ACC Network; look out right here. Upset?)
Central Florida at Kansas State (7 p.m., FS1)
James Madison at Utah State (7 p.m.)
UNLV at Texas-El Paso (UTEP) (8 p.m., ESPN+)
No. 5 Southern Cal at Arizona State (9:30 p.m., FOX)
Cal at No. 8 Washington (9:30 p.m., ESPN)
Kent State at Fresno State (9:30 p.m., CBS Sports Network)
New Mexico State at Hawai’I (10:59 p.m., and Hawai’I Athletics, what the heck is with the weird start times?!?)
OK, time for the picks list.
Every week, we have our running staff picks. And we’re deep enough in now, we need to give an update on how it’s going.
I got off to a HORRIBLE, DREADFUL start in week one, but I WILL catch these folks, pass them and win the picks contest. I’m 19-11 overall, after two weeks (we didn’t pick week one). Our videographer, my son Jacob, is also 19-11. My lovely wife, Jenna Hagler Lucas, is 20-10, as is correspondent Mitchell Molandes.
Clayton “Fletch” Fletcher, whom I mentioned earlier, is 21-9, and by the way, keeps a bit of a morbid list he calls “The Boot List.” It’s not funny, and he doesn’t mean for it to be. It’s kind of sad. But it’s a list of coaches who are on the hot seat. Right now, he has West Virginia’s Neal Brown at the very top of the list.
Continuing with the picks numbers, staff photographer Alex Nabor, correspondent Shelby Thompson Molandes and my college-student daughter Ashtyn all lead the way with a 23-7 record.
So eight of us are picking, and we do 15 games a week. Here are this week’s selection of games:
Rutgers at Michigan: It’s Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh’s 100th game at the helm of the Wolverines. Rutgers is 3-0. It won’t matter. It would take divine intervention for them to be 4-0 when they leave Ann Arbor. They likely won’t get it. Retired Texas A&M and Alabama coach Gene Stallings was fond of saying God doesn’t care who wins a football game. I believe he was right. Our pick: 7-1 Michigan (Nabor was the wise guy who picked Rutgers and messed up my narrative).
Florida State at Clemson: I remember when FSU dodged the Southeastern Conference and joined the ACC instead, back in the early 1990s (SHHHHH, Mitch! You’re not supposed to say that! Most people don’t remember that!) Well, I do. The pick here is almost unanimous, but not quite. Jacob held out for a Clemson upset. I kind of, sort of, agree with him that I believe it could happen. Clemson might just rise up. I mean, it wouldn’t be like Rutgers winning at Michigan, or anything.
Oklahoma at Cincinnati: Last week, Oklahoma played a glorified home game at Tulsa, an in-state school where a large group of the crowd was also wearing crimson and cream. That won’t be the case this week. This will be a true road game, in front of a hostile crowd. Let’s see how they handle it. I think they get out – it might be closer than we all think. The pick is 7-1, with Alex again being the upset-picker.
Auburn at Texas A&M: The Right-Reverend Hugh Freeze is back in the Southeastern Conference, banished to Liberty after being fired from Ole Miss due to NCAA improprieties (a fancy way of saying “violations.”). Freeze is a nice guy and a good coach. If someone deserves a comeback, it is probably him. But I don’t think he pulls this off. The Aggies are tough to beat at College Station. And I’ve been to Kyle Field. When they say Kyle Field is rockin,’ they literally MEAN it’s rockin,’ folks, physically. The pick is 7-1 again, Jacob picking Auburn in the upset.
Colorado at Oregon: I’ve kept our picks portion of this story largely stat-free for a reason: I don’t think people want to read a ton of numbers every time they open a story. I will throw a few at you, and here’s one: Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders is 107-of-136 (that’s 78 percent of his passes) for 1,251 yards, an average of 9.2 yards per completion, a longest completion of 75 yards, 10 touchdowns to just 1 interception.
Sanders and his Buffaloes go on the road, though, to maybe the Pac-12’s toughest environment, at least one of them, at Oregon, where his defense will face Bo Nix, who is 76-of-98 for 893 yards, averages 9.1 yards per completion, a long of 72, and has eight TD passes and hasn’t yet thrown an interception this year.
Which QB continues unbeaten?
Shelby and I say it’s Nix, and everyone else says Colorado in a bit of an upset. So the pick is 6-2 in favor of Colorado.
UCLA at Utah: I haven’t yet become a believer in the Utes, and them beating UCLA won’t make me one. But if they keep on winning, I’ll have no choice. This time Mitchell was the outlier. Everyone else picked Utah, so the pick is 7-1, in Utah’s favor.
Ole Miss at Alabama: Another 7-1 pick, and Shelby took Ole Miss. That one surprises me, because I honestly thought more people would take Lane Kiffin and the Rebels here. If ever Alabama looked vulnerable under Saban, since his first season, it’s now: the quarterback situation is a little shaky, the offensive line is – a little shaky. The pass rush hasn’t really been there yet. There has been a bit of a turnover problem.
But there was a team meeting this week, and coach Saban has reaffirmed his and the team’s backing of Jalen Milroe as the starting quarterback. I picked Alabama because I do believe they’ll rally around Milroe this season. I’m not sure I’ll be able to pick them every week. I do believe they’ll somehow, some way, find a way to hold off Jackson Dart and the Rebels, although Dart has big numbers: 45-of-68, 852 yards, seven touchdowns, one interception.
Texas Tech at West Virigina: If you read the column, you know that at least one of us (Fletch) believes the Mountaineers are playing for coach Brown’s job, maybe even this week. Fletch picked Tech, and so did four others of us, five total. So the pick is 5-3, in favor of Tech.
Oklahoma State at Iowa State: Two teams that are really struggling: one that lost to South Alabama at home (OK State) and the other has a coach wanting to fight fans. The pick: 5-3, in the Cowboys’ favor.
Arkansas at LSU: This really would be an upset, apparently: not a single soul on the panel picked coach Sam Pittman’s team to pull this off in Baton Rouge.
Texas at Baylor: The Longhorns cannot get off to a slow start like they did last week against Wyoming, or… or Baylor will lose by just a touchdown. Texas isn’t like the uncrowned national champions, or anything, let’s wait on that. But seriously, I just cannot see Baylor pulling this off. I just don’t believe they have the firepower this year. Jacob disagrees. Another 7-1 split.
Iowa at Penn State: Same thing, just on the road: I think Penn State is way too strong here. There’s always gotta be a nut. This time, it’s Fletch. Another blamed 7-1 split. Thanks a lot, Fletcher.
Ohio State at Notre Dame: OK, this time, Fletch joined me in taking Notre Dame, and everyone else picked the Buckeyes. Ohio State just looks – unsure of itself to me. And has played weak competition. After Saturday, they won’t be able to say that. Will they still be unbeaten?
Southern Cal at Arizona State: The possible matchup of last year’s Heisman Trophy-winner at quarterback against a fourth string. They’re not having to defend each other. But it WILL matter, if and when it happens. USC likely doesn’t get through 2023 unscathed, but I don’t think this one is the one. And neither did anyone else. This was a unanimous pick, 8-0.
Cal at Washington: Washington quarterback Michael Penix seems to have moved around a lot – that’s because he has. He began his collegiate career at Tennessee, transferred to Indiana, and now to Washington. But he leads the nation in passing yards (1,332) and touchdown passes (12).
And that’s why Cal likely won’t win, and why it was another unanimous pick (8-0).
Enjoy your football weekend.
