Hello, you’ve arrived in the best weekend on the entire college football schedule every year. This is the week when so many teams compete against the people they hate the most, meaning deep stakes in games that do not deserve them, because deserving things is fake.
The College Football Playoff and whatever are still going on, but for just a few days, let’s focus on what matters most: Those b-holes from the other side of the [geographic body] looking dumb and dishonorable for what they’ve done to your superior alma mater. They’ll be sorry, once you’re celebrating with the most coveted icon in all of college sports, the [rivalry trophy made up outta nowhere one day nobody remembers].
As always, the Watch Grid sorts your weekend into three watchability columns. And as always, watchability is not strictly about game quality, team quality or quality of any kind. These things matter, though, I guess.
Thanksgiving and Black Friday college football schedule
Happy Egg Bowl Day to all who try to celebrate, I don’t know why we’re making Mountain West teenagers fight each other at 9 a.m. local time on Black Friday, and may Nebraska finally get to feel ok.
Saturday, Nov. 27 college football schedule
Let’s not forget the FCS playoffs are also going on, with most of the later games likely high-quality.
SICKOS GAME OF THE WEEK
Absolutely everything, based on the number of hurt feelings that will sprout all over the map.
But we have a contender for SICKOS GAME OF THE YEAR in Florida State-Florida, a battle between two teams that have combined for six national titles in the last 30 seasons. Six is an interesting number, since neither team has that many wins yet this year.
Bowl eligibility is on the line in a game that was once the national title matchup. One team is trotting out an interim coach, and the other has a coach whose record is still one win shy of the record that got his predecessor fired. All of this is depraved.
The actual most important game of the week
There’s a matter of some importance in the Big Ten.
Fans of playoff bubble teams will watch the Iron Bowl with interest, but I actually think rooting for Bama is the smarter move. (Yes, how much you care helps determine the outcome, per the 2003 documentary Elf.) If the Tide beat Georgia next week, then two SEC teams are very likely in the playoff, even if the Tide lose to Auburn this week. And losing to Auburn this week could only anger Nick Saban enough to increase Bama’s chances against Georgia. The man’s already about to explode.
The Big 12 is far from DQed, with either Oklahoma or Oklahoma State gaining a nicely ranked W this week, plus a chance to add another next week. There’s a chance the conference eats itself, but there’s also a chance two of its top-10 teams surrender all their rankings XP to the conference champ.
Cincinnati is sitting relatively pretty, still ranked quite fairly by the committee IMO. Unless the committee wants to sink to an absolutely wild new low by moving Notre Dame ahead of a team to which it lost by two scores at home, the Bearcats should have a floor of No. 4 heading into Championship Weekend, once either Ohio State or Michigan clears outta the top six. The real concerns at that point would be Bama beating Georgia and/or the Big 12 Championship. This all assumes Cincy wins out, and they should strive to do so by as many points as possible, to combat temptations to sneak Notre Dame ahead.
The Irish have a case of their own to make, and what an opportunity awaits. However bad you might think Stanford is this year, a look at basically any numbers will reveal they’re actually far worse. With no game to play next week, Notre Dame can leave its starters in and enter the clubhouse coated in Stanford Tree gore, dazzling the committee. (This means the funniest result of the entire season would be the Irish trying to run up the score, then losing to a bad team on pick-sixes or what have you.)
