This Weekend in College Football: Week 11

As usual, all times Eastern and all predictions wrong.

Noon:

  • Mississippi @ Texas A&M (CBS): The popular consensus is that Week 11 is “trash”. I say, let’s see for ourselves. We start with a bad Ole Miss team against a reeling Texas A&M… yeah, TAMU should still win.
  • Ohio State @ Michigan State (FOX): Speaking of trash, just ugh. I keep thinking Ohio State has like three losses at this point, but no, it just feels that way. I guess they’ll win though?
  • Wisconsin @ Pennsylvania State (ABC): Also trash: the Big Ten West, where the winner will probably have four losses on the year by the time all is said and done. I’m taking Penn State here.
  • South Carolina @ Florida (ESPN): The Gators just got beat pretty soundly by Mizzou at home and somehow they’re still sixteenth in the country. What? It’s cool, though, they’re still less trash than South Carolina, probably.
  • Navy @ Central Florida (ESPN2): Navy is garbage this year, UCF cruises.
  • Texas Christian @ West Virginia (FS1): Any season where you lose to Kansas is rubbish, so I’m going with West Virginia here.
  • Tulsa @ Memphis (ESPNU): Tulsa is 2-7, which is a pretty refuse-worthy record.
  • Vanderbilt @ Missouri (SEC): Mizzou finally gets that elusive second SEC win.
  • Kansas @ Kansas State (FSN): The Sunflower Showdown is so garbage this year that it’s pretty likely the Jayhawks win, as the Bill Synder era at K-State continues to end in the most awkward way possible.
  • Illinois @ Nebraska (BTN): Illinois at least has the distinction of the perennially awful Big Ten team that at least has nothing otherwise awkward going on around it this year, though they’ll probably lose to Nebraska and further dash the Big Ten’s chances of filling all of its bowl slots.
  • Maryland @ Indiana (BTN): Speaking of teams the Big Ten wishes it could throw away… Indiana all the way.

12:20: North Carolina @ Duke (Raycom): Okay, so the morning slot is… mostly garbage. So let’s get past that block and go straight to… a probable rout of UNC by Duke. Great.

2:00: California-Los Angeles @ Arizona State (Pac12): Well, I would’ve guessed that one of the head coaches in this game would probably be the Pac-12 Coach of the Year (if that’s a thing, I’m assuming it’s a thing). The thing is, well, I wouldn’t have put my money on HERM, that’s for sure.

3:00: Liberty @ Virginia (ACC/RSN): I included this because Liberty is technically FBS, though they’ll probably be independent forever because they’re so radioactive that no conference wants them. And if a conference does pick them up, it would just stink of desperation.

3:30:

  • Northwestern @ Iowa (FOX): Well, this game is important in the sense that it’ll probably determine the Big Ten West champion (maybe?), so enjoy watching a game Iowa will win like 11-5 or some crap.
  • Oklahoma State @ Oklahoma (ABC): BEDLAM SAVE US DEAR GOD oh wait Oklahoma State is kinda bad this year. Sigh.
  • Mississippi State @ Alabama (CBS): Last week, I railed against the line in the Alabama-LSU game because, surely, LSU could at least, like, score once, right? Nah. Sure, LSU played some defense, but this Alabama team plays defense 95% as well as the previous editions and basically plays the kind of offense that Nick Saban said a few years ago would “ruin football” or some such. Yeah, this Bama team is just incinerating people right now.
  • Washington State @ Colorado (ESPN): Remember when the Buffs were undefeated? No? Yeah, I don’t really blame you, that was like a month ago. Since then, they’ve lost 4 straight, including to an absolute trash fire of an Oregon State team. Yeesh. Wazzu will probably blow one at some point, but predicting when is folly.
  • Purdue @ Minnesota (ESPN2): That Minnesota win over Fresno State continues to get weirder and weirder. Meanwhile, Purdue got their mojo back with a win over Iowa, further ensuring their position somewhere near the top of the Big Ten West garbage heap. I’ll take the Boilermakers, which, with the way this schedule is shaping up, could well be a double entrendre before this day is out.
  • Baylor @ Iowa State (FS1): I am so tired, y’all. The way this is going, I may as well reel in some sleep debt and just sleep until the Tech game starts at 4:00 my time. Uh, Cyclones?
  • Kentucky @ Tennessee (SEC): Ugh, Kentucky is still ranked 12 and they’re kind of terrible? Anyway, Tennessee is worse, so…
  • Michigan @ Rutgers (BTN): Do you know what the line is on this game? No, higher. No, just a bit more. Close… okay yeah it’s Michigan by 38. I’ll take the Wolverines to cover. New Jersey remains our trashiest state. Since no one is reading this anyway, allow me to regale you with one of my favorite bits from Futurama (warning: may be paraphrased a bit):

    [Montage of Fry looking for apartments]
    Fry: This place is great! What’s the catch?
    Agent: Well… we’re technically in New Jersey.
    [Cut back to Planet Express]
    Fry: Not a single livable place!

  • New Mexico @ Air Force (CBSS): These teams are both trash this year, but Air Force is slightly less so.

4:00: East Carolina @ Tulane (ESPNEWS): ECU figures to be 0-6 in the AAC after this one.

5:30: Oregon @ Utah (Pac12): Hey, an interesting game, except unless you’re on the West Coast like me you probably can’t see it. Alas and alack. I’ll take the Utes.

7:00:

  • Auburn @ Georgia (ESPN): It’s the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry (I missed the South’s Oldest Rivalry a couple weeks ago, sorry Carolina-Virginia fans) once again, and UGA is unfortunately a prohibitive favorite. I don’t know how they’ll do it, but as usual I’m hoping for something weird to happen. Anyway, I probably won’t see any of this because…
  • Miami @ Georgia Tech (ESPN2): HEY WE GOT A HOME NIGHT GAME, WOOOO. So we’ve done what we needed to the past couple weeks to try to salvage this season, but nonetheless two things remain to be seen. The first is, how much longer can the offense continue to essentially pound Tobias Oliver into defenses over and over again? TaQuon Marshall did start against UNC last week, but he still looked hurt and Oliver played most of the game. But there’s no doubt that Oliver does not have the same freedom to operate that Marshall does, and I can’t help but think at some point defenses will gear up to stop him. Also, Miami posses the most capable defense we’ve played since Clemson. (Yes, VPI has Bud Foster, but they’re so thin this year that not even Bud can save them.) Not only are they likely to be more schematically sound than Louisville or UNC, but they also have the second best athletes on our schedule. While I don’t think Miami has the same caliber of player Clemson does, they’re close than anyone else and that’s how they’ve beat us eight of the last nine times. I also suspect that Mark Richt will not gift us any touchdowns via failed onside kicks this year. The second thing is, between injury and inconsistency Richt is having a devil of a time finding a quarterback. Can the Georgia Tech defense finally get stops that aren’t fueled by turnovers? Passing defense, especially on third downs, has been atrocious. One more thing: it’s going to be cold in Atlanta Saturday night, with a game time forecast calling for 40 degrees and dropping.
  • South Florida @ Cincinnati (ESPNU): USF decided to show they were garbage after appearing not garbage for a large chunk of the season, but after two consecutive blowouts by Houston (understandable) and Tulane (less so), I have to go with Cincy here.

7:30:

  • Florida State @ Notre Dame (NBC): FSU is garbage this year, and Notre Dame should be able to beat them at home with their backup quarterback.
  • Texas @ Texas Tech (FOX): Yeah, looking back Texas Tech’s best win might well be beating Houston at home back in September. But they do have the advantage of it being night in Lubbock with a demoralized set of Longhorns… yeah, I’m still picking Texas.
  • Louisiana State @ Arkansas (SEC): Arkansas’s defense is a tire fire, to the extent that LSU might even be able to score on them.
  • Southern Mississippi @ Alabama-Birmingham (beIN): Go Blazers!

8:00: Clemson @ Boston College (ABC): Yes, Boston College is, uh, good, but evidence that they can beat Clemson is… scarce. But here we are with Gameday in Chestnut Hill because Week 11 is, say with with me now, trash.

9:00: Oregon State @ Stanford (Pac12): I suppose every conference has to have one team you look forward to playing, and in the case of the Pac-12, that team is Oregon State.

10:30:

  • California @ Southern California (ESPN): Anyone still reading this? Sorry I’ve been so sarcastic this week, I don’t know what it is, really. I tell y’all what, I’ll predict an upset for once: the Bears are totally going to win this game. I mean, I know I’m not entirely going out on a limb here, since I half expected to look up the line and be genuinely surprised that Cal is actually favored or something. (As is, it’s USC by 5.)
  • Nevada-Las Vegas @ San Diego State (ESPN2): UNLV is bad. SDSU isn’t.
  • Colorado State @ Nevada (ESPNU): Nevada.