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Welcome back, Wednesday night MACtion! The entire conference is in action Wednesday evening, and that’s kinda cool. That conference does two things and two things only: put out mediocre teams, and play entertaining football games.
Don’t worry about Thursday’s games. Nothing really good there.
Obviously the big ticket game Friday is Miami @ NC State. The Hurricanes come in as the favorite, but there’s just a different feel to NC State this year. Who knows!
After the State game, flip over to the BYU @ Boise State match-up. This BYU team is legit. Boise State is Boise State. This should be a fun one to watch while your heart rate and blood pressure return to normal levels before you get to bed.
The PAC-12 kicks off their season on Saturday. Arizona State and USC drew the short stick and get a 12:00pm kick... Yes, that’s a 9:00am local time kick for those schools. That sounds fun. On the flip side of that, there are a couple of late-night PAC-12 games Saturday night.
In between those crack-of-dawn and night-owl west coast games, there are a few good ones on tap, but it really comes down to two games. Florida-Georgia and Clemson-Notre Dame.
Florida-Georgia will be entertaining, although my money is on the Bulldogs (which means - based on how well I’ve done in predicting games this year - you gotta take the Gators). Florida has the better offense, but Georgia has the way better defense. We’ll see what gives, but it should be fun.
Trevor Lawrence isn’t scheduled to play for Clemson for their game at Notre Dame, but he will be on the sideline... so expect Dabo to pull a sneaky on ‘em and play Lawrence. That game should be great, either way. I’d expect (or at least hope) for a better effort from the Irish than we saw from Miami when they lined up against the Tigers.
Enjoy, y’all! And go Duke this week!
Rankings for SP+ Ratings and Sagarin Ratings listed, respectively, ahead of each team’s name. [Note: SP+ is now ranking the 127 teams that are scheduled to play this year. Sagarin is ranking all 257 FBS and FCS teams.]
Wednesday
116/117 Eastern Michigan @ 114/129 Kent State - 6:00pm - ESPN+
86/101 Western Michigan @ 125/182 Akron - 6:00pm - ESPN3
78/86 Buffalo @ 117/109 Northern Illinois - 7:00pm - ESPN2
69/94 Ohio @ 91/108 Central Michigan - 7:00pm - ESPN
84/115 Ball State @ 113/111 Miami (OH) - 7:00pm - CBSSN
126/161 Bowling Green @ 96/91 Toledo - 8:00pm - ESPNU
Thursday
115/82 Utah State @ 85/57 Nevada - 7:00pm - FS1
71/39 Wyoming @ 103/134 Colorado State - 9:00pm - CBSSN
Friday
21/12 Miami @ 66/33 NC State - 7:30pm - ESPN
83/69 San Jose State @ 55/25 San Diego State - 9:00pm - CBSSN
12/6 BYU @ 26/9 Boise State - 9:45pm - FS1
Saturday
81/52 Air Force @ 40/48 Army - 11:30am - CBS
63/68 Tulane @ 112/102 East Carolina - 12:00pm - ESPN+
16/37 Michigan @ 25/29 Indiana - 12:00pm - FS1
35/41 Arizona State @ 15/27 USC - 12:00pm - FOX
34/26 West Virginia @ 29/14 Texas - 12:00pm - ABC
48/76 Liberty @ 20/18 Virginia Tech - 12:00pm - ACCN
13/19 North Carolina @ 72/54 Duke - 12:00pm - ESPN2
56/38 Boston College @ 106/84 Syracuse - 2:00pm - ESPN3
27/32 Appalachian State @ 118/113 Texas State - 3:00pm - ESPN+
5/13 Florida @ 6/4 Georgia - 3:30pm - CBS
60/56 Houston @ 9/11 Cincinnati - 3:30pm - ABC
89/99 Charlotte @ 108/125 Middle Tennessee - 3:30pm - ESPN+
100/80 Arizona @ 24/31 Utah - 3:30pm - ESPN2
10/10 Oklahoma State @ 67/35 Kansas State - 4:00pm - FOX
43/42 Pittsburgh @ 76/78 Florida State - 4:00pm - ACCN
19/28 Texas A&M @ 65/63 South Carolina - 7:00pm - ESPN
47/46 Baylor @ 18/22 Iowa State - 7:00pm - FS1
62/74 UCLA @ 90/83 Colorado - 7:00pm - ESPN2
4/1 Clemson @ 7/5 Notre Dame - 7:30pm - NBC
45/51 Stanford @ 14/15 Oregon - 7:30pm - ABC
110/106 South Alabama @ 49/50 Coastal Carolina - 8:00pm - ESPNU
41/43 Louisville @ 57/34 Virginia - 8:00pm - ACCN
59/65 Washington State @ 75/79 Oregon State - 10:30pm - FS1
17/23 Washington @ 58/36 California - 10:30pm - ESPN