Week 8 Football: What to Watch

Welcome to Week 8, friends! It’s a week with better midweek action, but an absolutely stinker of a Saturday noon lineup. Let’s take a look!

Wednesday night kicks us off with some more Fun Belt odd mid-weekday action, again featuring Appalachian State. This time Happy Appy will be home while welcoming the Sun Belt’s top team this year, Coastal Carolina. It’ll be interesting to see how the Chanticleers handle the thinner air and temps in the 50’s during the game, and also how App can handle coming off the massive egg laid last week in yet another big conference game for them.

Did I say this week has better midweek action? Disregard that for Thursday. Although if I’m picking one of those games to watch, it’s FAU @ Charlotte.

Friday... Friday! Now we’re back in the fun zone! That’s mostly because Memphis-UCF should be a good one.

The Saturday noon slot is absolutely garbage. K-State vs Texas Tech and ‘Cuse vs VT are the highlights of that slot. Gross.

The good news is that the rest of the day is fantastic, mostly thanks to the 3:30pm games. I mean, just pick any of those games. There are so many good matchups, so go ahead and get your honey-do list knocked out in the morning and early afternoon and free yourself up for couch time the rest of the day.

Clemson vs Pitt is an incredibly even matchup by the advanced metrics, and I’m sure we’ll all be interested to see how that one plays out. Pitt could do State fans a solid with a win.

BC vs Louisville is another game that will have State fans interested. A win by BC would be nice for State, especially since it would help to show that BC isn’t nearly as bad as the Pack made them look.

In the evening, we’ll all be tuning in to watch our team take on the Hurricanes. SP+ believes this game will be a dogfight, while Sagarin thinks State will win easily. We’ll have to see, but it is interesting how divided the two rating systems are on Miami - tied with Maryland for the biggest divide this week.

Tennessee-Bama is your secondary TV game for Saturday night.

Go football! Go Wolfpack!

Rankings for SP+ Ratings and Sagarin Ratings listed, respectively, ahead of each team’s name.

Wednesday

30/37 Coastal Carolina @ 64/63 Appalachian State - 7:30pm - ESPN2

Thursday

90/116 Tulane @ 48/41 SMU - 7:30pm - ESPN

87/90 Florida Atlantic @ 114/125 Charlotte - 7:30pm - CBSSN

69/54 Louisiana @ 124/139 Arkansas State - 7:30pm - ESPNU

[NFL] Broncos @ Browns - 8:20pm - FOX/NFLN

82/108 San Jose State @ 121/127 UNLV - 11:00pm - CBSSN

Friday

109/114 Middle Tennessee State @ 128/189 UConn - 6:00pm - CBSSN

68/82 Memphis @ 63/72 UCF - 7:00pm - ESPN2

81/77 Colorado State @ 104/85 Utah State - 9:30pm - CBSSN

62/52 Washington @ 112/135 Arizona - 10:30pm - ESPN2

Saturday

44/26 Wake Forest vs 80/74 Army - 12:00pm - CBSSN

47/33 Kansas State @ 49/66 Texas Tech - 12:00pm - FS1

58/84 Syracuse @ 52/62 Virginia Tech - 12:30pm - ESPN3

7/25 Wisconsin @ 38/30 Purdue - 3:30pm - BTN

32/11 Oklahoma State @ 12/9 Iowa State - 3:30pm - FOX

34/19 Oregon @ 37/29 UCLA - 3:30pm - ABC

45/28 LSU @ 20/16 Ole Miss - 3:30pm - CBS

4/14 Clemson @ 11/13 Pittsburgh - 3:30pm - ESPN

29/71 Maryland @ 28/31 Minnesota - 3:30pm - ESPN2

55/43 BYU @ 79/59 Washington State - 3:30pm - FS1

93/97 East Carolina @ 60/56 Houston - 4:00pm - ESPNU

35/45 Mississippi State @ 120/137 Vanderbilt - 4:00pm - SECN

43/64 Boston College @ 53/61 Louisville - 4:00pm - ACCN

15/34 Tennessee @ 3/2 Alabama - 7:00pm - ESPN

54/57 San Diego State @ 61/38 Air Force - 7:00pm - CBSSN

75/60 UTSA @ 107/111 Louisiana Tech - 7:00pm - STADIUM

103/131 Temple @ 116/121 South Florida - 7:00pm - ESPN+

73/51 Nevada @ 40/47 Fresno State - 7:00pm - FS2

25/22 NC State @ 27/69 Miami - 7:30pm - ESPN2

42/40 USC @ 14/10 Notre Dame - 7:30pm - NBC

51/70 Georgia Tech @ 31/46 Virginia - 7:30pm - ACCN

26/21 Utah @ 65/42 Oregon State - 7:30pm - PAC12N

130/192 New Mexico State @ 88/109 Hawaii - 11:59pm - SPIDERWOLF