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What an overall underwhelming week of match-ups. If State hadn’t laid an egg down in Mississippi and if Clemson had held on to beat Georgia in their opener, no doubt that College GameDay would be in Raleigh. Alas.
Thursday night you get Marshall at Appalachian State. Even though this is just the fourth week of the season, they do have a common opponent that both have played already. App beat ECU 33-19 in Charlotte in the opener, and ECU beat Marshall 42-38 last weekend in Huntington. Use that information how you choose.
The Carolina Panthers also play Thursday night in case the Marshall-App game doesn’t do it for you.
It’s a shame Bailey Hockman hung up his cleats this week (well, and that the coaches benched him prior to that), otherwise he’d have a primetime opportunity to show off against Charlotte on Friday night.
Wake hits the road to face Virginia on Friday night, too, with an opportunity to move to 4-0 (and 2-0 in the ACC) on the line. A win puts Wake firmly in control of the Atlantic Division and, what, are we living in 2006 again?!
Notre Dame vs Wisconsin is your big ticket noon game on Saturday. Also at noon on Saturday, old friend Eli Drinkwitz will relive those wonderful road trips to the always packed stadium up in Chestnut Hill. Hopefully he fares better at Boston College than NC State typically does.
This is apparently the week for the ACC-Colonial challenge with Pitt taking on New Hampshire and VT taking on Richmond. Keeping the FCS opponent theme going, Miami is playing Central Connecticut for some reason. Before you bash the Hurricanes too much, keep in mind that Central Connecticut is only slightly worse according to the Sagarin Ratings (37.67 rating, 214th ranked) than Connecticut’s actual FBS team, UConn (41.04, 201st).
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Last week I mentioned that the Wake-FSU game was projected to be close according to SP+, but that Sagarin had Wake by a wide margin. Turned out Sagarin was right. Well, the same statement can be said about the SP+ and Sagarin predictions for this week’s FSU game against Louisville. Will the end result be the same?
UCLA @ Stanford is another game to test SP+ vs Sagarin. Stanford might be the team that those two ratings systems most disagree on.
Duke is playing Kansas in football, in case you want to watch bad football.
The whole primetime slot of games is rather ho-hum. Pick one and hope it’s good. That’s the best advice I can give you.
Go Yellow Jackets!
Go Wolfpack!
Rankings for SP+ Ratings and Sagarin Ratings listed, respectively, ahead of each team’s name.
Thursday
68/76 Marshall @ 46/57 Appalachian State - 7:30pm - ESPN
[NFL] Panthers @ Texans - 8:20pm - NFLN
Friday
102/104 Middle Tennessee @ 112/126 Charlotte - 6:30pm - CBSSN
67/42 Wake Forest @ 55/31 Virginia - 7:00pm - ESPN2
43/44 Liberty @ 80/98 Syracuse - 8:00pm - ACCN
124/154 UNLV @ 44/53 Fresno State - 10:00pm - CBSSN
Saturday
21/15 Notre Dame @ 10/16 Wisconsin - 12:00pm - FOX
26/23 LSU @ 41/39 Mississippi State - 12:00pm - ESPN
53/62 Missouri @ 50/51 Boston College - 12:00pm - ESPN2
FCS/158 New Hampshire @ 38/36 Pittsburgh - 12:00pm - ESPN+/ACCNX
FCS/167 Richmond @ 37/26 Virginia Tech - 12:00pm - ACCN
56/59 SMU @ 27/27 TCU - 12:00pm - FS1
48/50 Texas Tech @ 22/24 Texas - 12:00pm - ABC
FCS/214 Central Connecticut @ 25/70 Miami - 12:30pm - ESPN3
5/5 Clemson @ 36/30 NC State - 3:30pm - ESPN
9/11 Texas A&M @ 32/52 Arkansas - 3:30pm - CBS
14/12 Iowa State @ 34/37 Baylor - 3:30pm - FOX
59/49 Rutgers @ 6/6 Michigan - 3:30pm - ABC
57/60 Louisville @ 69/106 Florida State - 3:30pm - ESPN2
120/127 Kansas @ 89/101 Duke - 4:00pm - ACCN
FCS/189 Charleston Southern @ 92/94 East Carolina - 6:00pm - ESPN+
20/29 UCLA @ 70/21 Stanford - 6:00pm - PAC12N
28/61 Tennessee @ 8/13 Florida - 7:00pm - ESPN
39/40 Nebraska @ 40/56 Michigan State - 7:00pm - FS1
45/18 Kansas State @ 42/28 Oklahoma State - 7:00pm - BIG12N/ESPN+
58/46 Kentucky @ 88/55 South Carolina - 7:00pm - ESPN2
47/25 West Virginia @ 3/3 Oklahoma - 7:30pm - ABC
11/14 North Carolina @ 72/68 Georgia Tech - 7:30pm - ACCN
64/73 UAB @ 63/80 Tulane - 8:00pm - ESPN+
66/65 California @ 19/17 Washington - 9:30pm - PAC12N
113/133 South Florida @ 33/48 BYU - 10:15pm - ESPN2
104/118 Arizona @ 15/9 Oregon - 10:30pm - ESPN
60/69 Oregon State @ 17/19 USC - 10:30pm - FS1
84/83 Colorado @ 23/43 Arizona State - 10:30pm - ESPNU