Week 4 Football: What to Watch

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).

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