Week 9 Football: What to watch

NC State is on a much needed bye this week, so enjoy watching other teams play... but try and focus on watching the good teams and good games, because we’ve all had to watch too much bad football this year. To that end, we’re back again this week to try and line those (hopefully) good games up for you - along with some other games that you may or may not be - but should be - interested in.

Thursday night starts off with a game that would have been amazing had Houston not decided to redshirt their best players after the season got off to a less-than-desirable start. Now you get to watch Dana Holgosen trot out his over-matched true freshman son at QB. Cool.

Friday features a finally-interesting-again USC team against a Colorado team that completely fell off after a good start to the season. Trea Turner and the Nationals look to move one game closer to a World Series title Friday night, though, so that’s good watching, too.

Saturday starts off with a bang with Wisconsin @ Ohio State kicking things off right away at noon. Eli Drinkwitz and App State are going to straight up murder South Alabama at noon, if you so care to watch a collective group of like-dressed people get bludgeoned on a well-manicured field.

The mid-day games features an awesome mismatched match-up of Auburn @ LSU. Basically, it’s the LSU offense that Auburn thought they were getting with Gus Malzahn versus the Auburn defense that LSU thought they were getting with Ed Orgeron. It’s going to be great football, either way. There are also a couple good Big XII games in that mid-day lineup, too (Texas @ TCU; OK State @ Iowa State).

The big primetime game is Notre Dame @ Michigan, while the nightcap will be Utah State @ Air Force and Washington State @ Oregon... watch the Utah State @ Air Force game.

It’s also interesting to see how much the SP+ and Sagarin rankings are beginning to agree with each other... well, for the most part. There are still teams like Miami and Temple that the two rating systems can’t agree on.

Go football, go!

SP+ Ratings and Sagarin Ratings listed ahead of each team’s name.

Thursday

36/37 SMU @ 73/66 Houston - 7:30pm - ESPN

Friday

[BASEBALL] Astros @ Nationals - 8:07pm - FOX

23/22 USC @ 72/78 Colorado - 9:00pm - ESPN2

Saturday

7/8 Wisconsin @ 1/1 Ohio State - 12:00pm - FOX

3/3 Oklahoma @ 38/36 Kansas State - 12:00pm - ABC

40/30 Appalachian State @ 124/174 South Alabama - 12:00pm - ESPNU

31/54 Miami @ 52/45 Pittsburgh - 12:00pm - ESPN

98/93 Ohio @ 99/98 Ball State - 2:00pm - ESPN+

10/7 Auburn @ 4/5 LSU - 3:30pm - CBS

8/6 Penn State @ 28/21 Michigan State - 3:30pm - ABC

27/15 Texas @ 30/33 TCU - 3:30pm - FOX

29/26 Oklahoma State @ 17/17 Iowa State - 3:30pm - FS1

67/64 Syracuse @ 57/42 Florida State - 3:30pm - ESPN2

35/31 Virginia @ 63/61 Louisville — 3:30pm - ACCN

22/43 Indiana @ 46/56 Nebraska - 3:30pm - BTN

42/51 Tulane @ 37/38 Navy - 3:30pm - CBSSN

90/92 South Florida @ 101/126 East Carolina - 3:45pm - ESPNU

56/50 Duke @ 55/48 North Carolina - 4:00pm - ACCNX

33/34 South Carolina @ 51/73 Tennessee - 4:00pm - SECN

20/23 UCF @ 44/77 Temple - 7:00pm - ESPN2

62/72 Boston College @ 6/4 Clemson - 7:30pm - ACCN

19/12 Notre Dame @ 14/14 Michigan - 7:30pm - ABC

[BASEBALL] Astros @ Nationals - 8:07pm - FOX

61/52 California @ 9/13 Utah - 10:00pm - FS1

54/46 Utah State @ 49/40 Air Force - 10:15pm - ESPN2

26/35 Washington State @ 11/9 Oregon - 10:30pm - ESPN