Week 6 Football: What to Watch

There are no D1 football games on Thursday this week. What is up with the lack of Thursday college football games this year? Is this the impact of the NFL Thursday games?

Anyways, I digress... Welcome to Week 6 of the college football season!

Yeah, last week sucked. We’ll leave it at that. However, there’s no time to lick wounds with Florida State coming to Raleigh this Saturday night, so the Pack better be up for the next challenge in this daunting October schedule (thanks, ACC).

The week kicks off Wednesday night with the last of the Hurricane Ian impacted games with SMU and UCF moving their game from last Saturday. This should be a really good game, so unless you have something to do early Thursday morning, I’d recommend staying up. That’s especially because...

Friday’s four-pack of games is awful. Houston-Memphis will be good, even though Houston has been so much worse than we thought, but the other three games... woof. Speaking of Houston, they’re in the running for “most entertaining team” this year. Three of their five games have gone to overtime and one of the other ones came down to an incomplete pass in the end zone as time expired. They’re kinda must-watch TV these days, even if the quality of play on the field leaves a lot to desire.

Those other Friday games, well... they’re games! You have to give them that!

College Gameday is heading to Lawrence, Kansas, for the first time ever thanks to an undefeated matchup between the Jayhawks and TCU. Kansas really is the feel-good story of 2022 so far. That game will also likely feature a ton of points. Each offense has topped 50 points in a game twice this year. TCU has the better defense, in case you were wondering.

Tennessee-LSU looks fascinating, too, as does the Arkansas vs Mississippi State game featuring a Mike Leach team with a living, breathing defense. Really, that entire noon slate is promising. Heck, even Purdue-Maryland is a game worth watching!

The advanced metrics would tell you that the Red River Rivalry between Oklahoma and Texas is a Top 10 matchup, but actually neither team is ranked since Texas hasn’t shown much other than barely losing to Alabama and the the Oklahoma wagon has seen better days.

Scott Satterfield and Louisville have a well-time get-right game against Virginia. On a related note, the new head coaches at UVa and VT are looking horrible right now. Time to go hit that state hard in recruiting.

So if the Dave Doeren-to-Wisconsin/Nebraska/Other Midwest School rumors turn out to be true, that ECU vs Tulane game might feature a pair of POAPS candidates.

Hey, Texas Tech - we could really use a nice lift-me-up over here in Raleigh. Y’all feel like doing us another solid and beating Oklahoma State this weekend? Would be mighty fine of you!

UCLA has looked really good lately, which is infuriating, so I’m hoping Utah puts them in their place this weekend.

There’s a lot of Coastal Division (Go Canes!) grossness going on in that mid-day slot. Just a hair better than UConn-FIU, which is the game that kicks off the evening slate and also nobody should ever watch.

C’moooooon, Boston College! Go beat Clemson! What’s that? BC has trouble stopping the pass rush? Ayyyyeee....

Southern Cal seemed like an instant CFP contender after their first few weeks, but has looked a lot more pedestrian lately. I’m not sure I buy Wazzu, but who knows. As much as I love Lincoln Riley, his teams always lay an egg at some point.

Kansas State vs Iowa State is a better matchup than you’d think. Also, can someone just get Matt Campbell out of Ames and into a job where his skills can be put to better use?

Texas A&M is going to get beat someone awful by Alabama. I’m not really sorry about it, Jimbo.

The late night offerings are poor, but you at least have something to watch after the Wolfpack and Seminoles play.

Go Pack!

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

Wednesday

38/58 SMU @ 41/39 UCF - 7:00pm - ESPN2

Friday

63/73 Nebraska @ 77/101 Rutgers - 7:00pm - FS1

54/71 Houston @ 59/65 Memphis - 7:30pm - ESPN2

126/144 Colorado State @ 123/125 Nevada - 10:30pm - FS1

100/82 UNLV @ 93/67 San Jose State - 10:30pm - CBSSN

Saturday

8/14 Tennessee @ 19/13 LSU - 12:00pm - ESPN

21/17 TCU @ 55/48 Kansas - 12:00pm - FS1

31/28 Arkansas @ 11/18 Mississippi State - 12:00pm - SECN

5/7 Texas @ 6/10 Oklahoma - 12:00pm - ABC

60/55 Louisville @ 78/87 Virginia - 12:00pm - ACCN

25/38 Purdue @ 24/34 Maryland - 12:00pm - BTN

64/68 East Carolina @ 53/63 Tulane - 3:30pm - ESPNU

48/45 Texas Tech @ 17/8 Oklahoma State - 3:30pm - FS1

9/4 Utah @ 16/32 UCLA - 3:30pm - FOX

87/108 Virginia Tech @ 45/51 Pittsburgh - 3:30pm - ACCN

80/62 Duke @ 92/89 Georgia Tech - 4:00pm - ESPN3

56/46 North Carolina @ 49/44 Miami - 4:00pm - ESPN2

125/160 UConn @ 129/189 Florida International - 7:00pm - ESPN+

18/6 Clemson @ 89/104 Boston College - 7:30pm - ABC

52/33 Washington State @ 27/9 USC - 7:30pm - FOX

86/96 Army @ 42/29 Wake Forest - 7:30pm - ESPN3

39/42 BYU @ 30/15 Notre Dame - 7:30pm - NBC

22/20 Kansas State @ 35/27 Iowa State - 7:30pm - ESPNU

36/40 Florida State @ 28/26 NC State - 8:00pm - ACCN

23/25 Texas A&M @ 1/1 Alabama - 8:00pm - CBS

131/175 Hawaii @ 103/95 San Diego State - 10:30pm - CBSSN

47/35 Oregon State @ 79/61 Stanford - 11:00pm - ESPN