College football does not have a preseason, but September effectively functioned as such in 2014. The first five weeks of football saw only nine games pitting ranked teams against each other, and six of those came in the first two weeks. (That number counts only where teams were ranked at kickoff, so Florida State-Oklahoma State does not count but Texas A&M-South Carolina does.)
So if this first season of college football’s Playoff era has reminded you of an old man easing into a bathtub, you’re not alone.
Thankfully, that’s all about to change.
The Week 6 slate has six games featuring ranked-on-ranked violence:
- No. 6 Texas A&M at No. 12 Mississippi State (12 p.m. ET, ESPN)
- No. 3 Alabama at No. 11 Ole Miss (3:30 p.m. ET, CBS)
- No. 4 Oklahoma at No. 25 TCU (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX)
- No. 14 Stanford at No. 9 Notre Dame (3:30 p.m. ET, NBC)
- No. 15 LSU at No. 5 Auburn (7 p.m. ET, ESPN)
- No. 19 Nebraska at No. 10 Michigan State (8 p.m. ET, ABC)
That number does not include interesting games pitting ranked vs. unranked, like undefeated Arizona visiting No. 2 Oregon (10:30 p.m. ET Thursday, ESPN), the most strangely even Florida-Tennessee game we’ve seen in quite some time (noon ET, SEC Network), a rematch of last year’s de facto Big 12 Championship with No. 7 Baylor at Texas (3:30 p.m. ET, ABC), formerly ranked Arizona State traveling to No. 16 USC (TBD) and the morbidly intriguing Michigan at Rutgers (7 p.m. ET, BTN). And the undercard offers games like SMU at No. 22 East Carolina (12 p.m. ET, ESPNU), where the Pirates could hit 80 if they so choose, and California at Washington State (10:30 p.m. ET, Pac-12 Network), where it could take 80 to win.
Twenty-five teams entered Week 5, and that number was whittled down to 17. That number is guaranteed to drop to 13 by the end of the day Saturday, and could easily reach single digits depending on how things break.
Considering the day starts with College GameDay‘s inaugural visit to the Grove, this is the Saturday to ignore your family and do your duty as a red-blooded, college football-loving American.