I warned you last week that this would not be an enjoyable week of football. Whereas the first two weeks of the football season feature teams scheduling big-name opponents in marquee venues to command a primetime TV slot early into the season, the third and fourth weeks are heavy on cupcakes.
Those that did not schedule big games in the first two weeks are reticent to do them in the third or fourth weeks. Those that did schedule those big games will work on cupcakes these two weeks.
That leaves us with just two games featuring ranked teams and none east of the Mississippi River. Both are in the Pac-12. No. 16 Arizona hosts no. 9 UCLA and no. 13 Oregon hosts no. 18 Utah as the Pac-12 starts conference play through the rest of the schedule.
Many of the games on this week's schedule may not make for quality football, but they do have some spectator value. Games like Kansas-Rutgers, Brigham Young-Michigan, and, especially, LSU-Syracuse are the kind of exhibitions I'd play on EA Sports NCAA Football.
Here's what's on TV this week.
Thursday
Cincinnati at Memphis (ESPN, 7:30 p.m.). Memphis received one 25-vote in the AP this week after a thrilling 44-41 victory over Bowling Green. Justin Fuente is a name on the rise among college football coaches.
This game might be a subtle gem on Thursday. Put another way, Cincinnati received 22 of a possible 30 votes among media representatives as the preseason pick to win the American Athletics Conference. Memphis placed second in media preseason speculation with five votes.
Both play in different divisions, making it conceivable that both meet again in the conference championship game.
Friday
Boise State at Virginia (ESPN, 8 p.m.). It wouldn't be Friday night football without Boise State. However, this game in Charlottesville does continue the theme of curious exhibition games you would probably play with your friends in EA Sports NCAA Football.
Stanford at Oregon State (FOX Sports 1, 10 p.m.). It's league play the rest of the way for the Pac-12 with exceptions for those programs that play Notre Dame every year (i.e. Stanford and USC). Stanford looks to build on last week's win over the Trojans in Los Angeles with another game that befits the status as preseason national champion pick that Desmond Howard bestowed on it.
Meanwhile, Oregon State could use a prayer or two. The Beavers aren't that good this season. They were mauled by a Michigan offensive line that looked awful against Utah. The Beavers were even down at halftime to San Jose State last week.
Saturday
Central Michigan at Michigan State (BTN, 12 p.m.). Michigan State finishes non-conference play with another directional school. No one should expect this game to be exciting or compelling, but it's probably the game you'll get on the main BTN channel. There are two other BTN games at the same time.
Rutgers hosts Kansas in a game that the Supreme Court deemed as constitutionally-protected "free speech". This ruling from 2012 that allowed for Rutgers and Kansas to play a televised football game against each other. Such a contest previously fell under the domain of "indecency" and was subject to FCC fines.
Purdue hosts Bowling Green at the same time. Mind you, Purdue is breaking in a redshirt freshman quarterback in his first career start for this game against a team that beat Maryland by three touchdowns. Have fun, Purdue.
Brigham Young at Michigan (ABC, 12 p.m.). ABC loves Michigan at the noon time slot.
UCLA did college football a solid by rallying to beat Brigham Young in the Rose Bowl last Saturday night. BYU travels to Ann Arbor this week and to Kansas City to play Missouri in November. Both of those are winnable. It has all cupcakes surrounding those games, making it conceivable that BYU was a playoff contender that no one beyond the BYU faithful wanted to include.
Again, thank UCLA.
Southern Mississippi at Nebraska (ESPN News, 12 p.m.). I think this is one of Nebraska's favorite non-conference opponents. Nebraska played Southern Mississippi in 2012 and 2013. Southern Mississippi and Fresno State are never too far into Nebraska's Rolodex.
Georgia Tech at Duke (ESPN2, 12 p.m.). Duke was one of just two teams to beat Georgia Tech in the regular season last year. The Blue Devils won that contest in Atlanta too, Georgia Tech's only home loss last year.
Southern at Georgia (SEC Network, 12 p.m.). You do your thing, SEC.
Central Florida at South Carolina (ESPNU, 12 p.m.). This game might have been interesting in the preseason. It promises to be painful to watch now. South Carolina fans are looking forward to when Steve Spurrier finally retires and Central Florida's George O'Leary already has one foot out the door.
Central Florida lost to Furman last week. Furman.
LSU at Syracuse (ESPNU, 12 p.m.). SEC programs have a reputation among Big Ten folk for being cowardly schedulers. This isn't quite true. Alabama will not play home-and-homes and will instead lure programs to either Arlington or Atlanta (closer to Alabama fans) for early-season games. Florida just won't leave the state to play a non-conference game, making the 2017 game in Arlington against Michigan somewhat historic. Florida has not left its state to play a non-conference game since 1991, a 38-21 loss at Syracuse.
LSU, on other hand, will go anywhere. It played Washington in Seattle in 2010, traveled to West Virginia in 2011 and will play at Syracuse on Saturday.
That doesn't mean this game will be any good. Since Syracuse is starting a walk-on at quarterback this game, it will likely be a bloodbath. Still, there's a spectator value to a game in which the local residents are genuinely concerned that the city will have enough beer to satiate the visiting fans.
Navy at Connecticut (CBS Sports Network, 12 p.m.). This game is available though I have nothing to add to it.
Maryland at West Virginia (FOX Sports 1, 3 p.m.). Both teams are unknown commodities this early into the season. Maryland has that ugly loss to Bowling Green, though it rebounded, albeit in sloppy fashion, against South Florida last week.
West Virginia is a 16-point favorite though I'm not sure how we could infer that. The Mountaineers had a bye last week and played Georgia Southern and Liberty in the two games before that. Liberty's quarterback did some damage to WVU through the air as well (21/32, 280 yards, one touchdown).
North Texas at Iowa (ESPNU, 3:30 p.m.). Iowa won its game against Pitt last Saturday night on a 57-yard field goal, probably the most #B1G way to win a football game.
North Texas, meanwhile, isn't what was in previous years under Dan McCarney. The Mean Green are 0-2 this season with losses to Southern Methodist and Rice.
This will be a homecoming for Dan McCarney, who was born in Iowa City. McCarney played for Iowa under Frank Lauterbur and Bob Commings. He coached under Hayden Fry who, incidentally, joined Iowa in 1979 from a previous head coaching and athletic director gig at then-North Texas State.
Ohio at Minnesota (BTN, 3:30 p.m.). The sooner Minnesota finds an offense, the better. Last week's game against Kent State was a chore to watch.
Penn State hosts San Diego State on BTN at the same time slot. This game will also be a chore to watch.
Oklahoma State at Texas (ESPN, 3:30 p.m.). Don't be surprised if Texas has a major letdown this game. Recall that offense was the major concern for Texas through its first two games at Notre Dame and against Rice. The Longhorns switched quarterbacks and put 650 yards of offense on California last week, albeit in a conspicuous losing effort.
That said, California is the type of program that could care less about playing defense if its offense is capable of scoring six touchdowns in a game. Thus, California was unprepared for the change of quarterback and, perhaps, uninterested in making mid-game adjustments to it. Oklahoma State may provide a much stiffer test for whatever renewed optimism that Texas fans have.
Virginia Tech at East Carolina (ABC/ESPN2, 3:30 p.m.). If Ohio State is on ABC, Virginia Tech is on ESPN2, and vice-versa.
Recall that Virginia Tech lost at home to East Carolina the week after beating Ohio State last year.
Tennessee at Florida (CBS, 3:30 p.m.). Tennessee may have found a niche as the program in college football for whom "this is the year". Perhaps, this is the year that Tennessee finally beats Florida. Tennessee has not scored wins over its two biggest rivals in a decade or more. The Volunteers' last win over Florida was in 2004 and the last win over Alabama was in 2006.
UL-Monroe at Alabama (SEC Network, 4 p.m.). Incidentally, the last time UL-Monroe played Alabama was in 2007 for Alabama's senior day for Nick Saban's first year in Tuscaloosa. Alabama lost. Nick Saban likened the loss to Pearl Harbor, or the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Good times. Good times.
Middle Tennessee at Illinois (ESPN News, 4 p.m.). I remember Illinois players taking to Twitter to express outrage that Ohio State had a probability greater than .8 of beating Illinois in Champaign.
Last week, North Carolina ran over Illinois by five touchdowns. A blowout loss to follow two weeks of easy wins brought the Illini back to reality.
Texas Christian at Texas Tech (FOX, 4:45 p.m.). This game might surprise casual fans who are expecting TCU to maul everyone in its path before the season finale with Baylor.
At least, Texas Tech manhandling Arkansas in Fayetteville gives some optimism to Texas Tech's program under Kliff Kingsbury and some pause for TCU fans who expected an easy win earlier in the season.
TCU is still over a touchdown favorite, though.
California at Washington (Pac-12 Network, 5 p.m.). California takes its high-profile offense to Seattle to play a Washington program that is taking on water under Chris Petersen. The Huskies' 31-17 win over Utah State last week was not particularly inspiring.
Texas A&M at Arkansas (ESPN, 7 p.m.). I think we all have heard Kliff Kingsbury's napalming of Bert after last week's Texas Tech-Arkansas game. While Kingsbury does have "scoreboard" rights, Bert's objection that last year's game was more an ass-kicking in Arkansas' favor than this year's game was for Texas Tech is essentially correct.
That said, Kingsbury did call his shot for an ass-kicking this week in favor of the Aggies. Let's see if it plays out that way.
Vanderbilt at Ole Miss (ESPNU, 7 p.m.). This is an actual protected cross-divisional "rivalry" in the SEC, if you can believe that. There's nothing organic to it either. It's just a scheduling quirk that keeps these two teams playing each other every year.
Mississippi State at Auburn (ESPN2, 7:30 p.m.). Auburn will start Sean White at quarterback over Jeremy Johnson, who had an "eventful" start to the season before crashing against LSU last week.
Missouri at Kentucky (SEC Network, 7:30 p.m.). The SEC games this week are just so, so disappointing.
NC State at South Alabama (ESPN News, 8 p.m.). Remember when NC State was a dark horse for SEC expansion? Now it's playing road games in Mobile against teams that have only been playing football since 2009 (and at the FBS level since 2013).
UCLA at Arizona (ABC, 8 p.m.). This is ABC's primetime game of the week, because Week 4 is that kind of week for football.
I don't know what to make of the Pac-12 South. I thought USC was unquestionably the team to beat, but the Trojans just lost at home to a Stanford team that could score only six points at Northwestern.
I thought Arizona State was probably the no. 2 team in the division. This was supposed to be Todd Graham's best team since he arrived in Tempe in 2012. The Sun Devils started the season with a crushing loss to Texas A&M and a needed a fourth-quarter rally to beat an FCS team (Cal Poly).
That leaves us with these two teams as the other main competitors. They are the two highest-ranked teams in the division. However, UCLA has a true freshman quarterback and lost its two best players (both on defense) to injury. Eddie Vanderdoes suffered an ACL tear in the first game of the season and UCLA just announced Myles Jack is done for the season as well.
Arizona is without its all-everything linebacker, Scooby Wright III, for the foreseeable future.
With all that said... play ball? This game could be a lot of fun regardless.
Ball State at Northwestern (BTN, 8 p.m.). Hawaii plays at Wisconsin at the 8 p.m. time slot on BTN as well. Since Northwestern is the higher-ranked team, this is probably the game you'll get on the main channel.
Utah at Oregon (FOX, 8 p.m.). Oregon starts conference play and looks to assert its dominance over the Pac-12 for another year. The Ducks have unquestionably been the best program in the league since 2009.
Fans may remember last year's game in Salt Lake City well. The Utes were going to take a 13-0 lead early in the second quarter when Kaelin Clay, who was otherwise going to complete a 78-yard touchdown play, had a Desean Jackson moment. He prematurely celebrated before entering the end zone, resulting in a fumble that was returned 100 yards for a game-tying touchdown. This started a string of 24 unanswered points that propelled Oregon to a 51-27 win.
USC at Arizona State (ESPN, 10:30 p.m.). If Arizona State wants to show this is genuinely the best team Todd Graham has ever had, this might be the game to do it. Arizona State has not shown anything impressive to date.
Likewise, USC is already down 0-1 in the Pac-12. There's plenty of time to secure the Pac-12 South but there should be some urgency for the Trojans who thought this might be a playoff year.
This was one of the Pac-12's more memorable games last year. The Sun Devils beat the Trojans in the Coliseum on a Hail Mary.
Seriously, knock the damn ball down instead of trying to catch it. Kids these days...
