How To Football: Week 10

Today is Tuesday, October 30th. We are in day six of 27 consecutive days with either college or professional football on. It’s not oppressively hot nor unbearably cold. Ellie Goulding is teasing a new album. These are the days our Lord has made, and we should celebrate them accordingly.

(All rankings and spreads are S&P+)

Return Of The #MACtion Shift

Shhh. It’s all going to be okay. Be quiet and listen. Can you hear it? The twinkling pianos? They’re getting louder aren’t they? Yes, it’s time.

At long last, we are reunited with #MACtion’s sweet embrace on this Tuesday night with Miami (OH) at Buffalo and Kent StatE at Bowling Green. Don’t worry about the standings or the rankings, just enjoy the games on face value. Bad football games are just bad on Saturdays, but something magical happens when they happen on a random Tuesday. They become football chicken noodle soup for the soul.

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Hold The Rope Shift

Part of the reason we have 27 straight days of football is because Ball State at Toledo are picking up the slack and playing on Halloween. #MACtion makes sacrifices selflessly, and it’s all for your enjoyment. It would be rude to pass up their acts of kindness.

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#Power6 Shift

We get two more doses of #MACtion Thursday night, NIU at Akron and The Ohio University of Ohio (OH) at Western Michigan, but those are just supplemental material for the big one.

At 6:30, the race for AAC East is likely decided when Temple (yes, that Temple) faces off against defending national champions UCF. The Knights Citronauts are projected to win by 10.5, but for what it’s worth Temple has been the most difficult team to pin down all season.

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#PutPittIn Shift

If I told you that Pitt at Virginia was for inside positioning for the ACC Championship game in the year of our Lord two thousand and eighteen you wouldn’t believe me, so here is proof:

So yeah, that’s a thing we have to deal with.

The night kicks off with some of that dank Ivy League action at 5:00 with Penn at Cornell getting into a scrap. We also get a struggling Western Kentucky walking into Murfreesboro against a pretty decent MTSU.

9:30 To Tuscon Shift

Well we thought Arizona was bad, but then they just beat the flipping dog turds out of Oregon last week. Now their game against Colorado is virtually a toss-up. The Buffaloes have fallen way off their perfect 5-0 start, dropping three in a row to USC, Washington, and less forgivable, Oregon State. Not they’re not favored in their last four games, although two are relative tossups or field goal games.

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Two Cults, Both Alike In Dignity, Shift

Texas A&M did not have fun last weekend. Jimbo’s offense could only put 13 points on Mississippi State and yielded a postgame win expectancy of...zero. That will only get tougher against the Auburn defense, but the inverse can also be said about Auburn. The Tigers are favored by less than a touchdown but they actually had a tougher time against the Bulldogs’ defense and had a complete lapse against Tennessee. So this is one big ole ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ from me.

The rest of the nooners are what you expect by now: The Michigan State at Maryland, Syracuse at Wake Forest, Nebraska at an Ohio State, and Georgia Tech at North Carolina. Give it a year or two and that Nebraska-Ohio State game can be a headliner, but that fish needs to be thrown back in for now.

someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this. my conference is dying Shift

In a cruel twist of fate, the year Kentucky decides to up and actually be good their biggest game of the season falls in the shadow of Alabama-LSU. Their likely SEC-East deciding game at Georgia will be the lead-in of the CBS doubleheader. Georgia has the advantage because their defense is good and Kentucky’s offense, is, well, not. So can the Wildcats play as perfect of a game as they can, trust their defense, and catch a break here and there? We’ll see.

It’s not the only big game of the shift though, as there is a top-ten matchup between Penn State and Michigan. This one lacks the direct standing implications, as a Nittany Lion win can only drop Michigan down to “controlling their own destiny”. Without Joe Moorhead Penn State has taken a step back defensively but it’s not like they shouldn’t cross midfield against the top-ranked Wolverine defense.

The hits don’t stop coming and they don’t stop coming, as either West Virginia or Texas will (likely) be eliminated from the Big 12 race with Saturday’s result. Since the Big 12 is sickly and dying and does not have divisions, the Longhorns can work their way into a rematch with the Sooners for the Big 12 Championship, despite the fact that they won the head to head matchup. What a normal, healthy, thriving conference.

Rounding out the shift: Iowa at Purdue and Boston College at Virginia Tech.

Game Of The Century IIX Shift

So, outside of the obvious, there is little going on in the evening shift. Our healthy boi conference has Oklahoma travelling to Texas Tech. The Sooners’ defense obviously went through some things, but their offense should rip the Red Raiders apart enough for a comfortable win.

Outside of that, Louisiana Tech continues their yearly rivalry with Mississippi State, Notre Dame faces the mother of all trap games against Northwestern, and UCLA moves up to Oregon.

Everybody is making way for Alabama and LSU, I guess.

Aggies Take Hawaii Shift

College football darlings Washington State shouldn’t struggle with Cal, but this is the PAC-12 After Dark and this is Wazzu, so this is the type of game that they would drop. Cal’s offense should be able to find a lot of success against the Cougars defense, so this could turn into a shootout.

BYU should get stomped by Boise State, as should New Mexico at the hands of UNLV and the same for UNLV with Fresno State.

We get some late night Hawaii action, buuuuuut it’s against #21 Utah State. This might be the worst beatdown of the night.