clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

How To Football: Week 9

“Bad, but fun” is the theme of the week

By Adam Henderson
NCAA Football: South Carolina at Louisiana State Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports
Schedule as of 10:00 Wednesday
WatsonTiger Excel Productions, LLC

What’s Better Than This Shift?

  • South Alabama-Georgia Southern: Won’t be a great game, but should at least be entertaining enough to give us a decent finish.
  • Colorado State-Fresno State: Steve Addazio will make his debut as Rams head coach against a Fresno State team who got slapped around by Hawaii in their season opener.

M&M’s Shift

  • Minnesota-Maryland: As bad as Minnesota looked in their 49-24 loss to Michigan in the Big Ten’s opening weekend, Maryland somehow looked worse, losing 43-3 to Northwestern. Ick.
  • Hawaii-Wyoming: Okay so now that the normies skipped to Saturday, here’s the good shit. These two teams sell themselves, I don’t even have to tell you what’s up. You should already know.
  • ECU-Tulsa: East Carolina is bad, Tulsa is not. Let’s not make too big of a deal about this.
  • Southeast Missouri-Southern Illinois: Let’s give the FCS teams riding out the storm and playing in the fall some love, they deserve it.

The Noon Skyline Shift

  • Memphis-Cincinnati: The Tigers lost to SMU earlier in the month but have rebounded by edging out UCF 50-49 and beating Temple. Now seventh-ranked Cincinnati is AAC’s hope at landing the mythical G5 playoff bid after drop kicking SMU 42-13. Will the Bearcats march continue or will Memphis sabotage the AAC’s hopes of a worthy champion in their own pursuit?
  • Kansas State-West Virginia: On the surface, these two teams aren’t very interesting but both Neal Brown and Chris Klieman are doing a great job at re-establishing their programs to a much more consistent level.
  • Temple-Tulane: Tulane isn’t uh, good, and neither is Temple, so this is another one of those “maybe it will be entertaining but not good” games.
  • Coastal Carolina-Georgia State: If you’ve been paying attention to the whole landscape of college football, then you’re excited for this game. If you haven’t or you’re not, definitely tune into this one, SP+ says the projected margin is Coastal by a field goal. It will legitimately be a fun game.
  • Wake Forest-Syracuse: We’ll round out the shift with another one of those fun but not great games.

Orange Crush Shift

  • LSU-Auburn: (This space intentionally left blank)
  • Texas-Oklahoma State: Believe it or not, but as it stands, the team in the drivers’ seat in the Big 12 is....Oklahoma State. I find that entirely unsustainable, but seeing when the house of cards come crashing down will be fun because it’s not like the Longhorns are that much better than the Cowboys at the current junction.
  • TCU-Baylor: Last week, Dave Aranda didn’t give his chance to beat Texas by punting multiple time across the 50-yard line. We know that Aranda is a smart defensive mind, but it’s obvious that he is still learning how to be a head coach. But this week he’ll draw swords with Gary Patterson, who had the same background and education.
  • Northwestern-Iowa: Just trust me here, keep an eye on this one. SP+ is calling this one a tossup and I absolutely agree with that.
  • Virginia Tech-llvll: Another close game, but this one has some anxiety attached to it: Justin Fuente needs to start winning these types of games with the Hokies, and he needs to start doing it now.

First In Plight Shift

  • Ohio State-Penn State: This is the marquee game of the shift, but personally I’m not sold this will be anything interesting.
  • North Carolina-Virginia: Part of the reason OSU-PSU remains the main game is because the night shift isn’t really good. We’ll just have to scrounge up whatever we can get and hope something interesting happens.
  • Arkansas-Texas A&M: As fun as Arkansas has been so far, I don’t think there is enough in the tank to last 60 minutes with the Aggies. It’d be hilarious if they did, though.
  • Oklahoma-Texas Tech: lol.
  • Charlotte-Duke: Okay, this one should be close though. It would absolutely be an indictment against Duke if it was, but again we have to take whatever we can.

Fire The Cannon Shift

  • Western Kentucky-BYU: The most interesting part of this will be seeing if BYU can cover against the Hilltoppers.
  • Nevada-UNLV: The winner of the Battle of Nevada is awarded The Fremont Cannon, which is painted in the colors of the winning team. You learned today.