How To Football: Week 11 (Pt. 2)

It’s a good thing that I waited to start typing up the Saturday slate of How To Football, because as of writing we have have had eight games cancelled, the most of which were SEC games.

Here is what remains of the college football Saturday:

WatsonTiger Excel Productions, LLC.

Nine Windiana Shift

• Indiana-Michigan State: As far as my rooting interests are concerned, I’m hanging up any hopes for LSU and investing in the Nine Windiana futures, or at the very least rooting for a Hoosier win to set up a top-ten tilt next weekend in Columbus against Ohio State. And that’s very likely to happen, as the Hoosiers are favored by about a touchdown by SP+. What scares me is that Michigan State looks extremely volatile, enough so to sandwich a win against Michigan with a loss to Rutgers (!!!!) and getting dog walked by a downward diving Iowa team.
• TCU-West Virginia: Neal Brown’s reclamation project is progressing slowly but steadily, sitting at 4-3 on the season. If he can beat TCU and end one of the weirdest years in college football history with at least a winning record, that would be a pretty big step in the right direction.
• Miami (FL)-Virginia Tech: After last weekend, Justin Fuente neeeeeds a win here pretty badly. I still don’t think we see anybody get fired this season, but man losing to Liberty because you called a timeout late before the field goal and then losing to a Miami team they could beat would certainly put him in hot water.
• Penn State-Nebraska: You don’t have to watch a game between two winless Big Ten teams, but I absolutely am and I am going to enjoy the fact that one of these two teams will still be winless on Sunday. Happy Scott Frost Day indeed.
• Wake Forest-North Carolina: With as many cancellations and postponements as we’ve gotten this week, the quality of the weekend has taken a sharp nosedive and we’ll have to make due with what we have on the back end of some of these shifts.
• PodKATT: Coast Guard - Merchant Marine on ESPN3: The D3 version of Army-Navy, the 40th battle for The Secretaries Cup will be the only game for both teams this year. And USMMA Head Coach Mike Toop is kinda exactly the dude who you think would be coaching in this game.

B.U.T.T. Shift

• Notre Dame-Boston College: There are two equally hilarious scenarios this season as it pertains to Notre Dame: A) they run the table and win the conference the only year they are in one, and B) they beat Clemson and immediately fall off the face of a cliff. This has classic letdown game written all over it, and brother I would be here for it.
• Colorado-Stanford: Two (potentially) bad teams, but should be a fairly close game throughout as the Cardinal are favored by less than a field goal.
• llvll-Virginia: Wash, rinse, repeat.
• Baylor-Texas Tech: Notable for creating a graphics package that spells “BUTT”, the inaugural meeting of Dave Aranda and Matt Wells, who were opposite assistants at Utah State, as first-year head coaches should be a good one, with Aranda’s Bears favored by a little less than a touchdown.
• USC-Arizona: It’s football.

Pappy’s Little Brown Jug Shift

• Wisconsin-Michigan: The Badgers are back after missing the last two weeks to COVID, and they get to really ease back into things with a hungry Michigan team that has been embarrassed two weeks in a row. I’m sure that will go great for them.
• Oregon-Washington State: The Ducks pulled away in the third quarter for a comfortable 35-14 victory over Stanford in the conference opener while Washington State beat Oregon State by 10. Oregon has the more talented team for sure, but I want to see how they stack up against the Cougars. I’m less concerned with will they win the game as I am how they do it. This information will go a long way in factoring in the Ducks to the national picture.
• Arkansas-Florida: Well I originally had eyes on a potential upset bid here, but with the news of Sam Pittman’s positive coronavirus test, those have kind of been dashed a bit.
• South Carolina-Ole Miss: The entertainment factor of Lane Kiffin trying his best to give Will Muschamp an aneurism on defense alone is worthy of admission into the docket. If you though Lane pissed off Saban, wait until you see him coach against the missing link in human evolution.
• Pitt-Georgia Tech: Things were so good for the Yellow Jackets a month ago. They were 2-2, not great, not terrible, but improving from their ground-up rebuild well. Then they lost 73-7 to Clemson, 48-27 to Boston College, and 31-13 to Notre Dame. Hopefully that off week went well for them, because losing to Pitt a week before Miami would be tough. - NOPE, COVID.

PAC-12 Post-Saturday Shift

• Utah-UCLA: I’m going to use this space and issue a blanket statement: the entire PAC-12 nightcaps are probably not going to be interesting, but this is the PAC-12 After Dark we’re talking about, so we need to stay alert and stay on the lookouts for any potential upsets. NOPE, COVID.
• Cal-Arizona State: See above. NOPE, COVID.
• Oregon State-Washington: See above.
• UNLV-San Jose State: The only non-PAC-12 game of the night cap should end up being a relative cakewalk for the Spartans.