Our Honor Defend

It’s a little belated, but here it is.  Another week of college football, another set of matchups for me to watch.  So, what’s on the docket for this week?

Thursday

• Florida State @ NC State (ESPN, 7:30PM ET).  Florida State, the team of the 90s, is now playing on Thursdays.  MAC Status: CONFIRMED.  Maybe there’s just a little bit of bitterness about what was basically criminal battery against Joe Germaine in the 1998 Sugar Bowl, but how cool is it that a one-loss Florida State team is now a “dark horse” in the ACC and on the perimeter of the top 25?
• BYU @ Texas Christian (VS?, 8:00PM ET).  Such is the way of college football scheduling.  The top 10 Cougars take their show on the road to one-loss Texas Christian (one loss to Oklahoma: you might have heard that they’re pretty good this season), the same place where Stanford dropped a decision 31-14.  But instead of this, ESPN gives us Bobby Bowden on the sidelines still trying to lick through the crust of Thursday morning’s applesauce from the edge of his lips.  I’m hoping Versus picks up this game.

Friday

• Hawaii @ Boise State (ESPN, 8:00PM ET).  Matchup of the past two WAC champions, though one of those school’s BCS experience was significantly better than the other.  I’m sure there’s a drinking game to be constructed regarding Ian Johnson’s proposal and the blue turf.  Oh, did you know that Boise State’s turf is blue?

Saturday

• Purdue @ Northwestern (ESPN2, 12:00PM ET).  If there’s one unmistakeable feature about the Big Ten that reminds me of home, it’s the noon-time kickoffs.  Purdue, fresh off of making our offense look like an idiot, travels to Evanston to take on the Wildcats, who suffered their first loss last week.  With all due respect to the Boilermakers, I’ll be pulling hard for the Wildcats to win this one.  In my ideal world, Northwestern and Vanderbilt (now probably out of the SEC title picture) meet up in the Capital One Bowl in the battle of the nerd schools.  I’m guessing Northwestern needs to win that one to make it happen.
• Georgia Tech @ Clemson (ESPN, 12:00PM ET).  As you may have heard, Tommy Bowden was basically fired at Clemson.  The consequences of this change with a top notch opponent coming into Clemson is obvious: their chances of beating Georgia Tech increased substantially.  I’ll be flipping between this and Purdue-Northwestern mostly for my adoration of Paul Johnson.
• Wisconsin @ Iowa (BTN, 12:00PM ET).  I think this best captures what will probably unfold during this game.  The one throwing up at the end, however, is you.
• Ole Miss @ Alabama (CBS, 3:30PM ET).  A lot of people have this penciled in as a certain victory for Bear Saban.  It may well be.  However, most importantly, Ole Miss should be able to neutralize Alabama’s shining feature: its awesome offensive line that makes me super jealous.  John Parker Wilson is an efficient QB, but far from spectacular.
• Kansas @ Oklahoma (ABC, 3:30PM ET).  I’ve seen on ESPN’s news crawl that Oklahoma leads this series 65-28.  To be honest, I was surprised to read that Kansas has won that many games in this series.  I don’t think they’ll be adding one to the win column this game, though.
• Ohio State @ Michigan State (ABC, 3:30PM ET).  The main attraction.  I’ll add more thoughts to this game on Friday, but the backdrop to this story will be Javon Ringer.  Aside from being arguably the conference’s top performer this season so far, he was a heavy Buckeye lean coming out of HS in Dayton’s Chaminade-Julienne.  However, as good of a tailback he was, he wasn’t a very good student and wasn’t going to make OSU’s increasingly higher grade for admission.  I have lots of thoughts on this, but I’ll keep my mouth shut on the issue if Ringer does.  On the game itself: I’m not very optimistic… why should I be?
• Michigan @ Penn State (ESPN, 4:30PM ET).  I’ll be watching what I can of this game.  We play Penn State this week and, well.. why shouldn’t I watch it? Beaver Stadium is probably going to riot after this game, regardless of the result.
• Missouri @ Texas (ABC, 8:00PM ET). Don’t care, don’t care, don’t care.  Dooooooon’t care.
• LSU @ South Carolina (ESPN, 8:00PM ET). Herbstreit called this the upset special of the week.  Since he’s been right every othe week this season, I’ll have to watch.  Les Miles is guaranteed to lose two games a season, so will this be it?