COLLEGE FOOTBALL WATCH GRID, Week 11

It’s college football season. We can pretend we only wanna watch good games, or we can face facts.

We’re now into the real heart of the college football season, when almost all bye weeks are done, rivalries are nigh, coaches are vanishing, and we’re ever likelier to hit that one annual weekend when everyone goes totally wrong. Might be this week! Ten higher-ranked teams are favored by only a touchdown or less, and another has to play Purdue!

First, congratulations are in order for EMU, Miami (Ohio), NIU, Ohio, Toledo, and WMU, teams with victories already secured for the week.

As always, the Watch Grid sorts your Saturday into three watchability columns. And as always, watchability is not strictly about game quality, team quality or quality of any kind. These things matter, though, I guess.

Thursday, Nov. 11 and Friday, Nov. 12 college football schedule

UNC-Pitt is both important-ish (the Panthers are close to winning the ACC Coastal, but Miami and Virginia are right there) and likely to be stupid (the Vegas total is 73 points).

And Friday, we have both Old Boise State against Wyoming and Current Boise State against USF. It’s not necessarily fair that Cincy should try to win by at least, say, 23 points, but college football’s only fair thing is the place where they fry Snickers bars before Oklahoma-Texas.

Saturday, Nov. 13 college football schedule

SICKOS GAME OF THE WEEK

This one’s been circled on the sicko calendar for quite a while now.

Those of you in your mid-20s or older surely remember the days when Florida State and Miami were almost always good at football. Well, that’s not the case at the moment. It hasn’t been the case for the last four years or so, but it’s really not the case right now.

For FSU, at least. The Noles are one loss away from ensuring Mike Norvell’s tenure begins with a worse 21-game stretch than the one that got predecessor Willie Taggart fired and have accomplished nothing more impressive all year than taking Notre Dame to overtime two months ago.

Miami’s season is definitely still in the sicko category, but its subgenre has shifted. This team is something of an anti-Nebraska, with a 5-2 record in one-score games. Back in week three, when the Canes had already suffered two blowout losses, it felt like time to pull the plug on Manny Diaz, but now what do you see? Miami couldn’t hang with Alabama or Michigan State, top-10 teams, but has otherwise (barely) beaten most of its opponents. So Miami enters this game with cause for wounded, timid optimism.

A big mess will follow, no matter the victor. But either way, we can count on the Canes to ensure the victor will not be certain until the final whistle, maximizing the agonies of all involved and the amusement of all uninvolved.

The actual most important game of the week

SOMEONE, PLEASE EITHER KNOCK OKLAHOMA OUTTA THE PLAYOFF RACE OR GET CRUSHED BY OKLAHOMA SO BADLY, IT’S FINALLY CLEAR OKLAHOMA DESERVES TO BE IN THE RACE AT ALL. Baylor, take a whack. Whatever happens, please make sure it’s convincing.

[mm-video type=video id=01fm5a0g9eyrq9btm6ta playlist_id=none player_id=none image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01fm5a0g9eyrq9btm6ta/01fm5a0g9eyrq9btm6ta-5f41f529f24281ea66848763145d76ed.jpg]