1. What It All Means: Week 3
The 2020 college football season can’t get going.
Let’s stop playing all nice-nice and call out this season so far for what it is.
Weird. Awful. Bad.
Te quality of play has been awful, just about everything about the season has been weird, and the matchups have been just plain bad.
Of course it’s been great having any football back, but compared to an NFL season that’s been an insane thrill ride over the first two weeks, the college game isn’t working …
Yet.
Of course it’s about the virus.
To be fair, the system is sort of working like it’s supposed to.
For example, Baylor didn’t think it was safe to play after going through its contact tracing protocols. Houston already had to cancel its game against Memphis, scrambled to get the date with Baylor together, and was then told it wasn’t happening.
The better to be safe than sorry cliché is more than fine here – really, if Baylor didn’t think it was totally okay, then there was no reason to mess around with it for some silly game – but the cancellations and the real-world issues with the virus are dragging down college football more than pro sports.
It’s possible to get lost in Cam Newton trying to drive the Patriots for a possible game-winning score, and Anthony Davis hitting last second three for the win, and Bryson DeChambeau beating the holy bejeebers out of a golf ball, but it’s tough when the college games don’t have anywhere near the importance needed to matter.
Again, yet.
We had a grand total of 15 FBS vs. FBS games this week on a September 19th Saturday after cancelation after cancellation.
15.
And out of that, we had just four Power Five vs. Power Five games, and those were all in the ACC.
But here’s the bright side.
The ACC season has been rolling for most teams for a few weeks, and the play should get stronger and better. Miami vs. Louisville was an okay start to that.
After a disastrous few weeks, the Big 12 now gets to take everything out on itself in conference play, the Big Ten is starting up October 24th, the Pac-12 might not be that far behind, and we’re getting SEC football this coming week.
The games are still going to be ragged. They’re still going to seem off, and this isn’t going to be anything close to a normal season.
But the matchups are going to start being a big deal, and the stakes will be raised.
It might take a bit to get there, but soon, college football will start playing games you really do care about.
And it’s about to start this weekend.
Recaps, Ranking the Games
ACC | Group of Five
CFN 1-90 Rankings | Bowl Projections
Rankings AP | Coaches
Week 4 Early Line Predictions
Hot Seat Coach Rankings
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