And yes it’s a letdown. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Yes I understand that it’s still college football and we will still watch it and that’s all true. However, It’s still a pretty shitty week. I ranked it the bottom of all the college football weeks. It’s always Week 2, the SEC Shitbag week before American Thanksgiving, and one weekend in October that are ALWAYS the bottom three. Amazingly enough, to put things in perspective, opening week, despite being the best opening week probably ever and there being some fantastic games, I ranked 9th out of 13 because, let’s be honest; as much as there are fun non-conference games opening week, conference action is where it’s at. Sad but true. But hey, all that means is that there are better college football Saturdays upcoming. Just not this week. So let’s get to the games.

Friday

ROGERS FIBE SAT Maryland at FIU 7:30 PM CBSSN X X #13 Louisville at Syracuse 8:00 PM SP X X X

Yep. No Thursday nighter which makes sense with the NFL starting that night. So Friday gets two games. Eh, it’s college football. I’ll watch it.

Saturday Early Afternoon

ROGERS FIBE SAT UCF at #5 Michigan 12:00 PM ABC/TSN4/SP X X X Cincinnati at Purdue 12:00 PM BTN X Howard at Rutgers 12:00 PM SP X Rice at Army 12:00 PM CBSSN X X Penn State at Pittsburgh 12:00 PM TSN3 X X X Wyoming at Nebraska 12:00 PM SP X X X NC State at East Carolina 12:00 PM SP X X X Prairie View A&M at #20 Texas A&M 12:00 PM SP* X X Nicholls State at #9 Georgia 12:00 PM SP X X Troy at #2 Clemson 12:30 PM WSBK/SP X X X Charleston Southern at #3 Florida State 12:30 PM SP* X X X

Not too bad but seriously lacking some star power so to speak. Remember there are no games between ranked teams this week. This is the first time in four years that this has happened. And it shows. PSU-Pitt has to be the highlight here. Also, for some reason, UCF-Michigan is showing up on one of the Rogers guides I see, but on the others it isn’t there. It won’t end up there because it is on TSN4 so I wonder when all the schedules that I observe will be in sync. Probably never.

UPDATE: I just noticed that TSN has switched the PSU-Pitt game with the UCF-Michigan game. So PSU-Pitt is now on TSN4 and UCF-Michigan on TSN3.

Saturday Mid-Afternoon

ROGERS FIBE SAT Tulsa at #4 Ohio State 3:30 PM ABC X X X Old Dominion at Appalachian State 3:30 PM MyTV X X Akron at #10 Wisconsin 3:30 PM BTN X Illinois State at Northwestern 3:30 PM SP X Kentucky at Florida 3:30 PM CBS X X X UConn at Navy 3:30 PM CBSSN X X Wake Forest at Duke 3:30 PM SP X X X Western Kentucky at #1 Alabama 3:30 PM SP X X X Nevada at #18 Notre Dame 3:30 PM NBC X X X Wofford at #19 Ole Miss 4:00 PM SP X X Middle Tennessee at Vanderbilt 4:00 PM SP* X X Morgan State at Marshall 5:30 PM beIn Sports X X X

A lot of choice here. That’s about the best thing I can say about this. And actually a decent amount of specialty pack selections (throughout the entire day). This coming after a reader who wondered if the specialty pack was worth it. If you’re a true fan it is but week one is never a barometer for the value of the specialty pack. Anyway, I believe WKU-Bama could be a sneaky good game…as long as the Hilltoppers don’t allow Alabama to get out to too big of a first half lead (just ask USC).

Saturday Primetime

ROGERS FIBE SAT Northern Illinois at USF 7:00 PM CBSSN X X South Carolina at Mississippi State 7:00 PM SP* X X X Arkansas at #15 TCU 7:00 PM SP X X X Point at Kennesaw State 7:00 PM Peachtree X X X Iowa State at #16 Iowa 7:30 PM BTN/SP X North Carolina at Illinois 7:30 PM SP Jacksonville State at #21 LSU 7:30 PM SP X X X BYU at Utah 7:30 PM FOX X X X Eastern Michigan at Missouri 7:30 PM SP* X X Arkansas State at Auburn 7:30 PM SP X X #17 Tennessee vs. Virginia Tech (in Bristol) 8:00 PM ABC X X X

Finally some good games. Arkansas-TCU should be good. Operative word being should. Same with the Battle at Bristol between Tennessee and Virginia Tech. Should. But these four teams didn’t exactly shoot the lights out last week. Let’s just hope at least one of these games is close. Watch BYU-Utah for an underrated game that could surprise a lot of people.

A few oddities here:

USC-MSU is only showing in SD. It’s an ESPN2 game. Why is it only in SD? That could change by Saturday morning but it is a bit perplexing.

CyHawk shows up on BTN and in the specialty pack for Rogers while the other BTN game, UNC-Illinois shows up nowhere. My guess is that the latter game will show up on the specialty pack at some point but this is the issue that comes up when BTN has multiple games in the same timeslot and they are regional coverage.

Saturday Late Night

ROGERS FIBE SAT Washington State at Boise State 10:00 PM TSN1 X X X California at San Diego State 10:30 PM CBSSN X X Virginia at #24 Oregon 10:30 PM TSN3 X X X

Well what do you know? TSN has picked up not one, but TWO late night ESPN games. Wazzu-Boise should be a good game although I expect the Broncos to keep their season rolling. Virginia-Oregon doesn’t exactly move the dial but it’s still an offering.

This is the perfect weekend for me to have the kids since I can PVR a bunch of games and not be disappointed in the least that I missed anything. Having late night games on TSN poses a tiny bit of a problem since it breaks up the broadcast cycles of the games. The best is when the specialty pack has, say, ESPN2 from noon all the way to 2 in the morning. That way there’s no overlap. With the archaic way PVRs work here, if a game goes long then I miss the ending. However, if I add time to the end I can’t put another game to start on time. I guess with Rogers you can record more programs at the same time (with Bell I get 3 HD and 1 SD at any one time) but still. You’d think they would see what’s happening in other parts of the world and get their act together with this.

Picks O’ The Week

I didn’t do this during week one because, well, I just flat out forgot. So here we go. A few picks for you college football gamblers out there (in no particular order):

Oregon over Virginia…big

Utah over BYU

TCU over Arkansas

Tennessee over Virginia Tech

Mississippi State over South Carolina

Pittsburgh over Penn State

Iowa over Iowa State

Boise State over Washington State

Remember folks, tonight the NFL season begins! Denver hosts Carolina in a Super Bowl rematch. Tomorrow I will have the first week of the NFL schedule up. Good to have football back!