Gotta say, one nice thing about having a weekday game is that you can wake up Saturday morning without the agita of an impending Syracuse Orange football game and just enjoy a day of pure, unadulterated college football. Especially opening Saturday, which might just be the greatest day in all of American sports.
There is a crapton of games available for your undivided viewing pleasure. So which ones do you need to be watching? Let's take a look. Obviously, we start with teams on Syracuse's schedule.
Rhode Island's season begins next week when they travel to the Dome to face the Orange. No sneak preview...not that you would have been able to watch it unless you live in Rhode Island.
USC hosts Minnesota at 3:30pm EST. West Coast folks probably have a good shot of seeing this one on ABC. Bad news if you're hoping for a Trojan loss...Pat Forde is picking the Gophers to win.
Toledo, who seems to be scaring the pants off of Syracuse fans for their conference-winning predictions and battle-tested early schedule kicked things off last night as well, drubbing New Hampshire 58-22. The Rockets feature a two-headed monster at QB that could give us fits. We'll find out more about them next week when they play Ohio State.
Rutgers beat up a kindergarten kickball team last night, like they usually do early on.
Tulane tangles with SE Louisiana on Saturday at 1:30pm. I'm guessing that won't be on in the Northeast so we'll just have to count on NOLACuse for the recap.
West Virginia welcomes Marshall to town for their annual get-together on Sunday at 3:30pm. We'll finally see if all this Holgorsen hype has been worth it. Keep an eye on the hashtag #YouAreMarshall.
Louisville took care of business last night against Murray State, 21-9. Much to Pat Forde's chagrin.
UConn's delayed game against Fordham happens on Saturday at Noon. The Coach P Era begins in Storrs, so get ready to see his smiling face a lot.
Big, big game for Skip Holtz and South Florida. They travel to South Bend to take on the No. 16 Notre Dame Fightin' Irish at 3:30pm. A win here could be massive for Holtz, USF and the Big East. Well, at least the one part Notre Dame isn't involved with.
The Cincy Bearcats host some guy named Austin Peay. Not sure what team he plays for but they're gonna kick off at 7pm and that game will be on the Big East Network. Big things are expected of the Bearcat offense so they better put up 60 in this one.
And Pittsburgh begins and ends the year with Upstate New York opponents, kicking it off with Buffalo at 6pm on ESPN3.com. It's Todd Graham Time! Pour some out for the Wannstache beforehand.
As for any other games you should be watching...
You should probably give TCU an obligatory look when they take on Baylor.
No. 3 LSU vs. No. 4 Oregon. You may have heard about it.
Miami vs. Maryland. Either Miami is gonna crash and burn of Edsall is gonna lose his first game ay Maryland in those cockamamie uniforms. Either way, you're going home happy.