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Week 8 is a huge college football weekend ... in the SEC West. It's a good one everywhere else too, though!
All three ranked-vs.-ranked games are in one division, headlined by No. 6 Texas A&M at No. 1 Alabama, the College GameDay and CBS game. Six other ranked teams are on the road, though, and there's some rivalry fun.
Below is the Watchability Grid, which ranks all FBS games by a subjective combo of quality, stakes, competitiveness, and what else is on at the time and includes TV/streaming info.
Thursday should be pretty good, Friday should be explosive, and Saturday is somewhat reasonably paced, with a solid evening and acceptable late night. This will be a good college football weekend, because it is a college football weekend.
We're now just a couple weeks away from the first College Football Playoff rankings of the year, and a season that appears to have clear paths to the final four should finally get some chaos going soon.
(Thursday and Friday games removed, for your Saturday convenience.)
| WATCH THIS | Maybe watch this | This is a football game | |
| Noon ET | NC State at #7 Louisville ABC, WatchESPN |
#10 Wisconsin at Iowa ESPN, WatchESPN |
North Texas at Army CBSSN |
| Indiana at Northwestern BTN, BTN2Go |
Miami (OH) at Bowling Green WatchESPN |
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| Texas at Kansas State ESPN2, WatchESPN |
Oklahoma State at Kansas FS1, Fox Sports Go |
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| CMU at Toledo WatchESPN |
Rutgers at Minnesota ESPNU, WatchESPN |
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| UMass at South Carolina SEC Network, WatchESPN |
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| UCF at UConn ESPNews, WatchESPN |
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| 12:30 | Syracuse at Boston College ACC Network, WatchESPN |
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| 2 | Hawaii at Air Force Oceanic PPV |
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| 3 | Colorado at Stanford Pac-12 Networks |
Akron at Ball State WatchESPN |
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| #22 UNC at Virginia ACC Network, WatchESPN |
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| 3:30 | #6 Texas A&M at #1 Alabama CBS, CBSSports.com |
TCU at #12 West Virginia ESPN2, WatchESPN |
Illinois at #3 Michigan BTN, BTN2Go |
| EMU at #20 WMU WatchESPN |
Purdue at #8 Nebraska ESPN2, WatchESPN |
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| Memphis at #24 Navy CBSSN |
Idaho at App State WatchESPN |
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| UT-Martin at Georgia State WatchESPN |
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| Buffalo at NIU WatchESPN |
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| Prairie View at Rice ConferenceUSA.com |
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| 3:45 | Tulane at Tulsa ESPNU, WatchESPN |
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| 4 | #19 Utah at UCLA Fox, Fox Sports Go |
MTSU at Missouri SEC Network, WatchESPN |
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| 5:30 | CSU at UNLV Root |
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| Charlotte at Marshall beIN |
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| 6 | #17 Arkansas at #21 Auburn ESPN, WatchESPN |
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| 6:30 | Oregon State at #5 Washington Pac-12 Networks |
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| 7 | #11 Houston at SMU ESPN2, WatchESPN |
ECU at Cincinnati CBSSN |
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| LA Tech at FIU WatchESPN |
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| UL-Lafayette at Texas State WatchESPN |
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| UTEP at UTSA ConferenceUSA.com |
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| ODU at WKU ASN |
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| 7:30 | Mississippi State at Kentucky SEC Network, WatchESPN |
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| Michigan State at Maryland BTN, BTN2Go |
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| Tennessee State at Vanderbilt ESPNU, WatchESPN |
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| 8 | #2 Ohio State at Penn State ABC, WatchESPN |
#16 Oklahoma at Texas Tech Fox, Fox Sports Go |
Georgia Southern at NMSU WatchESPN |
| 9 | #23 Ole Miss at #25 LSU ESPN, WatchESPN |
ULM at New Mexico Root |
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| 10 | Washington State at Arizona State Pac-12 Networks |
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| 10:30 | Fresno State at Utah State CBSSN |
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| Wyoming at Nevada ESPN2, WatchESPN |
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Notes on the WATCH THIS games:
- NC State has a solid defense and should kind of be 6-0 right now, after losing grasp of an upset at Clemson last week and dropping an even game at East Carolina earlier. But if nothing else, Lamar Jackson's in this game.
- Kinda have to clock in for A&M-Bama, even though the Tide opened the week as 16.5-point favorites and have only since become even more heavily favored. We're running out of chances for Bama to suffer its annual meaningless loss.
- If that one's gone sour, Arkansas-Auburn promises madness, with two coaches who've butted heads and have kind of traded identities, in some ways. The Hogs get in weird shootouts, and the Tigers get in ugly slogs.
- Ohio State's trip to Penn State seems tougher than that 20-point spread suggests, though we said the same about OSU's trip to Oklahoma. A prime-time road game against a talented team with an improved offense a week after going through the Wisconsin wringer?
- Your close-out game: WSU at ASU, two teams that score a lot of points and currently have minor coaching beef.