College football conference play really gets going in Week 4, with at least one big and watchable game for each Power 5 league and a bunch of other stuff, all spread out nicely. Something like 15 ranked teams are in loseable games, with four ranked-on-ranked games throughout.
In addition to all the important business that we'll get into down below, Lamar Jackson's at Marshall, which just gave up 65 points to Akron! He might break the season touchdowns record this week. He won't. Let's just dream a little.
Below, the Watchability Grid walks you through your weekend, with games ranked according to an eyeballing of their stakes, quality, competitiveness, and so forth. All disagreements should be directed to the comments below.
We've been doing versions of this sort of thing for years, so check back again next week, and let me know anything to change about this that would make this easier for you to use.
(Weeknight games removed, for your Saturday convenience.)
Saturday
| WATCH THIS | Maybe watch this | This is a football game | |
| Noon ET | #11 Wisconsin at #8 Michigan State BTN, BTN2GO |
#13 Florida State at USF ABC, WatchESPN |
Kent State at #1 Alabama SEC Network, WatchESPN |
| #12 Georgia at #23 Ole Miss ESPN, WatchESPN |
San Jose State at Iowa State FSN, Fox Sports Go |
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| Colorado State at Minnesota ESPNU, WatchESPN |
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| Nevada at Purdue ESPNews, WatchESPN |
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| Iowa at Rutgers ESPN2, WatchESPN |
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| Charlotte at Temple WatchESPN |
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| 12:30 ET | ECU at Virginia Tech ACC Network |
CMU at Virginia RSN, WatchESPN |
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| 1 ET | Wagner at Boston College WatchESPN |
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| Syracuse at UConn CBSSN |
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| 2 ET | Gardner-Webb at Ohio WatchESPN |
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| 3:30 ET | #19 Florida at #14 Tennessee CBS, CBSSports.com |
Penn State at #4 Michigan ABC, WatchESPN |
App State at Akron WatchESPN |
| Wake Forest at Indiana BTN, BTN2GO |
Miami (OH) at Cincinnati ESPNews, WatchESPN |
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| Pitt at North Carolina ESPNU, WatchESPN |
WIU at NIU WatchESPN |
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| BYU vs. West Virginia ESPN2, WatchESPN |
UTSA at Old Dominion WTVZ |
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| Duke vs. Notre Dame NBC, NBC Sports |
Boise State at Oregon State FS1, Fox Sports Go |
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| Mississippi State at UMass WatchESPN |
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| 4 ET | Delaware State at Missouri SEC Network, WatchESPN |
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| 4:30 ET | Vanderbilt at WKU CBSSN |
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| Tulsa at Fresno State CampusInsiders.com |
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| 5:30 ET | Colorado at Oregon Pac-12 Network, P12N Live |
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| 6 ET | #18 LSU at Auburn ESPN, WatchESPN |
Ball State at FAU FAUSports.tv |
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| North Texas at Rice ConferenceUSA.com |
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| 7 ET | Georgia Southern at WMU WatchESPN |
#6 Houston at Texas State ESPNU, WatchESPN |
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| CAU at Arkansas State WatchESPN |
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| Army at Buffalo WatchESPN |
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| UCF at FIU beIN Sports |
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| LA Tech at MTSU ASN |
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| Nicholls at South Alabama WatchESPN |
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| NMSU at Troy WatchESPN |
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| 7:10 ET | Missouri State at Kansas State K-StateHD.TV |
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| 7:30 ET | Oklahoma State at #16 Baylor Fox, Fox Sports Go |
#20 Nebraska at Northwestern BTN, BTN2GO |
South Carolina at Kentucky SEC Network, WatchESPN |
| 8 ET | #7 Stanford at UCLA ABC, WatchESPN |
#3 Louisville at Marshall CBSSN |
BGSU at Memphis ESPNews, WatchESPN |
| UL Lafayette at Tulane WatchESPN |
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| Southern Miss at UTEP CampusInsiders.com |
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| 9 ET | #17 Arkansas at #10 Texas A&M ESPN, WatchESPN |
Idaho at UNLV UNLVRebels.com |
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| 10 ET | Cal at Arizona State ESPN2, WatchESPN |
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| 10:15 ET | Air Force at Utah State ESPNU, WatchESPN |
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| 10:30 ET | #9 Washington at Arizona Pac-12 Network, P12N Live |
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What exactly is your team looking for this weekend?
— SB✯Nation CFB (@SBNationCFB) September 22, 2016
Week 4 in 100 seconds: pic.twitter.com/uV4KTHRu4T
Notes on the MUST-WATCHes:
- Another weekend with at least one all-ranked game in each major time slot, plus others that are close. College football, you're doing a good job of not giving us sad afternoons and overloaded nights! College football isn't a person.
- Wisconsin and Michigan State struck their latest blows for the Recruiting Rankings Lie crowd by beating LSU and Notre Dame, respectively. They also did the same by looking unimpressive against Georgia State and Furman, respectively. Anyway! You know exactly how grueling and punty this game will be (UW has S&P+'s No. 7 defense and No. 77 offense, for instance), and you'll like it.
- Georgia at Ole Miss! Around 4 ET, a lot of people sure are gonna be mad at a coach in a visor!
- Florida-Tennessee should be a delightful, miserable brawl between a team that prefers not to score points and a team sending out a backup quarterback. If you haven't had your fill of punts after the Big Ten game and this one, then you're just gonna have to wait until the NFL kicks off, because ...
- Oklahoma State-Baylor! Pyew pyew!
- Stanford-UCLA! Christian McCaffrey vs. Josh Rosen!
- Arkansas-Texas A&M! Guaranteed overtime in JerryWorld!
- #Pac12AfterDark! Washington's toughest test so far is a trip to play a team that trailed Grambling State 21-3 at halftime! Nevermind that! Arizona can still put up yards!
- So yeah, this is the Saturday that equates to eating six hours of thundering vegetables, then diving face-first into the candy jar until this week's version of whatever that Texas-Cal thing was.