College Football Saturday: Bedlam and Alabama Lead the Early Slate

UCLA’s game against Arizona State is scheduled to kickoff at 11 am PST, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some other games to watch during the run-up to (or in case things get bad for the Bruins).

Let’s start with the early shift, which has a lot of interesting games, but not a ton of games I would consider good. The most interesting of them would be the #10 Ohio State Buckeyes going on the road to East Lansing to face the Michigan State Spartans. Ohio State needs a win to stay in the hunt for the College Football Playoffs, let alone the Big 10 East, but they haven’t looked great in recent weeks, having been blown out by Purdue and needed a late surge to hold off Nebraska. This is also the kind of game that you almost expect Michigan State and head coach Mark Dantonio to get up for and absolutely ruin some other team’s season for no reason. Should be fun!

The early shift also features the defending national champions #12 Central Florida Knights facing the Navy Midshipmen. I don’t necessarily think UCF loses this game, but games against the service academies are always tricky, so it’s definitely one to keep an eye on.

In the noon slate, the clear headliner is the #16 Mississippi State Bulldogs heading on the road to take on the sentient Death Star that is the #1 Alabama Crimson Tide. This is the only matchup between ranked teams in the early shifts, and the betting line for this game currently sits at the Crimson Tide favored by 24 points. Maybe the Bulldogs pull something off? Ok they won’t, I’m sorry I even thought about it.

The other big game of the shift (besides UCLA, of course) is Bedlam, as the Oklahoma State Cowboys head to Norman to play the #6 Oklahoma Sooners. Oklahoma leads the all-time series 87-18-7, and this game again seems set up to be another Sooner triumph, which would be their 4th in a row. That said, Oklahoma really doesn’t have a defense, and any game they’re involved in at this point looks like it will be a high-scoring adventure, so a Cowboy upset is definitely possible.

Here is today’s full slate of college football games:

This is your College Football Saturday open thread.

Go Bruins!