More college football games will be played this weekend as the ACC and Big 12 start their games, in addition to the conferences who had some games played on the limited slate last weekend. This dashboard is the college football watchability index, which highlights the most- and least- (if there could ever be such a thing with college football) watchable games of the week.
The absolute value of the point spread is on the horizontal axis and this represents a measure of uncertainty of outcome. Lower point spreads, in absolute value terms, are expected to be closer games. The total (over/under) is plotted on the vertical axis, with higher totals representing games that are expected to be higher scoring. The shape of the point representing each game represents game day and time with time grouped into four categories for Saturday, Early (Noon starts and pre-3:30 starts EST), Mid (3:30 EST starts and other starts before 7:00 EST), Night (7:00 or 8:00 EST starts) and Late (10:00 EST). The color of the point uses the power rankings in Phil Steele’s College Football Preview for each team and sums them for the two teams playing in the game. Gold represents a combined high sum (could be 2 good teams or a dominant team in the game) and Purple represents a combined low sum (not among the better teams playing in the game).
To analyze the slate this weekend (starting Thursday night), start in the upper right quadrant. These are games that are expected to be high scoring, but not close. These games involve either good quality teams playing lesser quality opponents (UTEP at Texas), one of the top ranked teams against a good ACC opponent (Clemson at Wake Forest), an ACC conference matchup (Syracuse at North Carolina), and an under-the-radar game that does not have as high of total, but is expected to be relatively closer than the others (LA Tech at Baylor). Fans who want to see the top teams are likely to enjoy watching games in this grouping, especially to see how dominant Clemson will look, in addition to see if the pre-season hype about North Carolina lives up to its billing.
Moving counter-clockwise to the upper left quadrant, these would typically be thought of as potentially the best games of the week, but none of the games feature a total anywhere close to the Syracuse-North Carolina game. The games colored gold, Western Kentucky at Louisville and Louisiana (Lafayette) and Iowa St. are noteworthy due to a power conference team at home in a game that (at least for this week) is expected to be relatively close. Charlotte at Appalachian St. is intriguing here, even though it is more purple in color, due to the possibility of App. St. having a banner year, but not being an extremely overwhelming favorite against Charlotte. UTSA at Texas St. is dark purple, representing lower power ranked teams, but is definitely more intriguing after how Texas St. played against SMU last week. Their relentless blitzing and high energy play was fun to watch and it will be interesting to see how it translates in a game against a CUSA foe.
The lower left quadrant features games that are expected to be (relatively) close, but not as high of scoring contents. The gold games are likely most interesting to fans, including the lone Thursday night college feature game with a quality UAB team playing at Miami (FL) and a Saturday ACC matchup between an improved Georgia Tech and Florida State. The Sun Belt gets another chance to show its progression up the ladder in conference quality with teams visiting Kansas and Kansas St. and South Alabama hosting Tulane. South Alabama is coming off an impressive victory and the Sun Belt teams, who committed to playing this year well in advance of others, looked ready to play in the opening weekend. Arkansas St. and Coastal Carolina (in the only late-night matchup) look to pull off upsets of Big 12 schools.
The lower right quadrant would typically be the least interesting games of the weekend, as they are not expected to be close and are not expected to be overly high scoring. However, one game features Notre Dame hosting Duke, which will be a national draw, and the other features an Army team who was extremely fun to watch last week. Even if freshman Tyrell Robinson gets fewer than 10 carries, as he did last week, he’s worth the price of admission (if such a thing exists anymore).
My favorites for Saturday? All of them? Ok, if I need to choose only one per time slot (the horror – multiple TVs/Monitors are a college football fan’s best friend) I’ll choose Syracuse/NC early, GA Tech/Florida St midday (although I’m tempted to choose Texas St. again), W. Kentucky/Louisville (over the Clemson game) at the primetime evening slot, and looking forward to the Chanticleers going for the upset vs. Kansas late. Enjoy!
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