Week 3 of the college football season continues today with the biggest set of games so far. The SEC schedule starts and there are some other intriguing matchups as well. In hearing the news about the Big 10, PAC 12, and MAC, we look forward to a more traditionally full slate of games in a few weeks, but this week provides many options to watch at each time frame of the day.
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 Saturday start time. The color of the point uses the power rankings from Phil Steele (Plus/Minus ratings) 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 Red represents a combined low sum (not among the better teams playing in the game).
We’ll start this week in the lower-right hand quadrant, where typically the least interesting games lie. These games have high point spreads and low totals, as a blowout is expected, with only the favored team putting up sizable points. A couple of SEC games lie here, with Texas A&M and Georgia starting their seasons as big favorites.
Higher total games with big point spreads are located in the upper-right hand quadrant and we see a few powerhouses here with LSU, Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, and Alabama being big favorites amongst these games. The expected highest scoring game of the day involves Central Florida (against East Carolina) as the UCF offense was off and running last week and is expected to keep putting up points this week. Other interesting matchups in this group of games include a look at Baylor, to see where they compare to last season, BYU hosting Troy, and an under-the-radar but potentially fun game with Texas St. visiting Boston College.
Many games are bunched in the lower-left hand quadrant with defensive struggles expected between Tennessee and South Carolina, Iowa St. and TCU, and Army at Cincinnati. ACC matchups between Duke and Virginia, Georgia Tech and Syracuse, and Florida St. at Miami also lie in this region. Kentucky at Auburn is one of the big games of the day, while Tulane-Southern Miss looks to have a tightly contested game where a good amount of points is expected to be scored.
The upper-left quadrant is typically reserved for the best games of the day, but there are no super-high totals here, nor a traditional elite team involved in these matchups. Two ACC games, NC State at Virginia Tech and Louisville at Pittsburgh look to be close games with the potential for some back-and=forth scoring action. Florida International at Liberty posts a high total and could be fun to follow, especially if Liberty stays as enjoyable to watch as they were in their last game.
If I had to choose only one game in each time slot, I’d take Kentucky-Auburn at noon (in a slight win over both Louisville-Pittsburgh and Florida-Mississippi), Mississippi State-LSU midday, and Tennessee-South Carolina at night (with an eye out to see if Saban keeps his opening week winning ways against the spread in Alabama’s opener).
Enjoy the games!
See the First Steps: Football Analytics is now available at www.seesports.net/shop and on Amazon.
Comments