Week 5 got off to a roaring start Friday night when No. 10 Washington obliterated No. 7 Stanford in Seattle and BYU beat Toledo in a thriller that lasted so long, play-by-play announcer Mack Brown had to leave the game on air in the middle of the fourth quarter. There were also Thursday games, but no one liked them.
College football schedule 2016: TV times, streaming online, and which games to watch
Below, your quick-and-easy guide to the entire Saturday FBS schedule, with recommendations on what to watch when.
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Saturday will be very good, however, with two huge games (Wisconsin-Michigan and Louisville-Clemson), an early slate that is a fairly low-stakes way to ease into your football-watching day, and a late shift ripe for mayhem.
Below is the Watchability Grid, which offers suggestions for each time slot based on a guesstimate of game quality, stakes, competitiveness, and what else is on at the time.
The only rule: at least one game has to be a WATCH THIS at al times, because I don’t want to hear any complaining when it’s March and there’s no football to watch if you passed up a perfectly good Texas-Oklahoma State.
| WATCH THIS | Maybe watch this | This is a football game | |
| Noon ET | #22 Texas at Oklahoma State ABC, WatchESPN | #14 Miami at Georgia Tech ESPN2, WatchESPN | Rutgers at #2 Ohio State BTN, BTN2Go |
| Notre Dame at Syracuse ESPN, WatchESPN | #13 Baylor at Iowa State FS1, Fox Sports Go | ||
| Alcorn State at #20 Arkansas SEC Network, WatchESPN | |||
| #23 Florida at Vanderbilt SEC Network, WatchESPN | |||
| Georgia State at App State WatchESPN | |||
| UCF at East Carolina CBSSN | |||
| Northwestern at Iowa ESPNU, WatchESPN | |||
| SMU at Temple ESPNews, WatchESPN | |||
| 12:30 ET | Virginia at Duke ACC Network, WatchESPN | ||
| 1 ET | Buffalo at Boston College ACC Network, WatchESPN | ||
| 2:30 ET | Oregon State at Colorado Pac-12 Networks | ||
| Ohio at Miami (Ohio) WatchESPN | |||
| 3 ET | EMU at Bowling Green WatchESPN | ||
| WATCH THIS | Maybe watch this | This is a football game | |
| 3:30 ET | #8 Wisconsin at #4 Michigan ABC, WatchESPN | #11 Tennessee at #25 Georgia CBS, CBSSports.com | Illinois at #15 Nebraska ESPN2, WatchESPN |
| North Carolina at #12 FSU ESPN, WatchESPN | ULM at Auburn SEC Network, WatchESPN | ||
| Navy at Air Force CBSSN | NIU at Ball State WatchESPN | ||
| Wake Forest at NC State ACC Network, WatchESPN | Akron at Kent State WatchESPN | ||
| Kansas State at West Virginia ESPNU, WatchESPN | Purdue at Maryland BTN, BTN2Go | ||
| Minnesota at Penn State BTN, BTN2Go | |||
| Tulane at UMass NESN | |||
| 4 ET | #9 Texas A&M at South Carolina SEC Network, WatchESPN | SJSU at New Mexico Root Sports | |
| 5 ET | Oklahoma at #21 TCU Fox, Fox Sports Go | Troy at Idaho WatchESPN | |
| 6 ET | #18 Utah at Cal Pac-12 Networks | ODU at Charlotte ConferenceUSA.com | |
| WATCH THIS | Maybe watch this | This is a football game | |
| 7 ET | Memphis at #16 Ole Miss ESPN2, WatchESPN | Kentucky at #1 Alabama ESPN, WatchESPN | |
| USF at Cincinnati ESPNU, WatchESPN | FAU at FIU beIN Sports | ||
| WMU at CMU CBSSN | UTEP at LA Tech ASN | ||
| Houston Baptist at WKU WKUSports.com | |||
| 7:30 ET | Missouri at LSU SEC Network, WatchESPN | Marshall at Pitt ACC Network, WatchESPN | |
| Incarnate Word at Texas State WatchESPN | |||
| 8 ET | #3 Louisville at #5 Clemson ABC, WatchESPN | #17 Michigan State at Indiana BTN, BTN2Go | UL Lafayette at NMSU WatchESPN |
| #19 SDSU at South Alabama ESPNews, WatchESPN | |||
| 8:30 ET | Arizona State at USC Fox, Fox Sports Go | ||
| 9:30 ET | Oregon at Washington State Pac-12 Network | ||
| 10:15 ET | Utah State at #24 Boise State ESPN2, WatchESPN | ||
| Wyoming at Colorado State ESPNU, WatchESPN | |||
| 10:30 ET | Arizona at UCLA ESPN, WatchESPN | Fresno State at UNLV CBSSN | |
| Midnight ET | Nevada at Hawaii Oceanic PPV | ||
| WATCH THIS | Maybe watch this | This is a football game |
Notes, as always, on the WATCH THIS games:
- This is our first extremely noon slate of the year. There’s no great early choice. I’m recommending Texas-Oklahoma State as your starting point, because both these volatile teams have gone 1-1 in down-to-the-wire thrillers already, and last year’s game was memorable for Texas fans — Texas fans! — finding evidence of a Big 12 conspiracy against Texas. Texas! The Longhorns!
- Business picks up in the middle shift, with likely the biggest Big Ten cross-division game until the conference title match. If Stanford-Washington was too gloriously punty for you, just know that you are not cut out for Wisconsin-Michigan.
- Oklahoma-TCU’s lost a lot of shine and is in a weird time spot, but both teams remain Big 12 contenders, IMHO, and there aren’t many of those to choose from.
- Louisville-Clemson is, on paper, the biggest game of the year so far, but also the best. The Cardinals rank No. 1 in offense, the Tigers rank No. 1 in defense, and now a Clemson defender is talking some stuff about Lamar Jackson. Orange Death Valley will be quaking.
- Options dim in the late shift, but Arizona-UCLA should get sufficiently stupid, and then BIG BOB KEKAULA hauls you all the way to Sunday morning via Hawaii’s first East Coast midnighter of the year. (Is Nevada-Hawaii important? Yes; it’s a football game.)
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Trump & Clinton debate Louisville-Clemson
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