College Football Week 9 Games to Watch

Ken — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 11:56:44 +0000

Michigan plays Purdue; N.C. State plays Florida State.

Games to Watch on Saturday

#18 Michigan plays Purdue at noon on ESPN2. But even we Michigan fans will be keeping an eye on this week's Game of the Week, #11 Michigan State against #14 Nebraska on ESPN. Meanwhile N.C. State plays Florida State on ESPNU... looks like I'll have a lot of split-screening going on to watch all these games.

At 3:30 we get #9 Oklahoma against #8 Kansas State on ESPN. That would have been Game of the Week if I cared more about the Big 12. Meanwhile there's Illinois vs. #19 Penn State on ABC/ESPN2. The game formerly known as the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party, Florida vs. #22 Georgia, is on CBS. This game still has relevance even if both teams are slightly down this year. Navy plays Notre Dame on NBC; we'll see if Navy still has ND's number. Wake Forest against UNC on ESPNU might be a good game too.

Your primetime slate has #5 Clemson vs. Georgia Tech or #6 Stanford vs. USC (regional coverage, sigh), as well as #15 Wisconsin against Ohio State. All of these should be fun to watch.

Michigan Game Prediction: Michigan 38, Purdue 28. Purdue's defense looked good against Illinois but I'm hoping Michigan figures out that they need to run away from Purdue's talented nose tackle Kawaan Short and instead attacks the edge against Gerald Gooden, a 235-pound defensive end, or Ryan Russell, a redshirt freshman playing at the other DE spot. Meanwhile on defense I think Michigan's defensive line may struggle a bit, but Mattison will stack the box against the run and force Purdue to try to pass. There'll be a breakdown or two and Purdue will score some points, but I think Michigan maintains a lead for most of the game.

N.C. State Game Prediction: N.C. State 31, Florida State 34. Ugh. It's hard to pick against the Wolfpack in this one because N.C. State has been improving and Florida State isn't as formidable as people thought they'd be. But N.C. State has struggled to defend the pass and that's FSU's strength. With FSU playing at home, I think NCSU falls just short. Hopefully this will be a jinx though.

I'm 13-1 in predictions, by the way, with my only miss being the Michigan-MSU game.