2016 College Football Season: 6 Weeks is short (And Forever): A Deep Dive

Alright trying something new with a supplement to the power rank predictions. I’ve decided to highlight four sets of five games broken out of two different ideas: 1) what are best & closest matchups, 2) what are the worst & most lopsided matchups. We’ll see how this goes, I need a column to write/put out on Tuesday, and I just get bored with my analysis of the weekend for the most part. So we’ll try this for a couple weeks and see what happens.

Closest Game
Home	Away	Home Rating	Away Rating	My Spread	Date	Time	TV	Rating Diff.
Texas	Baylor	3.702	8.443	0.324	29-Oct	14:30	ABC	0.324
Hawaii	New Mexico	-2.502	-0.992	0.343	29-Oct	22:59	-	0.343
Missouri	Kentucky	-2.091	2.479	-0.387	29-Oct	11:00	SECN	0.387
Florida	Georgia	12.774	12.182	0.593	29-Oct	14:30	CBS	0.593
South Alabama	Georgia State	-9.397	-8.764	0.687	29-Oct	16:00	ESPN3	0.687

We start out with the closest games of the week and the two that “matter” are Texas-Baylor and the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party (no I don’t care what they’re actually calling it). Texas Baylor is going to have all the points and probably comes down to who gets a stop at any time during the game. Florida-Georgia is always intense and with a Win Florida pulls out ahead of the rest of the SEC East by a full game. As for Missouri-Kentucky, South Alabama-Georgia State, and Hawaii-New Mexico well you can watch but they aren’t the best games just the closest.

Biggest Gap
Home	Away	Home Rating	Away Rating	My Spread	Date	Time	Channel	Rating Diff.
Texas A&M	NM State	16.958	-13.52	36.016	29-Oct	18:30	ESPNU	36.016
Oklahoma	Kansas	12.739	-13.336	31.192	29-Oct	18:00	FS1	31.192
Toledo	Ohio	6.548	-8.581	17.472	27-Oct	18:30	CBSSN	17.472
Virginia	Louisville	-2.943	17.126	-17.18	29-Oct	11:00	ABC/ESPN2	17.18
FIU	MTSU	-16.272	0.724	-15.252	29-Oct	18:00	ESPN3	15.252

The most lopsided games don’t have many surprises and should be pretty boring so think of this portion as my PSA for games to only watch out of morbid curiosity.

Best Matchups
Home	Away	Home Rating	Away Rating	My Spread	Date	Time	Channel	Average Rating
Utah	Washington	18.555	21.591	0.872	29-Oct	14:30	FS1	20.073
Florida State	Clemson	16.904	18.5	2.974	29-Oct	19:00	ABC	17.702
Michigan State	Michigan	6.454	19.023	-7.898	29-Oct	11:00	ESPN	12.7385
USC	California	17.835	7.471	14.561	27-Oct	21:30	ESPN	12.653
Florida	Georgia	12.774	12.182	0.593	29-Oct	14:30	CBS	12.478

Here we have the best matchups by average rating, and well, outside of USC-Cal there aren’t many surprises but those first two stand out as clearly the best matchups. We’ll start with the lesser of the two. Florida State-Clemson has lost some of the shine from our preseason expectations, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still a marquee matchup and one completely worth watching. For starters Clemson hasn't looked as dominant as we expected this season, and they managed to escape a scare against NC State, but on the road at Doak is still one hell of a test. For Florida State, this has become a lost season, but they’re still an extremely talented football team and I can’t imagine they’ve lost any pride in being good. The game of the week, however, is Utah-Washington. We all enjoyed making jokes about how overrated Washington was this off-season, but they’ve proven they were worth all of the hype and that Chris Peterson hasn’t lost the ability to be one of the best head coaches in college football. Utah comes in to this game having won close in every conference game against decent teams, and a loss to Cal. Utah is going to have to make this game a slog to win and I’m not sure that they have the horses to run with Washington. The rest of the best matchup slate are rivalry (USC-Cal?) games that, aside from UF-UGA, has lost their luster a bit this season. Keep an eye on USC though, they’ve played much better here recently, and that win over Colorado (yes, Colorado) certainly caught my eye.

Worst Matchups
Home	Away	Home Rating	Away Rating	My Spread	Date	Time	Channel	Average Rating
Buffalo	Akron	-21.261	-5.488	-13.703	27-Oct	18:30	ESPN3	-13.375
UTEP	Old Dominion	-18.629	-3.488	-13.342	29-Oct	19:00	-	-11.059
San Jose State	UNLV	-9.305	-12.284	4.398	29-Oct	21:30	CBSSN	-10.795
Arkansas State	ULM	-5.887	-15.472	12.067	29-Oct	18:00	ESPN3	-10.68
Fresno State	Air Force	-17.094	-2.135	-12.185	28-Oct	21:30	ESPN2	-9.6145

Again I thought this was a fun PSA for games not to watch.

So there we have it. Hopefully you liked this and found it informative primer for the week. Heading into the home stretch I might add something to keep track of the conference races, but I’m sure how I would set that up.