Michigan Football: Viewing Guide to Surviving the Wolverines’ Bye Week
This Saturday will be tough for Michigan football fans, but here are a few games to watch that can help you survive the Wolverines’ bye week.
No Michigan Football this week. That’s unfortunate. Yet, the college football world doesn’t stop with the activities in Ann Arbor, though. The contests get more important as the season wears on, and as the Wolverines retain their top five ranking week after week, scoreboard watching gets more fun.
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Weeks without Michigan football are a bummer, but can also be freeing; you can switch channels without fear, your day probably won’t be ruined by the outcome of any of the games, and you can do some scouting.
With that in mind, here’s what we should all be watching this week.
Noon Games
West Virginia vs Texas Tech
This is the kind of game that Big 12 teams have a habit of cruelly taking away from the college football viewing public by getting blown out. This game has all the makings of a bat guano insane shootout, featuring two coaches that will undoubtedly try to out-crazy the other.
Texas Tech ranks 3rd in offensive S&P+ and 109th in defensive S&P+, while West Virginia ranks 32nd and 56th, respectively. The over/under is 83. Red Raiders’ quarterback Patrick Mahomes has thrown for 2272 yards and 20 touchdowns and has a QB rating of 182. Every year people say “this is the quarterback from Texas Tech that’ll be able to transcend the air raid and make it on the next level” and Mahomes hasn’t been immune to that treatment. Who knows how good of a prospect he’ll end up being, but for now he’s fun as all get out:
West Virginia comes into the game undefeated after a slew of close wins and some non-Holgerson offensive numbers. The Mountaineers are nearing that point in the season where their carriage turns back into a pumpkin and they hobble to the finish line, but maybe this year will be different. The defense will get a legit test on Saturday.
Iowa vs Purdue
Don’t watch this game. Like, not even for a second. Just keep an eye on the score. Iowa has had major trouble with (fellow?) bad teams as of late and Michigan travels to Kinnick Stadium on November 12th.
3:30 Games
Nebraska vs Indiana
Is Nebraska actually a top ten team? Is Indiana actually maybe sorta kinda good? There’ll be some answers Saturday in Bloomington. Nebraska has wins over a clearly not good Oregon team and, uh, Northwestern? Tommy Armstrong Jr. is in his 183rd and final year of eligibility. Plus, Mike Reilly is such a darn nice guy.
Indiana took down Sparty at home two weeks ago and hung tough with Ohio State last week, holding JT Barrett to single digit completions. They actually look like they can play defense, which is a weird thing to say (they’re 35th in defensive S&P+ even after having played OSU!).
Still, this is Indiana so chaos will always reign.
They’re also the last game for Michigan before Ohio State.
Alabama vs Tennessee
Speaking of chaos, Tennessee. Something tells me that Alabama will not make for a good bounce back game for the Volunteers after last week’s insane loss at the hands of Texas A&M. Seriously, I feel like Saban wants to hang half a hundred on Tennessee just because they were stealing some SEC hype early in the season.
Northwestern vs Michigan State
Sparty no! Maybe they’ll lose again. Probably not. At this point their season comes down to beating Michigan.
8 o’clock Games
Ohio State at Wisconsin
This is the big one. Michigan survived Wisconsin two weeks ago in Ann Arbor and looks to be on a collision course with OSU at the end of the season. For as great as they’ve looked, the Buckeyes haven’t really played anyone outside of Oklahoma, and OU might not be as good as we think. Michigan fans saw Wisconsin up close and personal, so seeing how/if they deal with JT Barrett and Mike Weber and all the other Monstars will be really interesting. They have the linebackers and line to actually slow down the Urban Meyer attack, but whether or not they’ll be able to score any points remains to be seen.
Ohio State is a freaking juggernaut again, clocking in at 3rd nationally in overall S&P (Michigan is second) but Wisconsin (25th) is still a really good team and traveling to Camp Randall is always tough, especially at night.
Hopefully the game stays close enough to make Ohio State empty the playbook and put anything they’re saving for Michigan on tape. I don’t see that happening, but one can dream. OSU–as much as I hate to say it–is also just super fun to watch.
Too Late Games
You could go to bed after the 8 p.m., games or stay up to watch Wazzu take on UCLA at 10:30 and then Hawaii vs UNLV at midnight. If you’re the type to stay up to watch these games, you either don’t need me to preview anything or live on a volcano.
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Happy football Saturday.