This Week’s Drama: Today’s Best College Football Action, Week 5

The Ohio State Buckeyes have been one of the nation’s most successful programs over the last two decades, first under head coach Jim Tressel, and then Urban Meyer. They’ve won a couple of national titles in this century and are in the mix for the playoff seemingly every year. On the opposite side, there’s their new-ish conference rival, the Nebraska Cornhuskers. Dominant from the 1970s to 1990s, they’ve seen little of the old success in recent years, even after getting sick of Texas’s act in the Big 12 and leaving for greener pastures in the Big Ten.

There’s change afoot at both programs, though, with young head coaches on both sidelines in Nebraska’s 44-year-old Scott Frost and Ohio State’s 40-year-old Ryan Day. Frost, a former Husker player, returned to Lincoln with great fanfare (an officially-declared “Scott Frost Day”, even!) last year, but went 4-8 in what was widely seen as a recalibration year. He’s got winning credentials — a 13-0 record as head coach of the Central Florida Knights in 2017 that led many of UCF’s, uhhh, enthusiastic fans to declare the team national champions. (On the one hand, college football has a long and colorful history of dubious title claims; on the other hand, no.)

Day, meanwhile, stepped in after Meyer retired (under a good bit of pressure surrounding questionable management decisions) and hasn’t missed a beat. Including a three-game tryout last season while Meyer was suspended, Day’s gone 7-0 and had the Buckeyes firing on all cylinders, outscoring four overmatched opponents this season by a margin of 214-36. This early success, coming on the heels of a few rough patches in Meyer’s in-game decision-making in recent years, has led some (ahem: me) to argue that the team might actually be better off this year with Day, a protegee of noted offensive guru Chip Kelly. (More on him in a bit.)

Frost, meanwhile, has the Huskers 3-1 this year against four relatively weak opponents; this matchup could go a long way to staking a cornstalk in the Buckeyes’ Big Ten ground and declaring that Nebraska is back… or it could be a stepping stone on Ohio State’s way to another Big Ten championship.

HOW TO STREAM: You can live stream on ABC via the “watch live” section on the ESPN website or the ESPN app, which you can download on iTunes, Google Play, and Amazon. To access an ESPN live stream, you’ll need a proper cable login or a subscription to an over-the-top internet service that carries ESPN (Sling TV, Hulu + Live TV, YouTube TV, AT&T TV NOW, and PlayStation Vue).

Urban Meyer may have handed in his badge and his gun in Columbus, but that doesn’t mean he’s giving up on this investigation. Just as his “retirement” after six years and two national titles at Florida lasted only one season, many suspect that he’s got his eyes on another prime coaching gig that could open up soon: the University of Southern California. After longtime head coach Pete Carroll fled for the NFL in 2010, before NCAA sanctions could catch up with him, the Trojans have languished between “not quite living up to expectations” and “they fired head coach Lane Kiffin on an airport tarmac, left him there, and no one really faulted them for it.” Clay Helton seemed to have them back on track by 2017, when they won 11 games and a Pac-12 title, but they regressed to a losing record last year.

They enter this weekend back in the rankings with a 3-1 start, and visit Seattle to take on the defending Pac-12 champion Washington Huskies in a real test of Helton’s ability to steady his ship. If they win, the calls for change might quiet down. If they lose? Expect USC management to spend a good bit of Lori Loughlin’s tuition money trying to lure the three-time champion Meyer to Southern California.

HOW TO STREAM: If you have a valid cable login, watch on Fox.com and the Fox Sports app (available on iTunes, Amazon, and Google Play). Depending on your location, you can also access a FOX live stream with an active subscription to fuboTV, Sling TV, YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV, PlayStation Vue, or AT&T TV NOW.

I want to admit something to you: I love a good blowout. Sure, tight, well-played games that go down to the wire are fun, but there’s just something to be said for watching one team absolutely blow the doors off another. When I would play NCAA 2003 on my PS2 in college, I’d build a team of create-a-players who were all seven feet tall, 330 pounds, and lightning-fast, set the difficulty to “rookie”, and see how many points I could score in 60 minutes.

Why do I bring this up? Well, there’s a couple of teams coming off disappointing losses last weekend who’ll have a chance to channel their frustrations onto two of the worst teams in FBS.

Michigan got badly beaten last weekend by Wisconsin, but there’s no salve for a sore offense better than the Rutgers Scarlet Knights, the Big Ten’s big folly from the conference expansion extravaganza of a few years ago. In their last four meetings, the Wolverines have won by scores of 49-16, 78-0, 35-14 and 42-7. Expect first-year Michigan offensive coordinator Josh Gattis to work out the kinks — and the anger — on the overmatched squad from Piscataway.

Similarly, the University of Central Florida Knights come into the weekend angry. They had a 25-game regular-season winning streak snapped last weekend with a loss to perpetually-mediocre but frequently-season-ruining Pitt. (A friend once described losing to Pitt as “your airbag just going off while you’re driving down the highway”). The loss probably eliminated UCF’s already-slim chances of breaking into the College Football Playoff, and who gets to experience the brunt of that anger? The Connecticut Huskies, a team that set FBS records in 2018 for most yards (617 a game!) and points (50.42 a game!) surrendered in a single season.

These games are going to be ugly, but if you’re like me, that’s a thing of beauty.

Speaking of beauty, there were few things more aesthetically pleasing in college football this century than the mid-to-late-aughts Oregon Ducks under Chip Kelly. Their point-a-minute, lightning-quick offense was appointment viewing, and even though they never won a title, they were revolutionary in their style of play (and flashy uniforms). Kelly departed for the NFL, where he had initial success, followed by a sudden cratering.

Many had hoped that a return to college and the Pac-12 would bring a return to the old flashy Chip Kelly ways, and a revival to UCLA’s staid program. Then the Bruins went 3-12 in his first season-plus in Pasadena, with no signs of the old excitement.

No sign, that is, until late Saturday night, after many East Coast viewers had gone to bed. Trailing by 32 points in the 3rd quarter to Washington State, UCLA suddenly erupted, scoring 50 second-half points to pull out a barn-burner of a 67-63 win. Much-maligned quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson threw for over 500 yard and five touchdowns, and now the question is:

Is it real? Is the old Chip Kelly magic back? Or was this just a case of Pac-12 After Dark madness in Pullman, Washington (a concept scientists are still struggling to understand). Saturday night offers a chance for the Bruins to show it’s real, when they head to Tucson to take on the Arizona Wildcats, who’ve surrendered 100 points in three games so far. It promises to be a wild one.

HOW TO STREAM: You can live stream on ESPN via the “watch live” section on the ESPN website or the ESPN app, which you can download on iTunes, Google Play, and Amazon. You’ll need a login, though.

It’s not the deepest slate of games this week, with a few of the more compelling teams (LSU, Georgia) on bye weeks, and a few others playing easier games. There’s a handful of other things to look for, though:

Trap Game for Bucky? (Northwestern at #8 Wisconsin, Noon, ABC)
Wisconsin shot up in the rankings to #8 with their confident dismantling of Michigan last weekend, and could they get caught looking ahead to bigger fish on their schedule and trip up against lowly Northwestern? Probably not, but stranger things have happened.

Where’s Hugh sitting today? (New Mexico at Liberty, 6pm, ESPN+)
One of the odder subplots of the season so far has been former Ole Miss and current Liberty Flames head coach Hugh Freeze’s vantage points for each game. While he recovers from back issues, the scandal-prone coach has coached games this season from a hospital bed in the press box, a dentist’s chair, and an orchestra stand on the sideline. Tune in to see where he is! My money’s on “lifeguard chair”.

The Rich You Didn’t Take (Ole Miss at #2 Alabama, 3:30pm, CBS)
Nick Saban’s had an unparalleled run of success since being hired at Alabama in 2007: a 150-21 record and five national titles, and a decent shot at another this year. What’s easily forgotten is that he wasn’t Alabama’s first choice that year: believing Saban was unavailable in the NFL, they instead tried to hire West Virginia’s Rich Rodriguez, who opted to stay in Morgantown. They reached out to Saban after that rejection, and haven’t looked back since.

Rodriguez, for his part, went to Michigan the next year, and was fired after three disappointing seasons. He resurfaced at Arizona, and was fired after six mediocre seasons and allegations of personal misconduct. He’ll visit Tuscaloosa this weekend as Mississippi’s offensive coordinator and probably think about what might have been. Could Ole Miss pull off the huge upset, like they did in back-to-back years in 2014 and 2015?

… no, probably not. But Nick Saban will find a way to be mad in his press conference regardless.

Happy viewing and remember: Enjoy the drama!

Scott Hines is an architect, blogger and internet user who lives in Louisville, Kentucky with his wife, two young children, and a small, loud dog.