Game Changer: The Week 1 TV Viewing Guide

A Chronological Planner For Your College Football Saturday

Football is back, and as always, along with it comes the frustration of trying to figure out what to watch. With so many options every Saturday, it can be daunting. This is just one man’s opinion on how to optimize the day for you, your television, and your recall button.

Two things first. Number one, read my weekend preview. This may not intrinsically help you in any way, but it’ll make me feel good, so thanks. Second, go grab the Thuuz app for your phone or tablet. Thuuz will let you know when a game is coming to an exciting finish. That way, if there’s some unimportant game that gets unexpectedly fun in the 4th quarter, you’ll have an idea of when to flip over to it. Thuuz is handy and I recommend it every year specifically for football season, though it’s useful for all sports. I’m not paid to say that, but I probably should be.

Also, new this year – TL/DR shortcuts. If words are irritating, you can scroll to the time slot denoted by the big section heading, and look for bolded channels. Those are the channels to watch. If it’s bolded AND italicized, that’s your primary game at that time. Also, I assume a time of 3:30 for each game. And finally, if I don’t mention games or entire time slots, that’s my way of telling you to ignore them as well (Thuuz will let you know any corrections).

7:30 AM

Rise and shine! Georgia Tech and Boston College (ESPN2) square off in Ireland in the AM in what I have ranked as my #15 game of the weekend. Great call for Tech to schedule an international game to open the year. It’s always a little embarrassing to open to a partially full student section at Bobby Dodd because they’re all at DragonCon. Tech often makes noise in years no one expects them to, and BC had a crazy-good defense last year, so I’m not sticking you with bad football. I hope.

12:00 PM

The Greatest Opening Saturday Ever® doesn’t really reach its full head of steam until nightfall, but there are some good choices early. At noon, the far and away best choice is Oklahoma and Houston (ABC), playing at NRG Stadium in Houston. It features one of the 5 players to watch this weekend, according to Option Read’s TJ Alexander. It has FBS’s longest-tenured head coach, Bob Stoops, going against its most successful new face, Tom Herman. I think Oklahoma wins, and probably covers the 11.5 points Houston is getting, so this isn’t the pick because I think the game will be close. The game might be pretty important, though. Watch it.

As for the recall button backup, this should be a bit of a viewer’s choice. My #11, #12, and #17 games all come on at noon. #11 is Bowling Green vs Ohio State on the Big Ten Network. It’d probably be my choice for OU/UH commercial breaks. I think OSU wins by 3 scores, but I detailed the reasons in my preview as to why it interests me. If it’s close you want, Missouri/West Virginia (FS1, my #12) might be a better bet. WVU is pretty unpredictable in opening weeks, so they might win or lose by a 42-0 score for all I know, but my official forecast calls for a 5 point Mountaineer victory. Another game that might be deceptively interesting is Western Michigan/Northwestern (ESPN U, my #17). I have a projected 2.4 point advantage for NU, so that could be fun. But still, in a general sense, beware noon Northwestern games – they lull opponents and viewers to sleep.

2:00 PM

Rutgers/Washington (my #13) comes on the Pac-12 Network, if you’ve got it, but it’s only a game to be aware of. Pay attention to what happens in it, but you don’t necessarily need to set it as your new recall button game unless the 3 noon backup games are all pretty boring by 2. I’d stick with ABC and Big Ten Network.

3:30 PM

There are two great games to choose from here: LSU/Wisconsin from Lambeau (ABC) and Texas A&M/UCLA at Kyle Field (CBS). I’ve clearly chosen LSU because I’m interested in LSU in a big picture sense. I suspect they’re a title contender and I want to see how they (and their QB) look out of the gate this year. That said, I could see them winning by 3 scores, so it’s not the best pick for a close game. That would be the Aggies/Bruins game. At a neutral site, I’d give UCLA a 2 point advantage. At Kyle Field, I’m not sure. But when UCLA has the ball, there will likely be a future first round, maybe even top 10 draft pick on the field for each side.

4:00 PM

LaTech and Arkansas is my #16 ranked game, which would be great for a Friday night matchup, but unfortunately, can’t be recommended over the 3:30 games. Be aware of this game, but stick with ABC and CBS.

5:30 PM

This is where the day gets difficult. Georgia/North Carolina (ESPN, my #6 of the weekend) should be a great game with a lot of interesting aspects to keep your eye on. As a Georgia fan, I’ll be watching it. I can’t recommend it over the 3:30 games in a vacuum, so stick with ABC and CBS, but 2 hours in, if either is starting to lose interest, flip to ESPN. If the 3:30 games remain strong, head to this one when they end around 7.

7:00 PM

At this point, I’d make Georgia/North Carolina (ESPN) the primary game and go with LaTech/Arkansas (SEC Network) as the backup.

8:00 PM

USC/Alabama on ABC is my game of the weekend, so obviously it takes precedent. Let the end of Georgia/North Carolina (ESPN) be your backup game until it ends. If you have a 3rd option, I think Southern Miss/Kentucky (ESPN U) could be sneaky-good, but I wouldn’t deprive myself of more important football to watch it.

9:00 PM

As Georgia’s game comes to a close, you’ll need a new backup game. Luckily, Clemson/Auburn will replace it on ESPN, so you won’t even need to reset the remote. Keep ABC as the primary.

11:30 PM

As USC/Bama ends, you should at that point make Clemson/Auburn your top priority on ESPN. In need of a new backup game, we’ll go with BYU/Arizona on FS1, which we’ll be about an hour into by this point. Arizona is a Vegas favorite by a single point, and the two projections I usually average to create my spread have BYU winning by 9 and Arizona winning by 4, so this one could go in any direction. It’s your last notable game of the day (my #14 overall this weekend), so once things end in Jordan-Hare, just close out your night on FS1.