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The business of college football is bigger than ever before. As such, there’s more pressure on the top programs to provide marquee matchups early on in the at-will scheduling to bring in ratings before conference schedules take over and classic rivalries dominate the landscape.
Last week, we saw a double-header on Saturday between #11 Michigan and #17 Florida prior to #1 Alabama holding off #3 Florida St. Then on Sunday, we had #21 Virginia Tech edging out #22 West Virginia while UCLA pulled off the 34-point comeback over Texas A&M. A day later, a failed two-point conversion in the second overtime by Georgia Tech fall in a wildly entertaining game against #25 Tennessee. It was the best Week 1 slate of all time.
Now for Week 2? Nothing’s slowing down.
Instead of having things spread out, the schedule has crammed everything into the final hours tonight.
#13 Auburn at #3 Clemson at 7pm ET/4pm PT on ESPN.
#5 Oklahoma at #2 Ohio St. at 7:30pm ET/4:30pm PT on ABC.
#15 Georgia at #24 Notre Dame at 7:30pm ET/4:30pm PT on NBC.
#14 Stanford at #6 USC at 8:30pm ET/5:30pm PT on FOX.
There’s simply no way to actively watch all four games at once.
You can click across. You can put up multiple screens (the TV-laptop-iPad-phone combos is a popular option). You can DVR or find recordings on the internet tomorrow.
But there’s just no way to watch four full games and get a good feeling for QB play, O-line play, WR-CB fights and playcalls.
Welp. Who cares.
It’s four awesome games punctuated by another installment of the Safeway Bowl between North Texas and SMU on ESPN3 at 7pm ET/4pm PT that EVERYONE AT TST WILL BE TALKING ABOUT FOR YEARS TO COME.
But when that’s over, sure, I guess there’s something else to watch too.
Here’s your watch guide with full schedule, TV listing, stream options and a nod toward ¡EL ASSICO!