Brett Ludwiczak
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You’re Nuts: Aside from Ohio State-Oregon, which Oct. 12 game are you most hyped for?
Brett Ludwiczak via our friends at Land-Grant Holy Land
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here
Photo by William Purnell/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Your (almost) daily dose of good-natured, Ohio State banter.
Saturday, Oct. 12 is setting up to be one of the wildest days in college football history. Saturday in the Big Ten will be headlined by Ohio State and Oregon battling for the first time as conference foes. It’s crazy that the game between Penn State and USC will essentially be playing second fiddle on the week’s Big Ten schedule. The Nittany Lions won’t be the only Big Ten team heading to the Los Angeles area, as Minnesota makes the trip out west to take on UCLA. Rounding out the interesting games in the conference on that day is Washington traveling to Kinnick to meet Iowa.
Outside of the conference, the expansion of the SEC has pushed the annual battle between Florida and Tennessee to October. Also in the conference, there is the first SEC Red River Rivalry battle between Texas and Oklahoma, as well as the clash between Ole Miss and LSU in Baton Rouge. Kansas State and Colorado will be an important game in the Big 12, Clemson hopes they aren’t on upset alert when they head to Wake Forest, and we will have a late-night cleanser when Boise State is out in Hawai’i.
Obviously, we know Buckeye Nation will be amped for the game between the Buckeyes and Ducks in Eugene, so we are going to take that game off the table for the question. Aside from the Ohio State-Oregon game, which we could possibly see in the Big Ten Championship Game, as well as the College Football Playoff, we want to know what game you are most excited about near the middle of October.
Lucky for me, if I don’t end up in Eugene because the tickets to watch the Bucks and Ducks are too pricey, I’ll likely be on the coast in Coos Bay, Oregon holed up at a casino/sportsbook for the weekend, looking to come back east with as much money as I can. Even on a normal college football weekend, it would be great to be at a sportsbook, but this Saturday is looking like an epic college football slate.
Even though this being an SEC game is going to take some getting used to, it’s not going to change the actual on-field product. While there are some stinkers when the Longhorns and Sooners get together, more often than not this rivalry battle lives up to the hype. Of the last 11 times Oklahoma and Texas have met, nine of those games have been decided by 8 points or less, and one of the games that saw one side win by double-digits came in the 2018 Big 12 Championship Game. Plus, during that span, there have been a few meetings where the lower-ranked (or even unranked) team has pulled the upset against their rival.
Another reason this is on the top of my list for this day’s matchups is the game is moving from its normal noon kickoff to a 3:30 p.m. ET start. Just imagine the Sooners and Longhorns coming down to the wire before the Buckeyes and Ducks kickoff. Normally there might be some concerns about the game bleeding into the Ohio State-Oregon game, but with some of the new clock rules there likely would be a little time for viewers to regain some of their bearings before the game starts in Eugene, assuming the Bucks and Ducks end up with a 7:30 or 8 p.m. ET time start.
All this and I haven’t even really gotten into what we might see on the field this year from both teams. Texas is looking to build off their CFP semifinal appearance last year and will return quarterback Quinn Ewers. On the other side, Oklahoma will be trying to prove that the results of their demise are exaggerated, as there have been questions about where their standing in the SEC will be. The Sooners have a brutal schedule in their first season in their new conference.
A loss in the Red River Rivalry isn’t as debilitating as it used to be because of the expanded playoff, but in a conference as loaded as the SEC, it definitely isn’t ideal. Then again, these teams could come into this game with no wins and the action would still be “must-see TV”. I know there are a bunch of other great games this Saturday, but this is the one outside of Ohio State vs. Oregon that I’m most looking forward to.
Brett picked a really good matchup, and I am almost positive that one of the other games on the schedule will end up being a sneaky good game by the time mid-October rolls around; something like Florida vs. Tennessee or Ole Miss vs. LSU could end up sneaking in and upsetting my apple cart here, but I’m going with the Nits vs. The Men of Troy. It won’t be the first time that USC plays host in a Big Ten game — Wisconsin comes to town on Sept. 28 — but with all due respect to Luke Fickell’s crew, it will be the first time that the Colosseum welcomes a legit playoff contender from the Big Ten for a conference contest, and I think it will be a very telling matchup between these two teams that I expect to be at the top of the second tier in this year’s B1G hierarchy.
Southern Cal will already have games against LSU, Michigan, and Wisconsin under its belt by Oct. 12, so we should have a decent idea as to who they are this season. But Penn State’s best games over the first six weeks of the season will have been against WVU, Illinois, and UCLA. I suppose that if Nits struggle in any of those games that will tell us quite a bit, but I don’t expect that to happen. So this game should be the first real opportunity that we have to see if James Franklin has found a way to get his team over the hump that has been holding them back since he got to Happy Valley, or if they are, in fact, still a second-rate B1G team.
Now for the Trojans; if USC does lose one of its marquee games before PSU comes to town, that won’t be a death knell on its season, given the expanded College Football Playoff, but if they do drop a game to the Bayou Bengals, Corn and Blue, or the Badgers, that would make this game a virtual must-win, not even halfway through the season. USC’s schedule is insanely frontloaded, so the idea of Lincoln Riley’s team being effectively eliminated from playoff contention three weeks before Halloween is incredibly funny to me.
So, for a lot of reasons, aside from the Buckeyes beating up on the Ducks, Penn State vs. USC is the game that I’m looking forward to on Oct. 12, 2024.
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Brett Ludwiczak via our friends at Land-Grant Holy Land
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here
Photo by William Purnell/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Your (almost) daily dose of good-natured, Ohio State banter.
Saturday, Oct. 12 is setting up to be one of the wildest days in college football history. Saturday in the Big Ten will be headlined by Ohio State and Oregon battling for the first time as conference foes. It’s crazy that the game between Penn State and USC will essentially be playing second fiddle on the week’s Big Ten schedule. The Nittany Lions won’t be the only Big Ten team heading to the Los Angeles area, as Minnesota makes the trip out west to take on UCLA. Rounding out the interesting games in the conference on that day is Washington traveling to Kinnick to meet Iowa.
Outside of the conference, the expansion of the SEC has pushed the annual battle between Florida and Tennessee to October. Also in the conference, there is the first SEC Red River Rivalry battle between Texas and Oklahoma, as well as the clash between Ole Miss and LSU in Baton Rouge. Kansas State and Colorado will be an important game in the Big 12, Clemson hopes they aren’t on upset alert when they head to Wake Forest, and we will have a late-night cleanser when Boise State is out in Hawai’i.
Obviously, we know Buckeye Nation will be amped for the game between the Buckeyes and Ducks in Eugene, so we are going to take that game off the table for the question. Aside from the Ohio State-Oregon game, which we could possibly see in the Big Ten Championship Game, as well as the College Football Playoff, we want to know what game you are most excited about near the middle of October.
Today’s question: Aside from Ohio State-Oregon, what October 12th game are you most hyped for?
We’d love to hear your choices. Either respond to us on Twitter at @Landgrant33 or leave your choice in the comments.
Brett’s answer: Texas-Oklahoma
Lucky for me, if I don’t end up in Eugene because the tickets to watch the Bucks and Ducks are too pricey, I’ll likely be on the coast in Coos Bay, Oregon holed up at a casino/sportsbook for the weekend, looking to come back east with as much money as I can. Even on a normal college football weekend, it would be great to be at a sportsbook, but this Saturday is looking like an epic college football slate.
Even though this being an SEC game is going to take some getting used to, it’s not going to change the actual on-field product. While there are some stinkers when the Longhorns and Sooners get together, more often than not this rivalry battle lives up to the hype. Of the last 11 times Oklahoma and Texas have met, nine of those games have been decided by 8 points or less, and one of the games that saw one side win by double-digits came in the 2018 Big 12 Championship Game. Plus, during that span, there have been a few meetings where the lower-ranked (or even unranked) team has pulled the upset against their rival.
Another reason this is on the top of my list for this day’s matchups is the game is moving from its normal noon kickoff to a 3:30 p.m. ET start. Just imagine the Sooners and Longhorns coming down to the wire before the Buckeyes and Ducks kickoff. Normally there might be some concerns about the game bleeding into the Ohio State-Oregon game, but with some of the new clock rules there likely would be a little time for viewers to regain some of their bearings before the game starts in Eugene, assuming the Bucks and Ducks end up with a 7:30 or 8 p.m. ET time start.
All this and I haven’t even really gotten into what we might see on the field this year from both teams. Texas is looking to build off their CFP semifinal appearance last year and will return quarterback Quinn Ewers. On the other side, Oklahoma will be trying to prove that the results of their demise are exaggerated, as there have been questions about where their standing in the SEC will be. The Sooners have a brutal schedule in their first season in their new conference.
A loss in the Red River Rivalry isn’t as debilitating as it used to be because of the expanded playoff, but in a conference as loaded as the SEC, it definitely isn’t ideal. Then again, these teams could come into this game with no wins and the action would still be “must-see TV”. I know there are a bunch of other great games this Saturday, but this is the one outside of Ohio State vs. Oregon that I’m most looking forward to.
Matt’s answer: Penn State vs. USC
Brett picked a really good matchup, and I am almost positive that one of the other games on the schedule will end up being a sneaky good game by the time mid-October rolls around; something like Florida vs. Tennessee or Ole Miss vs. LSU could end up sneaking in and upsetting my apple cart here, but I’m going with the Nits vs. The Men of Troy. It won’t be the first time that USC plays host in a Big Ten game — Wisconsin comes to town on Sept. 28 — but with all due respect to Luke Fickell’s crew, it will be the first time that the Colosseum welcomes a legit playoff contender from the Big Ten for a conference contest, and I think it will be a very telling matchup between these two teams that I expect to be at the top of the second tier in this year’s B1G hierarchy.
Southern Cal will already have games against LSU, Michigan, and Wisconsin under its belt by Oct. 12, so we should have a decent idea as to who they are this season. But Penn State’s best games over the first six weeks of the season will have been against WVU, Illinois, and UCLA. I suppose that if Nits struggle in any of those games that will tell us quite a bit, but I don’t expect that to happen. So this game should be the first real opportunity that we have to see if James Franklin has found a way to get his team over the hump that has been holding them back since he got to Happy Valley, or if they are, in fact, still a second-rate B1G team.
Now for the Trojans; if USC does lose one of its marquee games before PSU comes to town, that won’t be a death knell on its season, given the expanded College Football Playoff, but if they do drop a game to the Bayou Bengals, Corn and Blue, or the Badgers, that would make this game a virtual must-win, not even halfway through the season. USC’s schedule is insanely frontloaded, so the idea of Lincoln Riley’s team being effectively eliminated from playoff contention three weeks before Halloween is incredibly funny to me.
So, for a lot of reasons, aside from the Buckeyes beating up on the Ducks, Penn State vs. USC is the game that I’m looking forward to on Oct. 12, 2024.
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