College Football Watch Guide - Week 9

You know something, I think Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull gets more hate than it deserves.

Over the last couple of days I’ve been rewatching the Indiana Jones movie saga after not having seen them for some time. Raiders of the Lost Ark is the GOAT of the entire series, and one of the best adventure movies of ever made. Temple of Doom is the weakest of the original three; much darker and violent but still a great ride. And The Last Crusade has charm, humor, and adventure in spades with a masterfully executed father-son dynamic.

But Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is widely regarded as the series’ low point. Still, I can’t say it’s too far outside the standard and logic the previous three films established. If you’re willing to accept the Ark of the Covenant containing face-melting ghosts or 700 year old crusader knights kept alive with holy well water, then I can suspend my disbelief enough for dimension-hopping aliens with telepathic powers and magnetic skeletons. And if it’s Shia LeBeouf Tarzan’ing though the rainforest or Indy surviving a nuclear explosion in a fridge that get to you, remember that the series has always featured wildly outlandish predicaments (they jumped out of a plane in a life raft in Temple of Doom for Pete’s sake). Don’t get me wrong, it’s still the low point in the entire series, but it’s still whip-cracking good fun.

You may be wondering what all this has to do with college football.

It’s just I finished up my rewatch as I was working on this article and I had to take a stand not many are willing to take — #JusticeforCrystalSkull.

Anyway, on to football.

BYU is the biggest name taking the field Friday night but that’s not saying much. After starting the year strong, the Cougars have dropped their last three games. Honestly, none of these games move the needle much, but if your hometown team is either out of the high school playoffs or didn’t make it, you’ll have some way to get your football fix.

Once again right out of the gate we’ve got a great game on tap with #2 Ohio State @ #13 Penn State. The Buckeyes look the part of the #2 team in the land, but a date with the Nittany Lions in Happy Valley is not to be taken lightly. I don’t expect the Lions to come out on top, but you never know in the Big Ten.

#7 TCU has been on a tear recently and they’ll look to stay hot against West Virginia, and Iowa State returns from their bye against an Oklahoma team eager to get their season back on track. The Sooners dispatched Kansas with relative ease two weeks ago after losing three straight. The Cyclones have been trouble for Oklahoma in the recent past, we’ll see if they can grab another one.

Photo by Matthew Pearce/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

The afternoon is where things start to heat up. Seven teams in the top 25 all kickoff at 2:30 alone, so you’ll have plenty of options. Do you want to watch Florida @ #1 Georgia out of the SEC, #8 Oregon @ Cal from the Pac-12, #9 Oklahoma State @ #22 Kansas State in the Big 12, or #10 Wake Forest @ Louisville from the ACC? That’s not even taking into account the Big Ten match between #17 Illinois @ Nebraska and #20 Cincinnati @ UCF from the AAC.

Yes. Yes to all of that.

One you may not be too jazzed about is Northwestern @ Iowa. Pat Fitzgerald joked this week that with the way these two teams have played this year they ought to play the game at 6:00 am. Iowa’s offensive scheme is so ancient it belongs in a museum. It ain’t gonna be pretty, folks. Plug your nose and take the plunge with us.

Photo by Joe Robbins/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Thankfully the evening presents us with enough palate cleansers to get that bitter Hawkeye/Wildcat taste out of our mouths. #19 Kentucky visits #3 Tennessee for a major showdown in the SEC, pitting one of the hottest teams in college football against another doing its best to convert itself into a football school. Michigan State @ #4 Michigan at 6:30 could have promise. Mel Tucker hasn’t quite been living up to the $95 million expectations this year, but this rivalry has provided some fantastic games in the past. Hopefully, we get another one here.

#15 Ole Miss @ Texas A&M, Pittsburgh @ #21 North Carolina, and Baylor @ Texas Tech ought to provide some offensive spectacle — the good kind of offensive, not the Iowa kind of offensive — and the late night window is filled with mid major action with San Diego State @ Fresno State, Nevada @ San Jose State, and Wyoming @ Hawai’i serving as the nightcap.

And that’s a wrap on week 9. Have yourselves a fantastic weekend of football, and give Kingdom of the Crystal Skull another chance if the Northwestern game takes a turn for the worse.