Saturday Open Thread

Well, it’s Saturday, and it’s bowl season. You might be watching the World Cup third-place game, and Vanderbilt plays a basketball game tonight. Until then, here’s your schedule for college football today. Your first bowl pick ‘em standings update comes on Monday.

10:00 AM CT: Fenway Bowl: Cincinnati vs. Louisville (ESPN): Also known as the Keg of Nails, or just simply the Awkward Time For Scott Satterfield Bowl, this one got far more interesting when Cincinnati hired Louisville coach Scott Satterfield, who will not be coaching this game and apparently won’t even be in the stadium. However, I expect this to be brought up repeatedly on the broadcast.

11:00 AM CT: Celebration Bowl: Jackson State vs. North Carolina Central (ABC): Yeah, you’re going to hear a lot about Deion, coaching his last game at Jackson State here.

11:00 AM CT: NAIA Championship Game: Northwestern (Iowa) vs. Keiser (FL) (ESPN3): Ask parlagi about this one, he’s the NAIA expert.

12:00 PM CT: Division II Championship Game: Colorado School of Mines vs. Ferris State (ESPNU): Yeah, this sounds fun, too.

1:30 PM CT: Las Vegas Bowl: Florida vs. Oregon State (ESPN): Yep, the SEC finally got a bowl game against a Pac-12 team. This won’t be the SEC’s best, with a 6-6 Florida team on its third string quarterback after starter Anthony Richardson opted out of this game and backup Jalen Kitna got arrested for ... actually, I’m sorry, I’m being told that I do not want to put Anchor of Gold in the search results for what he got arrested for. Oregon State is 9-3 and should beat Florida. I mean, Vanderbilt did.

2:30 PM CT: Jimmy Kimmel LA Bowl: Washington State vs. Fresno State (ABC): Yeah, honestly this is probably a better game than the Las Vegas Bowl.

3:00 PM CT: FCS Semifinals: Montana State at South Dakota State (ESPN2): At 3 PM in Brookings, South Dakota, the forecast calls for 8 degrees with a wind chill of -10. YES HA HA HA YES TAKE THAT YOU WIMPS WHO THINK FOOTBALL IS AN INDOOR SPORT.

4:45 PM CT: LendingTree Bowl: Rice vs. Southern Miss (ESPN): It’s hard to think of a more Anchor of Gold bowl game than “5-7 APR team that also happens to be an academic powerhouse is playing in a bowl game in Mobile.”

6:30 PM CT: New Mexico Bowl: SMU vs. BYU (ABC): You know what, this is probably a good game too. It’s weird how many appealing bowl games are in the first two games of bowl season. It’s like they just wanted to put all the crappy ones on like Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon next week (when you’ll probably watch because what the hell else are you going to do, work?)

8:15 PM CT: Frisco Bowl: North Texas vs. Boise State (ESPN): The nightcap of the first Saturday of bowl season involves a North Texas team that fired its coach (because North Texas expects better than 7-5, apparently) and a Boise State team that is... not the normal Boise State.