Week 5 of the college football season starts to bring us some tasty conference matchups. Ohio State at Penn State leads a great slate of games.
Last week was a bit of a soft slate for the Top 25, but that can’t be said about Week 5. You should cancel all of your non-football plans for the weekend. There are intriguing matchups all over the place on Saturday.
Ohio State at Penn State is the marquee matchup of the weekend. Urban Meyer is back in the saddle with the Buckeyes, but James Franklin will have the Nittany Lions whipped into a frenzy for the Big 10 matchup. Even if you don’t have a rooting interest, that game will be must-see television.
If you’re not interested in that game, let us suggest Stanford at Notre Dame. The Cardinal pulled out a miracle win at Oregon on Saturday night which makes this game an influential matchup in terms of the College Football Playoff. The winner will put themselves in great shape to take a run at a national championship.
Truthfully, there are too many interesting matchups to detail here. Keep reading and set your weekend schedule for yourself. There’s plenty to choose from. As always, our projected winners are in bold.
College Football Week 5 Top 25 TV Schedule and Predictions
Thursday, Sept. 27
- North Carolina at No. 16 Miami – 8 p.m., ESPN
Saturday, Sept. 29
- Louisiana at No. 1 Alabama – Noon, SEC Network
- Syracuse at No. 3 Clemson – Noon, ABC
- No. 12 West Virginia at No. 25 Texas Tech – Noon, ESPN2
- Central Michigan at No. 21 Michigan State – Noon, Fox Sports 1
- Tennessee at No. 2 Georgia – 3:30 p.m., CBS
- Baylor at No. 6 Oklahoma – 3:30 p.m., ABC
- Pitt at No. 13 UCF – 3:30 p.m., ESPNU
- No. 18 Texas at Kansas State – 3:30 p.m., FS1
- Southern Miss at No. 10 Auburn – 4 p.m., SECN
- No. 14 Michigan at Northwestern – 4:30 p.m., FOX
- Florida at No. 23 Mississippi State – 6 p.m., ESPN
- Virginia Tech at No. 22 Duke – 7 p.m., ESPN2
- No. 4 Ohio State at No. 9 Penn State – 7:30 p.m., ABC
- No. 7 Stanford at No. 8 Notre Dame – 7:30 p.m., NBC
- No. 20 BYU at No. 11 Washington – 7:30 p.m., FOX
- South Carolina at No. 17 Kentucky – 7:30 p.m., SECN
- Ole Miss at No. 5 LSU – 9 p.m., ESPN
- No. 19 Oregon at No. 24 Cal – 10:30 p.m., FS1
As you can see, there’s wall to wall football worth watching on Saturday. In other words, this is not the weekend to take your kids to the museum. Fake sick if you have to, but make sure you can consume a lot of good games this weekend.
One sneaky game you should watch is South Carolina at Kentucky. If you haven’t seen the Wildcats, they are really, really good. The Gamecocks are coming off a nice win against Vanderbilt, but they’ll struggle with Kentucky’s physicality in front of what should be a great atmosphere in Lexington.
What game are you most excited about? Let us know in the comments below. There are no wrong answers, that is unless you pick Louisiana at Alabama. Not even Nick Saban is excited about that one.