For the first time in AP Top 25 history, the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in college football and college basketball play each other in the same week.
What are you doing this week? If you’re a fan of college football and college basketball, you may want to clear your schedule so you can make sure you’re available to soak in everything from this historic week in college athletics.
For the first time in the history of the AP Top 25, this week will see the No. 1 and No. 2 team in both college football (No. 1 LSU vs. No. 2 Alabama) and college basketball (No. 1 Michigan State vs. No. 2 Kentucky) play each other. That’s right, within a span of five days, you’ll see the two best teams in each sport battling it out on the gridiron and the court.
No. 1 LSU plays No. 2 Alabama on Saturday with not just SEC West title implications hanging in the balance, but the winner of this game can basically pencil themselves in the College Football Playoff. And the loser, well, they won’t win the division or the conference, but they’ll still have a chance to crack the top four of the College Football Playoff depending on what else happens around the nation over the next few weeks.
The football game is being billed as the latest Game of the Century, which is almost an annual designation at this point, but it’s definitely more intriguing and exciting than the 2011 version of the Game of the Century when these two last met as the top two teams. That game saw LSU beat Alabama in overtime, 9-6, in a defensive battle dominated by a handful of field goals. This year’s installment should see more points scored halfway through the first quarter with Heisman hopeful quarterbacks, Joe Burrow from LSU and Tua Tagovailoa leading two of the four best scoring offenses in the nation.
The 2011 game saw zero touchdowns scored but the 2019 version could see six or seven by each team. In other words, this isn’t your older brother or sister’s LSU and Alabama teams.
For the first time ever this week, there will be an @AP_Top25 No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup in both college basketball and college football in the same week.
— Kevin Pauga (@KevinPauga) November 4, 2019
No. 1 @MSU_Basketball vs. No. 2 @KentuckyMBB on Tuesday.
No. 1 @LSUfootball vs. No. 2 @AlabamaFTBL on Saturday.
Gone are the days of impenetrable defenses that stoned Leonard Fournette and Derrius Guice. Gone are the game-manager quarterbacks who couldn’t be trusted to throw the ball five yards down the field. And gone are the days of using punting as a weapon.
It used to be a chore to watch those games, for the casual fan, who doesn’t love and appreciate defense, special teams and playing for field position. This should be the game of the century that actually lives up to the hype. Clear your calendars for the 3:30 p.m. ET kickoff. And before you start complaining about the afternoon start, consider you can watch the best game of the year and have time to go out and spend the night out on the town, or watching Netflix on your couch, whatever you want.
By the way, before the main event on Saturday afternoon, you can enjoy the undercard between No. 13 Minnesota and No. 5 Penn State in a. battle of Big Ten unbeatens.
Okay, so now that you know what you’ll be doing on Saturday, we’ve got a nice early week trio of college goodness to tide you over until the weekend.
Tuesday is a packed day with football and basketball converging in New York City where the Champions Classic is taking place at Madison Square Garden.
Before No. 1 Michigan State and No. 2 Kentucky tips off, No. 3 Kansas plays No. 4 Duke. It’s like a reverse Final Four. Rather than ending the season with the four best teams to survive March Madness, college basketball starts with the top four teams in the AP Top 25. College basketball should do this every year. Guaranteeing the top four teams will be a challenge, but getting teams who are traditionally at or near the top of the college basketball rankings should be no chore. This is an awesome deal for fans to start the season with a bang, just like NASCAR does with the Daytona 500 to kick off their racing season.
Kansas, Duke, Michigan State and Kentucky could all make it to the Final Four and we can run it back in April, but for now, seeing these four teams, their Hall of Fame coaches and the star-studded lineups on the court will be a much more appealing event than playing an inferior opponent who loses by 40 points. College football has tried to stay away from those types of matchups but college basketball has it perfected. And unlike in college football, the losers of these hoops games won’t have their hopes dashed for a national championship, which could play a big reason in football programs being hesitant to schedule tough opponents to start the season.
I have a better idea who will win the college football game, although, it does hinge on the health and availability of Tua, but I have absolutely no idea who is gonna win either of these basketball games. And that’s why I’m so pumped to order a pizza and spend all night on the couch watching these four heavyweights go up and down the court and see who really is the best team in the nation.
But wait, there’s more!
As if the No. 1 and No. 2 teams playing in college football and basketball in the same week for the first time wasn’t enough. And if the No. 3 and No. 4 teams in hoops wasn’t a nice kicker. And if the undefeated battle between Minnesota and Penn State wasn’t a nice cherry on top. We’ve also got the unveiling of the first 2019 College Football Playoff rankings.
The rankings will be unveiled during halftime of the Kansas-Duke game on ESPN at about 8 p.m. ET. There are five undefeated teams lumped at the top competing for four spots. The playoff committee can always go rogue from the AP Top 25 or Coaches Poll so it’s hard to really know what they’re gonna do, but we have a pretty good idea.
LSU, Alabama, Ohio State, Clemson and Penn State make up the AP Top 5 and four of those will definitely be in the playoff rankings. Sorry, Minnesota and Baylor but your undefeated resumes are going to be snubbed for the time being. I think it’ll be Ohio State, LSU, Alabama and Clemson in that order with Penn State on the outside looking in and Georgia coming in at No. 6. It’ll generate a lot of debate on the internet and on social media, which will be pretty insufferable, but that’s why you should watch Michigan State-Kentucky to avoid all that noise.
And Saturday’s LSU-Alabama game will really decide who will be No. 1 in the following week’s playoff rankings. Whoever wins that game, will have the biggest win of the year, and it may not be topped the rest of the way unless Penn State blows out Ohio State by 21-plus points in two weeks.
Dueling No. 1 vs. No. 2, a bonus No. 3 vs. No. 4, playoff rankings unveiled and a Big Ten battle of unbeatens sounds like college sports nirvana to me.
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