Josh Pate's 10 Biggest CFB Games Of The Year (Late Kick Cut)

Can you feel it can you feel the electricity it's very palpable in the air right now biggest games of the college football season let's just go Ohio state of Oregon is that big day October 12th is one of the five most popular wedding dates of the Season which just is again evidence that evil exists in our society couldn't be us though couldn't most of us couldn't be most of us October 12th Ohio State at Oregon here's what I get to see I get to see Ohio State and really their first big big game of the year I get to see this as a big 10 game it's conference game I get to watch Dylan Gabriel face the best defense he'll probably face all year maybe the best defense he's faced in his entire career and I get to see how good he is in other words is he a quarterback that can win those kinds of big games is Oregon the kind of team that can do that or put the shoe on the other foot is Ohio State with Will Howard recently named starting quarterback there at least officially is that the kind of team that can go on the road in this kind of environment I mean picture will Howard third and seven Aon Stadium at full throat picture the uniforms if you don't even know the names of the teams remember last year when Dan Lanning and Oregon played in that pack 12 championship game and certain people me not just me but me were very confident that Oregon would be the more physical team that Oregon would handle the ground game and they would be able to dictate terms on the ground and neither one of those ended up being true is Ohio State able to go up there and silence that Crowd by running the football down Oregon's throat that's certainly something they've worked an entire offseason to make sure never happens again that's a game I'm excited for Georgia at Bama Got Game of the Year written all over it in the SEC got one of the games of the year written all over it in the country September 28th we get this in the first month or so of the Season Saturday night in Tuscaloosa Alabama Nick Sabin and Alabama had a really good run against Kirby and Georgia Georgia's got the whole moniker of number one program in the country I believe that to be true Kirby Smart's got the moniker of number one head coach in the country I believe that to be true they've had a Bama problem so did that walk out the door when Nick Sabin walked out the door because this right here will go a long way in foretelling what the rest of the season has in store for both of those teams it's just the beauty of these sorts of games uh Georgia will have a couple more like this Bama we'll have a couple of more like this but these have been the two premier brands in this conference for quite a while now and I really don't care that Nick Sabin left because he left a monster there for kin dor to take over Kirby has long since built a monster in Athens so regardless of who the head coach is at Alabama this year this is always going to be one of the circle games in this Sport and you know what it'll really come down to talk about all the coaches but it'll really come down to the same test it came down to in Atlanta when they played last December and that's Alabama owned it Alabama's offensive line ended up owning the game enough up front to where they were able to win it and just as sure as we're coming out of fall Camp right now one of the things they probably feel best about at Alabama is their offensive line and their ability to run the ball and at Georgia this is a team with very few weaknesses in uh very first world terms though one of their questions there is are we as a lead upfront defensively as we've been in years past it's beautiful thing Georgia at Bama beautiful thing Penn State at USC is a game I've got circled also on October 12th I'm listing all these big games of the year like half of them are on October 12th by this point in the year USC has already gone to Michigan I think that's week three or week four and so we've already seen USC on the road get tested against one of the more physical teams in the country which is it's going to be the Evergreen question about Lincoln Riley teams until he does something about it and that is these teams that are bigger and stronger than you upfront do they just put you on skates or can you do something about it well they couldn't last year can they do something about it this year well then I just watched Michigan win a National Title I've watched Michigan win the big games I've seen Michigan beat Ohio state three consecutive years I had seen Penn State do that lately now we are a far cry on this show from calling Penn State overrated or James Franklin overrated that's some of the dumbest talk that happens in college football right now in fact that's how you can tell who really understands what they're watching in this sport versus who just wants to hear themselves talk because James Franklin is very properly rated Penn State's very properly rated which begs the question on the afternoon SL evening of October 12th who will be favored in this game by that time will Penn State be expected to win is this a game they go out there as a four-point favorite in and take care of business is it a game a field goal Underdog in and take care of business it's kind of a man maker game for USC they got a few of these things they got the Michigan game they got this one Wisconsin those are the kinds of games where if you're not what you need to be physically it's it's all due respect it's a little bit different than playing Washington State in Pack 12 Play because these are folks who have a different caliber of athlete o line dline and they can really humble you and embarrass you now the second part to that is USC's got one of the better wide receiver cores in the country they got potential to have one of the best passing attacks in the country I was over on the Paris style today which is our USC Message Board someone called Lincoln Riley a walking top 10 offense pretty good way to put him so Penn State we've been talking a lot about them losing those Corners to the draft and back filling them from the portal and maybe another guy that portal in last year coming along and coming of age great test for Penn State secondary so I'm looking forward to that you know what else I'm looking forward to one week before for that game is October 5th it's in Tallahassee Florida it's Clemson at FSU classic referendum game who doesn't love wh amongst us wouldn't love a good referendum game and the old referendum in the ACC is you got guys who are willing to use the transfer portal and then you got guys who aren't so willing to lean into the transfer portal I don't want to get specific I don't want to name names nor do I need to everyone knows who I'm talking about here where is Clemson by the time this game's played you may look at that and you may say October 5th what do you mean that's pretty early in the season that's true season's not even halfway over here however Clemson will have already played Georgia they're about a two touchdown Underdog against Georgia they will have already played App State they will have already played NC State last year by this time Clemson already had multiple losses on their schedule in route to a 9 and4 finish but four and four in ACC play so where are they this time this year and regardless of where they are this one will have a lot of ramifications number one because it's Clemson versus FSU but number two it's because of one way of doing things versus another way of doing things and everyone's going to draw conclusions as they kind of did last year I mean in reality it was a nip and Tuck game I think I was at Notre Dame I was out in the tailgate section at Notre Dame watching this game happen if I'm not mistaken and I mean it comes down to the wire but it didn't matter margins of of Nano fractions of inches and yet because FSU wins Mike norell is 100% in the right dabo's 100% in the wrong right or wrong that's the way people talk about this stuff so we've got that going for us we've got the conversation of who the best head coach in the ACC is going for us and if you're interested in actual football I get to see Florida State's offensive line versus Clemson's defensive line and those are two of the best units respectively in the conference next up these are in no order obviously Michigan at Ohio State November 30th last game of the regular season last week of the regular season you know how sometimes they say you can throw out the records in rivalry games our buddies over at solid verbal have long since had a very very snazzy sound effect that goes along with that phrase and a lot of times that's not true because if you look at records in rivalry games sh in ly the outcomes largely correlate with who the better team was that year who the point spread favorite was of course there are anic doal exceptions to that rule everybody knows we can go find upsets it's just that when an upset happens in a rivalry game it gets more magnified than if an upset were to happen in Ohio State versus Purdue um there a lot fewer further between but you get my point there however when I say records wouldn't matter here very few people think oh Ohio state will be out of the playoff picture come Thanksgiving week everybody thinks they'll be in it some people think Michigan will be in it some people think Michigan will already be out of it but whether Michigan is uh what would it be 10 in one or whether they're seven and four if we go into this one Ohio State's favored by 17 whatever the case may be the closer you get to kickoff the closer your mind goes back to who you picked to win the last few years and some of us there are some amongst us who picked Ohio State to win maybe two out of the last three years maybe three out of the last three years and so you start thinking to yourself well yeah this year seems like a slam dunk for Ohio State yeah everything seems to be lining up for them but man I felt confident the last few years too and it didn't go my way and then if there's a turnover early if oh State plays a little tight CU they got more on the line in terms of the future um the record doesn't really matter all that much it's the beauty of being able to talk in this game as long as you're going to play a football game you talk all you want to what About Georgia at Texas October 19th Steve sarkeesian versus Kirby Smart is one of the best matchups in the country this year now they're not on the football field but uh their respective Styles offensively defensively that is a wonderful thing to watch in terms of match up if you don't know a thing about this sport in fact if you're trying to recruit someone if you've got a loved one a spouse a significant other a wayward cousin that you're trying to bring back in the fold and you're trying to recruit them to this wonderful sport of ours just have them watch this this is Georgia in in Daryl K Royal stadium they don't need to know anything else they're watching the highest level of athleticism the sport has to offer it is a classic uniform game the environment will be off the charts Austin will be grade A Bonkers because they also have an F1 race in town that weekend and it's also a defining game for both of these teams Seasons keep in mind Texas schedules fairly favorable as favorable as it can be in the SEC Georgia's got a ton um you know as much as you can have in a 12 game season a ton of road tests or at least tests away from Athens this is one of them guess where we're going now we're going right back to October 12th voila Old Miss at LSU October 12th I think you could argue this is Lane keen's biggest test of the Year these teams these programs know each other very well no love lost here but also if you think about what the task is at hand for Old Miss this year most people would call them a failure if they don't make the playoff I would too if you look at their toughest games this is one of them they got Georgia at home later in the year you got to figure if they split those games and take care of business elsewhere they're a shoe in for the playoff now they may be able to back door their way in even if they lose both of them but they're a shoe in if they split one of them well you win this one and all of a sudden you find out how much wiggle room you have later in the season because yes kids that's a conversation we have now in college football the other thing is as we talked about the other night there is a very very big Buy Advantage here for LSU LSU is off the week before and they played this game at home this will be old Miss's either sixth or seventh consecutive game so for a game of the year normally you don't have that normally they're able to structure these by weeks like when LSU and Bama played they're both off the week before well that is not the case here this also like I said it just it determines how big games down the road are now that's the case for LSU as well but it's really the case for Old Miss what about two weeks later October 26th we got FSU in Miami now there are big games for both before this happens but it feels much bigger than it has in years past to me it feels that way uh now if you're 44 years old you can tell the younger ones what it was like growing up in an era where this was appointment television every year when the helmet grid schedule came out when you picked up the little magnet at your local grocery store and put it on the fridge when the preview magazines came out and whatnot one of the first things you did I don't care if you're canes or NES or Wyoming Cowboys if you love the sport as a whole you went and found out when FSU and Miami were playing and you circled it you made sure you didn't have anything else to do that day hadn't been that way for a while when's the last time you as an agnostic fan of these two fan bases made it a point to watch FSU Miami I think you'll make it a point to this year the best roster in the ACC is who some would say FSU some would say Clemson because that's been the answer for a while some would say Miami I think you may very well be looking at the two best here not by a wide margin because Clemson has not taken a back seat to anyone athletically necessarily but it's gone from Clemson and then the rest of the pack to at the very least you got a couple of Challengers and these may be the best here and it's again I want to emphasize this it is a premier rivalry in this sport just because they don't play it the last week of the year does not mean it's not a premier rivalry it's just that as we seen with Bama Tennessee which I'm about to talk about in 10 seconds as we saw with that when one team or in this case when both teams don't live up to the standard for quite a while then all of a sudden you've got a generation that has to be taught why a premier rivalry is called a premier rivalry hopefully we get that back speaking of the third Saturday in October Bama at Tennessee October let's see that says October 19 is that right belie I had it later in the year for some reason I had November 16th probably so because it's called the third Saturday in November uh third Saturday in October my bad so I may have it written down wrong either way Bama Tennessee is one of my favorite rivalries in college football I grew up in the South so I grew up being thought about this remember a couple of years ago last time they played this game in neand it was historic it was like a postcard for the Tennessee program and then last year Tennessee got beat competitive game Tennessee gets beat down in Tuscaloosa this one with where it falls in the schedule Colin do you have Tennessee schedule in there by the way by any chance little bit later in the year uh B Bama's got tough games as well but if you start thinking about the difference between 10-2 and 9 and3 in the SEC you start looking at games like this you start looking at the fact that Tennessee they got NC State tough game but a neutral site they go to Oklahoma in week four and then they've got a game at Georgia later in the year but outside of that they get Florida at home they get Bama at home this is the year where they get both of them at home I can't promise you the kickoff time that day but I can promise you it'll have a bright red Sharpie circled around it that's one of against one of the Premier games in the sport it disa appeared for a little while for non Bama and Tennessee fans but it reemerged two years ago I think it'll have that kind of dressing around it this year because I think both these teams will be in the hunt this year and lastly but certainly not least U versus Texas is also Saturday October 12th what game isn't this time of year or this year the payoff is worth all the talk to me uh there's been a lot of talk about how Texas and Oklahoma are entering the SEC and who enters with a better shot and who's the better program The Edge in that conversation has been mostly Texas and the vibe out of Oklahoma is yeah okay whatever are we playing the game this year yeah we're playing the game okay we really don't care what anyone says which is like the forever attitude in Norman about Texas because Texas will always get more coverage and Texas will always get more blind love thrown their way than Oklahoma will as long as they play the game then it doesn't really matter and I've been at two of the last three in this series who knows where we'll be that Saturday it's going to be one of the toughest decisions ever but they're moving that one to 3:30 they did not get my approval on that you know I love the 11: a.m. kickoff central time but 2:30 Central 3:30 Eastern is the kickoff this year nevertheless my favorite game in college football is this one at least of the ones I've been to and I am not a neutral sight guy but this is the exception one of the very few exceptions to the rule there is pound-for-pound my estimation not a better environment college football than the Red River shootout known by no other name on this program so those are 10 of the games I'm looking the most forward to this year I left out like 15 or 20 more you're all going to make arguments and I'm not going to argue with you because you're going to be right because there are more than 10 good games I just Whitted it down to that because well we were like 20 minutes to showtime and I needed to get up here to the studio [Music]