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Michigan and Penn State are two of the most successful college football programs. This weekend, the two schools will face off with College Football Playoff implications.
As the Week 8 marquee matchup, the #16 Wolverines hope to knock off the #7 Nittany Lions. This is a rivalry in which the home team has typically prevailed in recent history, including Michigan winning eight of the last nine home games in the series.
Our Games of the Week include Florida at LSU, Texas vs Oklahoma and Michigan State at Wisconsin.
You can subscribe to our college football newsletter to see our picks for these and other games, along with our Power Ratings for consulting when deciding your own picks.
The Gators are riding high after beating Auburn, moving up three spots in the AP Top 25 while the Tigers fell 5 spots to #12.
Our Games of the Week should offer some excitement and shake up the Top 25.
“Clemson could be knocked off,” said Kickoff Editor Tommy Duff. “Texas A&M is on the rise. And Ohio State has to be careful as Cincinnati Is a very good team.”
He expects Texas A&M to give the Tigers their first real test of whether the National Champions are capable of defending.
Both teams in this weekend’s marquee game of Week One in college football, #11 (#13) Oregon and #16 (#18) Auburn, have hopes of reaching the College Football Playoff. For one of them, that dream may die.
As we write this on Friday afternoon, we anticipate tonight’s 7 pm ET kickoffs of #18 (#17) Michigan State versus unranked Tulsa in East Lansing and #19 (#25) Wisconsin taking on South Florida in Tampa. A quick reminder that our poll may vary from AP’s rankings and are specified in parentheses next to the AP ranking.
Top-ranked Clemson started its season on Thursday with a convincing 52-14 win over Georgia Tech while #17 (#26) UCF made a statement by taking out Florida A&M 62-0. Texas A&M (ranked #12 by AP, #15 in the Kickoff Top 50) dominated unranked Texas State 41-7 and #14 (#10) Utah took care of unranked BYU 30-12.
With the regular season ending and bowl games starting, it’s time to reflect on where schools stand and what lies ahead for some of them. Kickoff Editor Tommy Duff offered his thoughts on 2018 college football. Our final regular season issue, the Bowl Wrap Up issue, will come out January 9th!