College football: 5 things to watch this weekend
GameDay to Temple
ESPN held hostage the thousands of WSU fans hoping that “College GameDay,” the popular pregame show, would make its first visit to Pullman for Saturday night’s game against No. 8 Stanford. But alas, GameDay is going to Philadelphia for No. 21 Temple’s game against No. 9 Notre Dame, shunning WSU once more. The good news for Cougars fans: WSU is still playing a nationally televised game against a top-10 team. And that figures to be slightly more entertaining than a pregame show that airs at 6 a.m.
Miami speculation
Add another coaching vacancy to the classifieds. Miami fired coach Al Golden last week, leading to speculation that anyone from James Franklin to Dana Holgorsen to Rich Rodriguez might be interested in the opening. You know the drill: Everyone is flattered, everyone is happy with the job they currently have, and so on and so forth. But with openings now at USC and Miami, there could be some high-profile shuffling at season’s end.
Added difficulty for Baylor
Seth Russell, the starting quarterback for second-ranked Baylor, will miss the rest of the season after injuring his neck last week against Iowa State. The Bears will turn to backup Jarrett Stidham, a redshirt freshman, to guide them on their quest for a spot in the College Football Playoff. It won’t be easy: Baylor’s schedule has been soft so far, but the unbeaten Bears finish the season with three games against top-15 competition — vs. No. 14 Oklahoma, at No. 12 Oklahoma State and at No. 5 TCU.
McCaffrey stock climbing
LSU running back Leonard Fournette is still very much the frontrunner in the Heisman Trophy race, but Stanford running back Christian McCaffrey continues to state his case. After the sophomore totaled 300 all-purpose yards against the Huskies last week, McCaffrey now ranks third in ESPN’s “Heisman Watch” poll, trailing Fournette and TCU quarterback Trevone Boykin. McCaffrey remains on pace to break Barry Sanders’ NCAA record of 3,250 single-season all-purpose yards set in 1988. (Sanders, incidentally, won the Heisman that year.)
Top games
It’s a light week for heavyweight matchups. The aforementioned Temple-Notre Dame game is the only in the country this week that features two teams ranked in the AP top 25 poll (which might be why ESPN so strongly considered sending GameDay to WSU despite the Cougars not being ranked). Keep an eye on No. 12 Oklahoma State’s visit to Texas Tech, and unranked Georgia at No. 11 Florida.
christian.caple@thenewstribune.com
This story was originally published October 28, 2015 at 4:36 PM with the headline "College football: 5 things to watch this weekend."