Best College Football Games Today on TV | 2023 Week 13

It’s been a long and winding road, but somehow, we’ve reached the end of the regular season. Over the past few months, we’ve lived and learned a lot: We saw teams enter and exit the playoff race, laughed at conferences making dumb $75 million mistakes, and appreciated mascots taking shots to the crotch.

But over at CableTV Sports, we won’t be calling it a day just because the season’s over! We’ll also be covering every conference championship, bowl game, and playoff matchup all the way to the 2024 college football national championship game in Houston.

For this week’s season-ending and jumbo-sized edition of the CableTV.com College Football Watch Guide, we’ll peek in on Rivalry Week’s best games, explore the nature of Being A Hater, and root for some last-second Thanksgiving football chaos.

Sports fandom goes hand-in-hand with disliking other teams, but Rivalry Week operates on an entirely different plane of Being A Hater. (Let’s take a moment to highlight Rudy Noorlander, a Montana man who got his jaw partially ripped off by a bear earlier this year—his family joked that he got another reason to dislike the Montana Grizzlies, which is an impressive level of dedication to the bit.)

The Game is always one of Rivalry Week’s best games because the on-field implications match the off-field vitriol, and this year’s edition of Ohio State vs. Michigan is no exception. Once again, the Wolverines and Buckeyes are entering The Game with undefeated records, top-three rankings, and a guaranteed playoff berth on the line. Ohio State’s season-long psychodrama over their two-game losing streak to Michigan will finally come to a head, while Michigan has to tune out the ample off-field noise for one more week.

(Check out our full Michigan vs. Ohio State preview, which features things like stats and actual football analysis.)

Now that Jim Harbaugh and Michigan have agreed to serve his three-game suspension, one of the game’s funniest subplots will be parsing out each fanbase’s post-game asterisks. If Ohio State beats Michigan without Harbaugh, Michigan fans will chatter about how the Big Ten kneecapped them. But will coach Ryan Day be fleeing Columbus under the cover of night if Ohio State loses to Michigan with an interim coach? Possibly!

(Being Ohio State’s coach is like those Twilight Zone episodes where a mystery button either makes you rich or teleports you straight to hell. Most people are well-adjusted enough not to press the button, which is why most people aren’t football coaches.)

This season’s been woefully lacking in playoff chaos, but if there’s any chance for a last-second upset, it’ll likely come from the Pac-2: Oregon State and Washington State. Oregon and Washington are the Pac-12’s playoff frontrunners, but they’ll have to get past their rivals before they reach the postseason.

Oregon is closing the season with ample momentum and a five-game winning streak, but the Beavers will be a tough out for them. Oregon State’s three losses this year came by a combined eight points, they kept Washington on their toes all game last week, and they won last year’s Oregon game 38–34. Washington State’s had a tougher go of things this season, as they dropped six games in a row before paving Colorado last weekend. But quarterback Cameron Ward is more than capable of making Washington’s defense work to get a win in this year’s Apple Cup.

(Last week, a court ruled that Oregon State and Washington State could take over the Pac-12 and potentially pocket more than $400 million in revenue since they’ll be the conference’s only remaining members. We’re not saying it’d be hilarious for both schools to mess with Washington and Oregon now that they’re in charge, but here are a few points in their defense:

1. Well, they’re not the ones who canceled two century-long rivalries to move to the Big Ten.
2. This wouldn’t be the worst legal advice the Pac-12’s gotten this season!)

The Big 12 standings are a logjam going into the final weekend of the regular season, but here’s what you need to know if you have a rooting interest in Texas, Kansas State, Oklahoma, or Oklahoma State:

The Iron Bowl has always been one of the SEC’s top rivalries, but the stakes are slightly muted this year. Alabama’s already locked up a berth in the SEC Championship Game to face Georgia and potentially snag a playoff bid, while the Tigers are getting rebuilt under first-year coach Hugh Freeze.

That said, Auburn’s already hit bowl eligibility, and they hit a stride in their last few SEC games before suffering an ugly upset loss to New Mexico State. The odds are stacked against the Tigers, but we’ll root for them to keep things interesting against Alabama.

(Check out our full Iron Bowl preview for stats, actual analysis, and more watch details about Auburn vs. Alabama.)

SMU and Tulane are the front-runners for this year’s Group of 5 New Year’s Six bowl spot, but both teams need some good breaks to lock down a big bowl bid. Tulane’s still sitting pretty at 10–1, but the Green Wave scraped by their past four games before soundly beating FAU—SMU could sneak into pole position if UTSA beats Tulane.

On one side of the field, Colorado’s finally reached the end of a disappointing season, and the Buffalos lead the nation in sacks allowed. On the other end of the field, Utah is third in the Pac-12 in total sacks, and they’ll face the team that incited the Pac-12’s collapse.

What’s our prediction for this game? Expect sacks, sacks, and more sacks (and for Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders to spend the entire offseason in an ice bath if he makes it through this game in one piece).