The Notre Dame Fighting Irish are back at .500 and will be looking to extend their winning streak to 3 games against Purdue on Saturday night.
At the exact same time two other games are going to be televised that both feature head to head matchups between Top 10 teams. Alabama travels to The Swamp to take on Florida and Nebraska breaks into the Big Ten with a road trip to Wisconsin.
So break out your extra TVs, warm up your DVR and prep your significant other to give up all hope of spending any time with you whatsoever on Saturday because it is going to be a busy night.
If any of you are looking for full TV schedules I suggest the link below. You can find permanent links to this one and a couple of others on the bottom left hand side of our front page under "TV Schedules."
Rankings are per the BlogPoll.
The games are after the jump.
*All times listed below are EST.
Thursday 29 September
#15 USF at Pittsburgh 8:00 ESPN
Both coaching staffs will be watching some ND tape this week as both of these teams have already tangled with the Irish this season. Both teams will also be playing on a quick turn after games last Saturday. USF is actually coming into this one 4-0 and ranked. Can Skip and the Bulls get it done at Heinz? I think so.
Friday 30 September
Utah State at BYU 8:00 ESPN
Hey check it out, BYU is playing on Friday night for the second consecutive week. Whatever.
Saturday 1 October
Air Force at Navy 12:00 CBS
The Commander-in-Chief's Trophy most likely hinges on the outcome of this game but more importantly for Notre Dame fans the Irish will face both of these option attacks in October. This is a must scout game for us here at OFD and we are putting both Burger and The Coach on it. There will be plenty of talk about defending the option around here in the next few weeks.
#16 Texas A&M at #20 Arkansas (Jerrydome) 12:00 ESPN
Both of these teams lost "big" games this past weekend so we will see who bounces back this weekend in Jerrydome. I'm thinking Big Sherm and the Ags likely have the worst hangover. Soooooooeeeeee.
Texas Tech at Kansas 12:00 FOX
Rock Chalk, Jayhawk was last seen getting run off the field by Georgia Tech a couple of weeks ago and Tejas Tech just squeaked one out against Nevada. This game will likely be a sleeper but I have yet to see Tubs and the Raiders play this year so I figure this one is worth a drive by. Man I miss the Pirate.
Auburn at #9 South Carolina 3:30 CBS
So how much longer until Stephen Garcia has one of those games where he throws a half dozen picks and makes Ole Ball Coach lose his mind en-route to a loss? I'm thinking this might be the one.
Michigan State at Ohio State 3:30 ABC/ESPN
This looks semi interesting. I would probably be a lot more interested if the Bucks had given Miami a better game a couple of weeks ago. Regardless we have moved on to the portion of the season where we want opponents that ND has already beaten to pick up W's. Here's to you Sparty!
#17 Georgia Tech at NC State 3:30 ABC/ESPN
I'll turn this on just to catch glimpses of Tah Noo Tah losing his mind as Paul Johnson's rushing machine works his linebackers over.
#13 Clemson at #12 Virginia Tech 6:00 ESPN2
This is where things start to get interesting. There is some buzz about this game in ACC ville but I just can't see Dabo and Clemson rolling into Lane Stadium and getting this one done. I ate lunch at Bud Foster's restaurant once. It was awful.
#2 Alabama at #10 Florida 8:00 CBS
Champ, Chuck and the Gators have looked pretty solid every time I've seen them this year but doing it against Bama is a whole different deal. This is a huge opportunity for Florida to jump right back into the middle of the conversation which has me pseudo intrigued. I think the Gators give Little Nicky the business for all of about two quarters before that patchwork offensive line gets exposed.
#8 Nebraska at #6 Wisconsin 8:00 ABC
I have it on good authority from my favorite Nebraska fan that they are going to get run ruled by the Badgers on Saturday night. He isn't feeling this one. At all. This game is still probably worth a look, especially in the early going. I wonder if either team will tweak their uniforms for this game in an effort to keep it from looking like an intrasquad scrimmage?
Notre Dame at Purdue 8:00 ESPN
So the Fighting Irish are rolling into Ross-Ade to take on a hapless Purdue squad that barely edged Middle Tennessee and lost to Rice before bouncing back with a trouncing of somebody called Southeast Missouri State.
This should be about as automatic of a W as you are going to find on the ND schedule this fall which means it will inevitably turn into a nail biter. I could really use a nice comfortable win with some 2's getting a lot of mop up time. Seriously.
Expect full previews from the staff tomorrow.
UCLA at #7 Stanford 10:30 FOX
For those of you that like the Pac 12 nightcap you can tune in here and watch Andrew Luck pound a few more nails into Slick Rick's coffin. I wonder who UCLA is going to go after in their inevitable coaching search?
What other games should I be trying to keep an eye on?