What To Watch: Week 9 - Buckeye Sports Bulletin

Halloween hits as college football gets its final slate of October games before hitting the stretch run of November in its 2022 regular season.

Including Ohio State’s top-15 showdown with Penn State, three ranked matchups await the college football world with some other College Football Playoff contenders on upset alert. Here are some of this week’s top games:

No. 7 TCU at West Virginia (12 p.m., ESPN): No ranked tests remain for the Big 12’s last remaining undefeated team, but a sneaky trap game awaits them on the road Saturday.

The Horned Frogs are fresh off of victories against No. 8 Oklahoma State and No. 17 Kansas State, with an offense powered by quarterback Max Duggan’s 19 passing touchdowns against just one interception. TCU ranks third in the country for total offense on the season.

West Virginia enters with a record of just 3-4, but maintains home field advantage across a time zone. The Mountaineers were dismantled at Texas Tech a week ago and will be looking for a bounce-back win. Spoiling TCU’s undefeated mark would be the highlight of their season.

No. 9 Oklahoma State at No. 22 Kansas State (3:30 p.m., FOX): Speaking of the Big 12, Oklahoma State is in do-or-die mode if it wants to make a run at a championship game appearance in the division-less conference.

The Cowboys responded to their first defeat of the season, a 43-40 shootout with TCU, by going on the road and beating No. 20 Texas 41-34 last week. They still boast the nation’s No. 3 scoring offense.

Kansas State is no easy team to handle, however, particularly on the Wildcats’ home turf. A 10-point road defeat at the hands of the Horned Frogs stands as Kansas State’s lone conference loss this year, though it did fall to Tulane earlier in the season.

No. 19 Kentucky at No. 3 Tennessee (7 p.m., ESPN): The final ranked meeting of the day features two SEC foes battling for position.

Tennessee has a Heisman Trophy contender at quarterback in Hendon Hooker and upset No. 3 Alabama earlier in the season en route to what is currently an undefeated record. The Volunteers play No. 1 Georgia next week in a game that could very well decide the SEC East race, but they can’t look past Kentucky.

The Wildcats picked up a win at No. 12 Florida early in the season to establish themselves as a threat in the SEC, and though they dropped back-to-back contests following a 4-0 start, last week brought a 27-17 win over No. 16 Mississippi State. This is a prove-it game for Tennessee ahead of their showdown with the Bulldogs.

Michigan State at No. 4 Michigan (7:30 p.m., ABC): Michigan State isn’t the same team it was last year, when the Spartans collected 11 wins including a 37-33 upset at No. 6 Michigan.

MSU has already dropped four of seven contests to kick off 2022, but the Spartans have been a thorn in the side of Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh since his arrival in Ann Arbor in 2015. Harbaugh is 3-4 against Michigan State, despite having the higher-ranked team each season except his first.

Still, Michigan has been on a roll, fresh off an off week and a 41-17 win over No. 10 Penn State the week prior. But strange things can happen in rivalry games.

Other notable games on the schedule include:

No. 2 Ohio State at No. 13 Penn State (12 p.m., FOX)
Notre Dame at No. 16 Syracuse (12 p.m., ABC)
Arkansas at Auburn (12 p.m., SECN)
Florida at No. 1 Georgia (3:30 p.m., CBS)
No. 8 Oregon at Cal (3:30 p.m., FS1)
No. 10 Wake Forest at Louisville (3:30 p.m., ACCN)
No. 17 Illinois at Nebraska (3:30 p.m., ABC)
No. 20 Cincinnati at UCF (3:30 p.m., ESPN)
Missouri at No. 25 South Carolina (4 p.m., SECN)
No. 10 USC at Arizona (7 p.m., P12N)
No. 15 Ole Miss at Texas A&M (7:30 p.m., SECN)
Stanford at No. 12 UCLA (10:30 p.m., ESPN)