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Bill Connelly, ESPN Staff Writer
Talking season is practically over and analyzing season will soon lead to having actual games to break down.
The Power 5 became the Power 4 and the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten and SEC added new teams and dramatically overhauled the landscaped the sport. The changes also turned matchups that we could only hope for in bowl games into premier, regular season, conference games.
These are the best games in each power conference that feature (a) the highest combined SP+ ratings for both teams and (b) a projected scoring margin under 10 points.
Jump to a conference:
ACC | Big 12 | Big Ten | SEC
ACC
Florida State at SMU (Sept. 28). SMU wasn’t exactly blessed with a set of dynamite home games in its first year as a power-conference team since 1995. Visits from Pitt, Boston College and California might not move the needle a ton, but this one’s huge. It will tell us if Rhett Lashlee’s Mustangs are indeed capable of making a run in their first ACC season.
Clemson at Florida State (Oct. 5). Of the last 12 times these teams have met, the winner went on to win the ACC 11 times. Seems like this one’s relatively big.
Miami at Louisville (Oct. 19). Louisville has been blessed by a pretty light conference schedule; the Cardinals do play at Clemson, but they play only two other top-60 ACC opponents, and both have to visit the stadium formerly known as Papa John’s: SMU in Week 6 and Miami in Week 8. This one could be an eliminator of sorts.
Florida State at Miami (Oct. 26). What a streaky rivalry game this has been. Miami won nine of 11 showdowns from 1985-94, then FSU won five straight, then Miami won six straight, then FSU won 10 of 12, then Miami won four in a row, and now FSU has won three in a row.
Clemson at Virginia Tech (Nov. 9). The last time a ranked Virginia Tech hosted a ranked opponent in front of a packed Lane Stadium was 2018 (No. 6 Notre Dame 45, No. 24 Tech 23). Obviously the Hokies have some work to do if they plan on being ranked in early November, but it’s on the table. This one could be dynamite.
Big 12
Arizona at Kansas State (Sept. 14); Utah at Oklahoma State (Sept. 21); Oklahoma State at Kansas State (Sept. 28); Arizona at Utah (Sept. 28). This had to be intentional. The four most high-quality and competitive games of the Big 12 conference season take place in Weeks 3, 4 and 5 of the season. Arizona, Kansas State, Oklahoma State and Utah damn near play round-robins against each other before October even comes around. (Arizona-K-State is technically a nonconference game this season)
This will serve a few different purposes. For one thing, it will create lots of early-season attention for the conference. These are massive games with obvious relevance in the expanded College Football Playoff race. It will also help to define a chaotic conference race, both by giving certain teams key tiebreaker advantages and by increasing the odds that conference favorites suffer early blemishes and potential upstarts get off to fast starts. Either way, welcome to the party, Arizona and Utah. You should fit right in.
Kansas State at Iowa State (Nov. 30). Iowa State has lost 13 of its past 16 one-score games. If fortune swings the Cyclones’ way again, then combined with massive returning production levels, they could contend. And if they do, Farmageddon 2024 could be enormous.
Big Ten
Ohio State at Oregon (Oct. 12). It’s a bit melodramatic to say that we blew up an entire conference for one game, but … this one’s going to be awfully big. These teams have met only 10 times — once in the national title game (an Ohio State win), twice in the Rose Bowl (both Ohio State wins), seven times as nonconference foes (with six games in Columbus and six Ohio State wins) — but with last year’s national title game teams facing so much turnover, the new Big Ten era starts with these two programs as the bell cows.
Ohio State at Penn State and Oregon at Michigan (Nov. 2). Well this is a hell of a day, isn’t it? Penn State gets a shot at its biggest win since about 2016, and Michigan, which will have faced a pillow-soft schedule to this point besides its Week 2 visit from Texas (and will therefore likely be 7-1 at worst), gets a grand opportunity to prove that the defending champ is still a major contender.
USC at UCLA (Nov. 23). Both of these teams start out ranked in the 20s, with USC trotting out a new quarterback and defensive coordinator and UCLA hiring a rookie head coach. But there’s at least a chance that this one has some CFP at-large stakes to add to its status as the rivalry game with the prettiest combination of uniform colors.
Michigan at Ohio State (Nov. 30). Ohio State faces all three of the conference’s other top-10 teams, but in terms of both stakes and existential crises, The Game still stands out.
SEC
Georgia at Alabama (Sept. 28). Georgia and Alabama have played each other six times in the past six seasons — four times in Atlanta for the SEC title, once in Indianapolis in a CFP championship game and once in one of the schools’ actual home stadiums. The schedule-makers don’t bring them together all that often, even if they have forced themselves into each other’s postseason plans a good amount, and since their lone regular-season meeting of late was in the COVID-affected 2020 season, this will be the first time the sport’s two biggest recent giants have played each other in a packed Bryant-Denny Stadium since 2007. Seems like a pretty big event!
Georgia at Texas (Oct. 19). This one is what Texas, the SEC and its media partners (hello) signed up for. The Dawgs and Horns have faced each other only once since 1984 — remember the “We’re back!” game? — but if projections are correct, this could be the first of two meetings in 2024. These are the two most likely teams to make the SEC championship game.
Missouri at Alabama (Oct. 26). The last time Missouri faced Alabama as an underdog of less than two touchdowns was 1978, when Bear Bryant’s Crimson Tide visited Columbia giving 12 points and pulled away for a 38-20 win. This will be the eighth game of the season for Mizzou and might be the first time all year that the Tigers are underdogs.
Georgia at Ole Miss (Nov. 9). Goodness, who did Georgia tick off in the SEC offices? The Dawgs not only drew all three projected top-8 teams not named Georgia — they drew all three on the road! They’re almost certainly good enough to win two of the three, at least, but you could have an awfully good team and still go 0-3 at Bama, Texas and Ole Miss.
Alabama at LSU (Nov. 9). SP+ is more confident in LSU than I am this season, but Bama at LSU is always going to be a mammoth encounter.