On the Line: The haters are wrong, this week's schedule is great

You'll find the list of usual suspects atop every "Best College Football Rivalries" list. Michigan-Ohio State, Army-Navy, the Iron Bowl, Red River. No one's here to argue those games are misplaced, but there's far more to the sport than those four and others close to it. Thankfully, the College Football Gods gave us mini rivalry-week in Week 2.

Let's start here: Kansas and Missouri once fought a real war against each other. It was called Bleeding Kansas and it ran from 1854 to 1861 (I'll give you one guess what it was about.) Thankfully, "only" an estimated 50 people died due to the political violence that broke out in America's pre-Civil War period, but the end result of the conflict was that Kansas was admitted as a free state over (some) Missourians' literal dead bodies. KU's Jayhawk nickname was born out of this period, and the relationship continues every day given that the city they share, Kansas City, is the largest in each state. 

More than 150 years later, Kansas and Missouri meet for the 120th time (3:30 p.m. ET, ESPN2) on Saturday in Columbia. This game, known as the Border War and born in 1891, was tied with Wisconsin-Minnesota for the most-played FBS rivalry until Mizzou left the Big 12 after the 2011 season, and Saturday will be the first meeting since the divorce.

It's also the biggest meeting since the 2007 clash that saw No. 3 Mizzou score a 36-28 win over No. 2 KU. 

Kansas looked impressive in its 31-7 Week 0 win over Fresno State, and even more impressive in retrospect after Fresno hammered Georgia Southern last weekend. The Jayhawks are 5-1 in their last six games, pulling out of a mid-season funk that saw them drop five 1-score games amid a 1-6 stretch. Mizzou is 22-5 since the beginning of the 2023 season, but how many of those wins are truly impressive? Eli Drinkwitz's teams beat a pair of top-20 foes in Kansas State and Tennessee in 2023, but its most impressive win in 2024 was a Music City Bowl victory over 8-5 Iowa. A win over KU wouldn't increase Drinkwitz's ranked win total, but, c'mon.

"Our team is fully aware of the importance of this game to our fans, the state, what it represents nationally, and what it represents in a historical significance. We've embraced it, we understand it, we've taught about it, we've made sure our team knows about it," Drinkwitz said.

Added Mizzou starting quarterback Beau Pribula, "I thought it was just a sports rivalry, but I guess it's not."

You guessed right, Beau.

There's another big-time Midwest rivalry on Saturday, too. Quick story time: in high school, I was privileged to attend the College World Series with my father, the great Dave Barnett, an ESPN play-by-play announcer at the time. In the ESPN booth with us were a few college interns. When one of the interns, an Iowa State student, learned that her counterpart attended Iowa, she immediately filled the room with a booming, "CYCLONE STATE!" This came out of nowhere to the rest of us, given that it was in the middle of June and was maybe not totally appropriate given the workplace setting, but Iowa State had beaten Iowa in football the previous fall, so what's a girl to do? She just had too much Iowa State in her.

Iowa has been a Hawkeye State far more often than not lately. Matt Campbell is 2-6 in CyHawk games, with both wins coming at Kinnick Stadium. No Cyclone fan is going to turn down a win in enemy territory, but that means Iowa State hasn't beaten their in-state rivalry in their home stadium since 2011. “There is so much energy around this game,” Campbell said. “The home team probably feels that a lot more, just because you’re living in it from Thursday, Friday to Saturday.”

Maybe so, but a win doesn't feel like too much to ask from Campbell here. 

Here's some expert analysis: in a game almost guaranteed to be close (the largest margin since 2017 is 10 points), quarterback play will decide the game (noon ET, Fox). We know what ISU has in Rocco Becht. What does Iowa have in Mark Gronowski? He was arguably the best QB in FCS over the past three years, but that wasn't evident in his 44-yard performance against Albany. 

A non-conference G5 series with six all-time meetings is one of college football's most under-rated rivalries. Seriously? Seriously. If familiarity breeds contempt, UTSA and Texas State have plenty of both despite the series' 5-1 all-time record, in favor of UTSA. The two sides of the I-35 Showdown are just an hour apart and compete against each other for students and football players alike.

Texas State has played football since 1904, UTSA didn't start until 2011. Still, it didn't take long for the Bobcats and Roadrunners to meet on the field -- UTSA beat Texas State 38-31 in 2012, and won four more times over the intervening years until Texas State finally struck back with a 49-10 blowout win in San Marcos last year. Now, they look to score their first win at the Alamodome. 

This is probably the best both teams have been at the same time, as both are expected to contend for their respective conference titles. With Texas State set to join the Pac-12 next year, the Bobcats should be further able to cut into UTSA's lead, assuming both programs hold on to their coaches in the near-term. (FootballScoop covered the special relationship between UTSA's Jeff Traylor and Texas State's GJ Kinne back in 2022.)

UTSA hopes to break its home attendance record with more than 56,743 packing the 'Dome, a place where the home team is 29-3 under Traylor. There should be plenty of Texas State fans in the building, simply because they can't watch the game (3:30 p.m. ET, ESPN+) at home on regular TV. "It's crazy to me this game is not on ESPN," Kinne said. "Why would you not put this game on ESPN? It's going to be the best G5 game of the year. I hope, at least."

There's no contempt like the contempt between different Christian sects. I'm not one of those "long live the SWC" people -- I'm not sure college football is better with annual Texas-Rice games -- but the intra-conference rivalries are part of the fabric of college football, and that fabric is tearing this year. SMU, TCU and Baylor are all within an hour and a half's drive of each other, and all of them used to meet each fall on the gridiron to decide who was the Lord's chosen (or something like that). TCU and Baylor still play annually within the Big 12, but TCU will stop playing SMU after their Sept. 20 meeting, and Saturday's Baylor-SMU (noon ET, The CW), marks Baylor's first trip to Dallas since 2015 and its only scheduled meeting for the foreseeable future.

“My first 10 years of my life, it was the Southwest Conference,” Rhett Lashlee said this week. “In Arkansas when you grew up, it was you and all the Texas schools. You’d come to Dallas to Reunion Arena for the Southwest Conference tournament. The Cotton Bowl was the bowl. It was the prize.”

“That was the college football that I grew up with,” Dave Aranda added.

“There’s an urgency to win,” SMU offensive coordinator Casey Woods told the Dallas Morning News. “There’s obviously an urgency to win against opponents that we recruit against and that we have shared fan interests. In a city like Dallas where there’s a lot of those other schools’ graduates, I think that there’s certainly some urgency for us.”

For the record, Baptists (whom Baylor represent) give more autonomy to each local church and practice baptism by fully immersing an individual who has accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and savior. Methodists have a more top-down structure where pastors are appointed by the regional hierarchy, and practice baptism by sprinkling holy water onto the head of the receiver, most often a baby. I'm excited to see God communicate his favor through Lashlee's third-down and red zone offense against Aranda's defense.

Oh, as for the big game of the week. We're nearly 1,500 words into this piece and just now getting to the game of the week. College football is the best.

No one really knows what No. 15 Michigan nor No. 18 Oklahoma have in their quarterbacks, which makes Saturday night (7:30 p.m. ET, ABC) so darn exciting. Michigan's Bryce Underwood is more physically talented, but mentally green. OU's John Mateer is the opposite, though he's no slouch physically.

Brent Venables will attempt to do to Underwood what Matt Patricia did to Arch Manning last week, so the line play will decide this game. If Michigan's offensive line can't bully Oklahoma's front, it's really hard to see the maize and blue winning this game. Meanwhile, OU ran for only 103 yards on 3.2 a pop with a long of 12 against Illinois State last week. The crimson and cream don't seem concerned, largely relying on a pair of true freshman O-linemen who didn't play last week to straighten things out this week. We'll see.

Additional games:

-- No. 11 Illinois at Duke (noon ET, ESPN): How about a September Illinois-Duke game where the loser will be legitimately disappointed in the outcome? Illinois is 11-3 since the beginning of last season, while Duke is 27-13 since 2022. Duke paid a reported 2-year, $8 million deal to pull Darian Mensah away from Tulane; you don't outlay that kind of cash to lose games like this.

-- East Texas A&M at No. 14 Florida State (noon ET, ACC Network): It's not going to happen, but can you imagine the mess we'd have if East Texas A&M -- who didn't join DI until 2022, and went by Texas A&M-Commerce until last year -- owned a transitive property win over Alabama?

-- Kennesaw State at No. 23 Indiana (noon ET, FS1): This is the sixth of 19 consecutive IU non-conference games against G5 or FCS opponents. 

-- Virginia at NC State (noon ET, ESPN2): A non-conference games, because 17-team conferences stretching literally from coast-to-coast makes perfect sense.

-- Utah State at No. 19 Texas A&M (12:45 p.m. ET, SEC Network): Texas A&M is 1-0 all-time against the Utah State Aggies and 2-0 against the New Mexico State, but the Texas A&M Aggies have beaten themselves plenty of times in their history.

-- Oklahoma State at No. 6 Oregon (3:30 p.m. ET, CBS): The foot injury suffered by Hauss Hejny means this will be the seventh straight season in which Oklahoma State starts multiple quarterbacks. Backup Zane Flores makes his debut on the road at Autzen Stadium as a 4-touchdown underdog. On the surface, the only thing interesting about this game is Dan Lanning vs. Mike Gundy's war of words on money in college football. "We spend to win," a grinning Lanning said. "Some places save to have an excuse for why they don't."

-- No. 20 Ole Miss at Kentucky (3:30 p.m. ET, ABC): Last year, Ole Miss averaged 55 points a game and 8.85 a play against a soft non-con schedule before Kentucky stopped the Rebels in their tracks in the most shocking upset of the 2024 season (yes, even more than Vandy over Alabama and Michigan over Ohio State). Kentucky has lost its last nine SEC games to everyone other than Ole Miss. The Wildcats should have the Rebels' full attention.

-- West Virginia at Ohio (4 p.m. ET, ESPNU): As pointed out by our John Brice as he reported his all-access piece from this spring, Ohio has had this game circled for a while. The Bobcats hosted Iowa State in 2023 so it's not that rare to see a Power 4 team at Peden Stadium, but WVU hasn't made the 150-mile trip to Athens since 2001.

-- South Florida at No. 13 Florida (4:15 p.m. ET, SEC Network): It may not carry the cachet of some other in-state games mentioned above, but winning at Florida Field would instantly shoot to the top of USF's 176 all-time victories. The Bulls have won at Miami and at FSU but never at UF (the Bulls and Gators have only met three times previously). "We need as many USF fans there as we can get, and be as loud as you possibly can be, and if the result is what we want it to be, they'll be in the office splattering green and gold and black all over the place, so it'll be awesome," USF head coach Alex Golesh said this week.

-- Arkansas State at Arkansas (5 p.m. ET, SEC Network+): It only took 50 years after Arkansas State joined Division I for the first Arkansas-Arkansas State game to happen, but credit to the Hogs for scheduling this game, and double credit for playing it in Little Rock. “I think certainly we’re the ones with the pressure on us. I wouldn’t think that they would have it. That’s the reason I’m assuming it’s the first time we’ve ever played, because most of the time it would be our decision whether to play that game or not," Sam Pittman admitted. A loss here would instantly surpass the 545 previous setbacks Arkansas has endured so, again, credit to the Razorbacks for playing this game. Now don't lose.

-- North Carolina at Charlotte (7 p.m. ET, ESPN+): Speaking of in-state, P4 vs. G5 games, anything extra on the line here for the visitors? Charlotte lost by 23 to App State in head coach Tim Albin's debut, which means that game went about three touchdowns better than Bill Belichick's premier. 

-- Houston at Rice (7 p.m. ET, ESPN+): Another final scheduled meeting of a historic SWC rivalry, Houston and Rice's Bayou Bucket series was interesting because these schools lie four miles apart geographically in America's fourth largest cities, but lightyears apart culturally. On the football field, that means U of H owns a 34-12 lead over Rice and has won eight of the last nine. 

-- No. 12 Arizona State at Mississippi State (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN2): Mississippi State survived its trap game at Southern Miss, and now the Bulldogs are looking to spring their own trap on Arizona State. I'm not bold enough to pick Mississippi State to win this game outright, but I wish I was.

-- Vanderbilt at Virginia Tech (7:30 p.m. ET, ACC Network): Returning home after a Sunday loss to South Carolina to play this Vanderbilt team on a short week sounds like a coach's idea of hell. It's also Brent Pry's reality. It was Frank Beamer's in 2010, when his Hokies lost a Labor Day affair to Boise State, then came home and fell to James Madison the following Saturday -- the last time VT started 0-2. That was Frank Beamer, and the Hokies went 11-1 the rest of the way. For Brent Pry, 1-5 in his last six games, a loss here would not be something to brush off. Eye discipline and ball security are the most important concepts in his life right now.

-- ULM at No. 21 Alabama (7:45 p.m. ET, SEC Network): ULM has the opportunity to do the funniest thing ever on Saturday night.

-- Stanford at BYU (10:15 p.m. ET, ESPN): Did you check out our FBS QB1 study this week? I hope you did. Bear Bachmeier is one of four Class of 2025 starting quarterbacks, except he was part of Stanford's signing class, only transferring to BYU after spring ball and Troy Taylor's March firing. In the second game of his career, he faces a team he was a part of five months ago.