College Football Coverage: SEC Has Good Games Beyond The Glitter

The marquee games of the college football Week 5 card are the quartet of LSU-Georgia, Oklahoma-Notre Dame, Ole Miss-Alabama and Wisconsin-Ohio State. But underneath the glitter are lot of games worth at least checking out, especially with more conference games now on the docket.

It starts Thursday night with Virginia Tech-Georgia Tech (7:30 PM ET, ESPN), continues on Friday with Utah State-San Jose State (9 PM ET, ESPN) and moves into an interesting day up and down the card on Saturday.

TheSportsNotebook’s college football coverage will be back later this week with a look at the four marquee games. For now, let’s whet our appetites with a look at the most notable games on the undercard, going conference-by-conference, here looking at the SEC…

SEC: There’s an East-West combo on the ESPN family of networks at 7 PM ET. Johnny Manziel takes Texas A&M into Arkansas, where the Hogs are coming off a close loss to Rutgers and are likely to miss quarterback Brandon Allen. Arkansas coach Bret Bielama makes his SEC debut here and probably gets about 500 yards of offense dropped on him by Johnny Football for the ESPN2 audience.

The Florida-Kentucky game will be on ESPNU and is unlikely to be a lot better, but there is more long-term significance here. With Jeff Driskel out for the year as Gator quarterback, the job now goes to Tyler Murphy. We’ll find out if this is a situation that ends up spurring Florida to getting some offensive productivity, because right now they are several lengths behind Georgia and South Carolina as a legitimate contender in the SEC East.

Speaking of South Carolina, the Gamecocks go to Central Florida (Noon ET, ABC). UCF just knocked off Penn State on the road a couple weeks ago, so this isn’t a gimme game. And another SEC East team, Missouri, hosts Arkansas State. The Tigers had a nice win over Indiana, but Mizzou really needs to get to 4-0 in non-conference play and the Red Wolves won’t be an automatic W. 

OTHER COVERAGE OF THE WEEK 5 COLLEGE FOOTBALL UNDERCARD
Pac-12: An Interesting Saturday Night Trifecta
Big 12: Looking To Quietly Build A Resume
ACC: Coastal Division Showdown
Big Ten: Angling For Bowl Position
Midmajors: Friday Night Out West; Saturday In The MAC