College Football Schedule Week 5: Under the Radar Games to Watch

College football schedule week 5: Cincinnati Bearcats at BYU Cougars

Friday, 9:15 PM CT on ESPN

I feel like watching a late-night game in Provo on a Friday night is tradition for college football diehards. The Cougars seem to have one of these games every year (don’t fact check that), and I consider them to be must-watch. Crazy things seem to happen in LaVell Edwards Stadium, and this is BYU’s first home conference game as a member of the Big 12.

In the true, weird fashion of BYU games, that Big 12 home opener isn’t coming against one of the Big 12’s classic programs. Nope, they’re welcoming in Cincinnati, also in their first year in the league. But from a competitiveness standpoint, that’s probably for the best here.

We’ve got a couple of flawed teams in this one. BYU has uncharacteristically been incapable of running the ball, and QB Kedon Slovis has been average. If you were unaware that A. Kedon Slovis was still playing college football and B. he was now at BYU, now you know. Their defense isn’t great either.

Cincinnati puts up good yardage numbers overall on offense behind QB Emory Jones – once again, if you were unaware that A. Emory Jones was still playing college football and B. he was now at Cincinnati, now you know – but they’ve been terrible in the redzone, so the scoring isn’t there. Defensively, though, they’ve actually been fairly impressive.

I expect very little from either of these teams over the remainder of the season. But this is a pretty even matchup to ease our way into Saturday. And when flawed teams meet, dumb things tend to happen. And dumb things are fun in college football.