National Football League

A '5-Minute Guide' to your football weekend (college/pro)

Published Oct. 3, 2014 5:00 p.m. ET

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Even with the Major League Baseball playoffs in full swing and 28 NFL teams preparing for Sunday/Monday action, the epicenter of the American sports mini-universe still resides inside the state of Mississippi this weekend -- specifically targeting the cities of Starkville and Oxford.

On Saturday at 12 noon EST, No. 12 Mississippi State will host No. 6 Texas A&M, in what may represent the Bulldogs' most important home game of the last four decades (more on that later).

Immediately after that, roughly 96 miles to the north, No. 11 Ole Miss gets a long-awaited shot at No. 4 Alabama, which might be the only time the Rebels' super-sophomore trio of linebacker Robert Nkemdiche, offensive tackle Laremy Tunsil and Laquon Treadwell draw the Crimson Tide on home soil.

(They have the option to turn pro after their junior campaigns.)

Does that heighten the Rebels' sense of urgency to close the deal against 'Bama? Who knows.

Quarterback Bo Wallace (1,271 yards passing, 11 TDs, 71-percent completion rate) has had a decent start to the season; but to ascend to All-SEC levels, to notch the signature victory of his collegiate career, he'll need Treadwell to repeat his five-catch, 123-yard outing against Memphis.

And then some.

From our perspective, Mississippi State's watershed home triumph of the last four decades dates back to 1980, when MSU snapped Alabama's 28-game winning streak.

It also halted the Crimson Tide's 27-game win streak in SEC action, dating back to 1976.

On a grander scale, that afternoon in Jackson, Miss. initiated the end of the Alabama dynasty under head coach Paul "Bear" Bryant, who would retire after the 1982 campaign.

The Tide wouldn't claim another national championship for another 12 seasons (under Gene Stallings).

Since its co-national championship campaign of 1990, Georgia Tech has started out a season 5-0 only once -- 2011.

That year, the Yellow Jackets dispatched of Western Carolna, Middle Tennessee State and Kansas before toppling North Carolina, North Carolina State and Maryland in ACC play (six total wins).

Fast forward to the present, as 4-0 Georgia Tech -- an afterthought for the ACC title during the preseason -- has a golden chance to build a considerable lead in the Coastal Division standings, with back-to-back home tilts against Miami (Saturday night) and reigning division champ Duke (Oct. 11).

There are only three guarantees in life: Death, taxes ... and Oklahoma and TCU playing in a close-knit affair on Saturday.

For the month of September, the No. 4 Sooners and No. 25 Horned Frogs were essentially mirror images on the stats front, with Oklahoma (44.8 PPG) and TCU (44.7 PPG) posting top-10 tallies with scoring offense, top-20 numbers with scoring defense (TCU -- 7.0 points per game/Oklahoma -- 16.5) and total yards, with both clubs flirting with nearly 500 yards per outing.

With a single, shocking upset from Thursday -- Arizona upending No. 2 Oregon on the road -- the SEC's chances for landing multiple teams in the inaugural College Football Championship were greatly enhanced on two fronts:

1. Oregon no longer stands as a strong bet to garner a CFP invite, by simply advancing to the Pac-12 title game (win/lose). Consequently, the conference, at best, can only have one unbeaten team when the smoke clears to the regular season/conference title game ... since UCLA (4-0) and Arizona (5-0) square off on Nov. 1.

2. No. 10 Michigan State, even if it runs the table from this point forward (8-0 in conference play/Big Ten title-game victory), can no longer piggyback off Oregon's success -- in terms of getting a seismic boost, strength of schedule-wise, in the eyes of the CFP committee.

(The Spartans were beating the Ducks late in the second half on Sept. 13, before Oregon pulled away with a flurry of fourth-quarter points.)

Of course, with six teams in the Associated Press Top 15, it's entirely possible the SEC West will cannibalize itself over the coming weeks ... with the eventual divisional champion sporting two losses before the conference title game in Atlanta.

Of the last six complete seasons from the Nick Saban era (2008-13), Alabama has subjectively played in 11 SEC tent-pole games on the road -- outings where the opponent, on paper, had a viable chance at knocking off the vaunted Crimson Tide.

Miami of Ohio has dropped 21 straight games, dating back to the 2012 campaign ... and yet, the Redhawks are still 3 1/2-point favorites against UMass on Saturday.

Perhaps that has something to do with the Minutemen suffering through a wretched 2-30 stretch in their last 32 games.

On Oct. 14, 2011, Illinois was flying high at 3-0 in the Big Ten standings and seemingly ready for a measuring-stick home clash with Ohio State.

The next day, however, the Fighting Illini fell to the unranked Buckeyes (17-7) ... a defeat that unwittingly sparked an in-conference collapse of epic proportions.

Of its last 22 Big Ten games, Illinois holds a frightening 1-21 record.

The only victory during that span: A 2013 road victory over Purdue ... which is currently wallowing through a nine-game conference losing streak, in advance of Saturday's, uh, showdown with Illinois.

Can you name the only Big Ten school in history to go 9-0 during the conference regular season?

Answer: Illinois captured the conference title with a 9-0 regular-season record. From 1981-84, the Big Ten experimented with a round-robin schedule of nine league outings.

Of course, in today's super-sized Big Ten, which now boasts 14 member schools, a round-robin format of 13 games would be impossible.

1. The Browns are 2-22 in their last 24 road games ... which might explain why the 1-3 Titans (minus-2) are favored on Sunday.

2. Whenever the Colts visit the Ravens, it's always an excuse for TV networks to hearken back to the Colts' initial roots of playing in Baltimore (1953-83) -- a 30-year period that covers two NFL championships, two Super Bowl berths and one Lombardi Trophy.

How's this for a trend: Of their eight lifetime meetings with the Bears, the Panthers have perfected a crazy pattern of back-to-back games of 20-plus points ... then one single-digit effort ... back-to-back outings of 20-plus points ... then one single-digit output ... and then consecutive games of 20-plus points.

So, by the powers of mathematical deduction, Cam Newton and the Panthers are mortal locks for 0-9 points on Sunday.

The Lions don't possess a lifetime winning record against the Bills (4-4-1) ... even though Buffalo has never scored more than 24 points in a single outing against Detroit.

Until last year's rain-soaked loss to the Bengals, the Patriots had always scored at least 34 points against Cincinnati -- with Tom Brady as the starting quarterback.

Since 1971, the second season of the NFL-AFL merger, the earliest point of every NFL team incurring at least one defeat sits at Week 5.

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