UPDATED: Week 13 Picks and Preview; 15 Games Scratched and 3 Added; Nick Saban and Ryan Day Both Out

November 27, 2020 by Staff

In this Covid era, we truly are thankful for college football. Get the computer's pick for every game scheduled this week, and keep your fingers crossed that cancellations and postponements are kept to a minimum

A late deletion announced on Friday was the FAU-Middle Tennessee game to bring this week's total of lost games to 15. It was the last scheduled game for the Blue Raiders so their season could be over. Unless other changes are made, the only open date for the Owls is the weekend of December 19.

What was originally a 60-game schedule would've been reduced to 45 were it not for the additions of Utah at Washington, Vanderbilt at Missouri, and San Diego State-Colorado.

The Utes-Huskies game was added after Friday's Apple Cup rivalry game pitting Washington at Washington State was canceled, followed by the same fate for the Utah at Arizona State game.

The Commodores-Tigers game was created as a result of some scheduling maintenance work by the SEC that also caused the Tennessee-Vanderbilt and Arkansas-Missouri games to be scrapped for this week.

The Aztecs-Buffaloes matchup came about after USC had to cancel its home game with the Buffs, and SDSU had already had the plug pulled on its game at Fresno State. The Colorado-USC and SDSU-Fresno State games will not be rescheduled.

Three games were erased from the slate on Wednesday -  Cincinnati-Temple, Oklahoma-West Virginia and Colorado State-Air Force.

The Bearcats and Owls will not be rescheduled as Temple has elected to shut down for the season with a 1-6 record. That leaves Cincinnati (8-0) with just one more game to play - December 12 at Tulsa - as the Bearcats try to play their way in to the Final Four.

The Sooners-Mountaineers game was moved to December 12.

The Rams-Falcons will not be rescheduled. As of now, Colorado State is down to just 5 games over-all, and Air Force is down to just 4 conference games.

Air Force did, however, get Army added back to the schedule for a December 19 matchup at West Point, keeping the round-robin competition intact between the military academies as they vie for the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy.

Tulsa at Houston, and Southern Miss at UAB also joined the deletion pile. The Blazers haven't played since Halloween and are not currently scheduled to play again until December 12. Houston has dealt with 6 games either getting canceled or postponed.

The cancellation of the Minnesota-Wisconsin game is the 3rd Badger game to be wiped out in 6 weeks. It could mean Wisconsin would be ineligible to play for the Big Ten championship as the conference dictates that a minimum of six games must be played to qualify. As it stands, the Badgers would only play 5. That looks like a moot point, though, since Northwestern is undefeated in that half of the conference and owns the tiebreaker after last week's triumph over the Badgers

The Louisiana Tech-FIU game was postponed, making this the 4th straight Bulldog game to be affected by Covid, but only one of which was due to problems inside the Louisiana Tech program. FIU has been dealing with flare-ups all season.

The Western Kentucky-Charlotte game has been pushed back to Tuesday, December 1, taking it out of this week's schedule and moving it into Week 14.

The college football week kicked off on Thanksgiving Day with a single Mountain West clash as Utah State rallied from a 13-6 halftime deficit to defeat New Mexico 41-27. Both teams entered that contest with 0-4 records. The Aggies are now 1-1 for interim head coach Frank Maile after firing Gary Andersen amidst an 0-3 start.

As far as the top-ranked teams go, Ohio State will visit Illinois on Saturday without head coach Ryan Day after it was announced on Friday that he tested positive for Covid. Meanwhile, Clemson hosts Pittsburgh on Saturday after having this past weekend's game at Florida State called off at the last minute and Notre Dame draws a tough trip to North Carolina,

We also have Nebraska visiting a hot Iowa team, while the undefeated Northwestern squad heads to a down-in-the-dumps Michigan State crew and a winless Penn State bunch heads to Michigan.

If Navy's game vs. Memphis manages to get played, it will be the first time the Midshipmen have taken to the gridiron in four full weeks.

In the MAC, two high-scoring undefeated teams collide when Kent State visits Buffalo on Saturday. The Golden Flashes have put up 62 and 69 points in their last two games and are averaging 53 points per game. The Bulls have hung either 42 or 49 points on the board in all three games.

The Mountain West has a 4-0 San Jose State squad visiting a 4-1 Boise State team on Saturday as a double-digit underdog. No wonder when you consider that the Broncos are 14-0 all-time in the series with an average win margin of 26.5 points. Meanwhile, a 5-0 Nevada team heads to Hawaii (2-3) as a 1.07-point computer underdog.

Nine games will be played on what was traditionally know as "Black Friday", but stores and online retailers have largely done away with the tradition of that Christmas sale event and have, instead, been offering special deals and discounts all month. Thankfully - no pun intended - we haven't done away with the football aspect of that tradition.

This, of course, is also the week that a ton of traditional rivalries normally take place and some of those are on the schedule.

For instance, the "Big Game" between Stanford at Cal is on the Friday docket, along with the "Civil War" matching Oregon and Oregon State. There's even the lesser-know "War On I-4" between USF and UCF.

The tradition continues on Saturday with the game that many consider to be the best rivalry game of them all - Alabama and Auburn in the Iron Bowl. This one will be played without Nick Saban on the sideline after he tested positive on Wednesday.

Saturday also presents the "Egg Bowl" for Ole Miss and Mississippi State.

Unfortunately, some rivalry games won't take place at all this year. The annual matchups of USC-Notre Dame, Florida-Florida State, South Carolina-Clemson, and Georgia-Georgia Tech were the victim of the unique scheduling that was required for us to even have college football this year.

So no complaining here, and we will reiterate that we truly are thankful for college football. Go team!

SEE: Weekly Picks.

FCS vs. FBS

30 FBS teams are playing a total of 35 games against FCS schools this season.

There were three such games this past weekend and all three FCS schools lost by at least 40 points. North Alabama was blasted 66-14 at BYU, Stephen F. Austin was swamped 56-14 at Memphis, and Abilene Christian got rolled 55-15 at Virginia.

None are scheduled this week and only two remain to be played this season - Western Carolina at North Carolina on December 5, and Incarnate Word vs. Arkansas State on December 12.

FBS teams are 32-1 in such matchups this season. Since we began tracking this in 2003, the FBS teams are 1,467-128 (.920).

Last year, FBS teams were 111-3 (.974) in such games.

Here is the only FCS win vs. the FBS this season:
October 23: Jacksonville State 19, FIU 10

These were the FCS wins vs. the FBS in the previous 2 seasons:

2019:
August 29: Central Arkansas 35, Western Kentucky 28
September 7: Southern Illinois 45, Massachusetts 20
September 14: The Citadel 27, Georgia Tech 24 (OT)

2020:
August 29: UC Davis 44, San Jose State 31
September 1: Villanova 19, Temple 17
September 1: Northern Arizona 30, UTEP 10
September 1: Nicholls State 26, Kansas 23 (OT)
September 2: North Carolina A&T 28, East Carolina 23
September 8: Maine 31, Western Kentucky 28
September 22: Illinois State 35, Colorado State 19

Streaks

CLEMSON - Three streaks ended with 47-40 double-OT loss at Notre Dame. The Tigers had won 35 straight regular season games, 29 straight conference games and 14 straight true road games - all of which topped the FBS. Clemson still has the longest home game winning streak at 27.
Last: Game at Florida State on Saturday, November 21 was canceled 3 hours before kick-off.
Next: Hosts Pittsburgh on Saturday, November 28.

NOTRE DAME - Won 14 straight over-all (FBS longest).
Last: Won 45-31 at Boston College on Saturday, November 14.
Next: Visits North Carolina on Friday, November 27.

OHIO STATE - Won 19 straight conference games (new FBS longest). Won 8 straight road games (new FBS longest). Won 20 straight regular season games (new FBS longest).
Last: Won 42-35 at home versus Indiana on Saturday, November 21.
Next: Visits Illinois on Saturday, November 28.

NEW MEXICO - Lost 20 straight conference games (FBS longest). Lost 13 straight road games (FBS longest).
Last: Lost 41-27 at Utah State on Thursday, November 26.
Next: Plays Wyoming in Las Vegas on Saturday, November 5.

AKRON - Lost 20 straight overall (FBS longest). Lost 9 straight home games (FBS longest). Lost 11 straight road games (FBS second-longest).
Last: Lost 69-35 at Kent State on Tuesday, November 17.
Next: Hosts Miami (O) on Saturday, November 28.