The appeal of No. 1 Ohio State at No. 4 Texas is so obvious it does nott require explanation. But, not to go all 30 for 30 promo on you, what if I told you Bucks-Horns is not the most monumental game of the weekend for the combatants involved?
For everything Ohio State-Texas is, here's something it is not: an elimination game. The loser Saturday night in Austin will still have ample opportunity to make the College Football Playoff, whether by automatic bid or at-large. Not so for the loser Saturday evening in Boise, where a Playoff bid could very well be up for grabs on the blue turf.
There are two Group of 6 teams in ESPN's Playoff Predictor model: Boise State at 17 percent, and Memphis at 12 percent. They play on Saturday in Boise (6 p.m. ET, USA Network).
Astute observers will note that the Broncos' and Tigers' are odds are juiced compared to the rest of the G6 competition because they get to play each other and, well, yeah. That's kind of the point here.
Both squads will take the field Saturday night having accomplished something already in this young season. Memphis closed Week 0 by winning at Mountain West favorite UNLV, closing the game on a 20-7 run. And while a win would have obviously been preferred, Boise State made then-No. 2 Oregon taste its own blood at Autzen Stadium last Saturday.
A win lifts Memphis to 3-0, with victories over the presumptive MW and Pac-12 favorites, plus an 18-point win over Arkansas State of the Sun Belt last weekend. For Boise State, a win evens their record at 1-1, with a strong showing vs. Oregon, a win over the American favorite, and an opportunity to score a road win over another Group of 6 defending champion who had an, ahem, strong showing against a ranked Big Ten team last weekend later this month in Kalamazoo.
And that's not all. A recent change to the CFP's protocols make this game even more important. While the CFP now awards automatic bids to the Power 4 champions, the Group of 6 is different. The highest-ranked G6 team gets in automatically, not necessarily the G6 champion. That means, hypothetically, Memphis could win Saturday night and slip up in the AAC title game but still reach the CFP over Pac-12 champ Boise State.
Long story longer: by the time the sun sets on the Foothills on Saturday night, we'll have a clear and obvious favorite to earn the guaranteed Group of 6 Playoff berth.
“I’m being dead honest? I don’t believe in trying to pump up a team, but that’s a real football team,” Memphis head coach Charles Huff said of Boise State, via the Idaho Statesman. “They should be a Power 4 team, in my opinion. When you look at them, that’s how they look. That’s how they play. That’s how the culture is driven.”
"They've got the nation's leading rusher, they lead the nation in sacks, they've got one of the most explosive offenses in the country," Boise State's Spencer Danielson said. "I could go down the list. I've got a ton of respect for Coach Huff. I don't know how many guys have been able to win consistently as quickly as he has."
Boise State has been the standard at the Group of 6 level for more than a quarter century, with 16 conference championship trophies, two major bowl wins, and a Playoff berth to prove it. A win on Saturday evening is Boise State's biggest since their last big-game win, and until the next one. (The Broncos are 8.5-point favorites, given a 75 percent chance to win by most computer models.) Memphis, however, is on a run of 12 straight .500 or better seasons under four different coaches, led by a coach in his third game at the program. A win would be one of the biggest regular-season victories in school history and the biggest of Huff's career, even bigger than the Sun Belt title he led Marshall to in 2024. Already a rising star, he would instantly become one of the hottest commodities in coaching.
No one's saying not to watch Ohio State-Texas, but make some room in your quad box for, pound-for-pound, the actual biggest game of the weekend.