Week 13 has arrived, bringing good fortune to some and bad luck for others. Such is the binary nature of college football.

Our list of the top seven games to watch includes three Top 25 showdowns and several others with conference championship implications. Unfortunately, several of them will be occurring simultaneously, so as always we recommend that you monitor the scoreboard closely and keep the remote within easy reach. As it happens, there’s a heavy emphasis on the early time slots this Saturday, but there will be offerings not included here for you night owls as well.

We begin, not surprisingly, with the Big Noon Kickoff.

No. 5 Indiana at No. 2 Ohio State

Time/TV: noon ET, Fox.

Why watch: The day starts with this top-five showdown nobody saw coming in August. The Buckeyes’ lofty ranking is of course not a surprise, but the Hoosiers are enjoying what has already been a historic campaign under first-year coach Curt Cignetti. The winner has the inside track for a date with Oregon in the Big Ten title game, though the loser should still be in good stead for at-large playoff consideration. Indiana’s high-octane offense directed by QB Kurtis Rourke was slowed a bit by Michigan in its most recent outing, and DB Sonny Styles and the Buckeyes’ exceptional secondary could be even harder to solve. Hoosiers RBs Justice Ellison and Ty Son Lawton must help keep the attack on schedule. Ohio State QB Will Howard gets even more ground support from RBs Quinshon Judkins and TreVeyon Henderson in addition to an ultra-talented receiving corps. His offensive line took a hit this week with the loss of starting center Seth McLaughlin to an Achilles injury, however, and Hoosiers DE Mikail Kamara could take advantage of a reconfigured protection scheme.

Why it could disappoint: It’s the proverbial elephant in the room. Quite simply, Indiana has not faced an opponent of this caliber yet. They have, however, played a couple of teams in common with the Buckeyes (Michigan State and Nebraska) with equally impressive or better results. In short, the intrigue factor will have everyone’s attention at kickoff, then we’ll see how it unfolds.

No. 6 Notre Dame vs. No. 17 Army

Time/TV: 7:30 p.m. ET, NBC.

Why watch: The prime-time spotlight features this special contest at Yankee Stadium in New York involving two storied programs with big national followings. The game has been circled all season, and it now has the added bonus of carrying major playoff implications for both teams as the campaign winds down. The Black Knights have already secured a date with Tulane in the American Athletic Conference title game, and a win here would elevate the importance of that contest by an order of magnitude. The Fighting Irish, of course, have national championship aspirations of their own and must avoid a second loss to keep them alive. Notre Dame handled their first encounter with an option attack well last month against Navy, so ball security will be priority one for Army QB Bryson Daily and RB Kanye Udoh as they attempt to control the clock. Army does have outside threats like WR Casey Reynolds and RB Noah Short, but Notre Dame DL Rylie Mills will look to take away the pitch lanes. Fighting Irish QB Riley Leonard and RB Jeremiyah Love do a lot of damage on the ground themselves, so Army LB Andon Thomas will need a lot of help to keep the holes closed.

Why it could disappoint: See above. Notre Dame’s meeting with Navy turned into a rout quickly, so Army fans fervently hope this one does not follow the same script. Any long drives by the Black Knights that fall short of the end zone will be difficult to overcome.

WEEKEND FORECAST: Week 13 college football picks for every Top 25 game

PLAYOFF PREDICTION: Colorado enters field, Alabama grabs first-round bye

No. 15 Brigham Young at No. 22 Arizona State

Time/TV: 3:30 p.m. ET, ESPN.

Why watch: Preseason expectations for the Big 12 race have practically been turned upside down as the campaign has unfolded. So it is that we find ourselves with this unanticipated Top 25 clash that is also a de facto semifinal contest for a spot in the conference championship game. The Sun Devils’ triumvirate of QB Sam Leavitt, WR Jordyn Tyson and RB Cam Skattebo can find multiple ways to generate yardage. Cougars LBs Harrison Taggart and Isaiah Glasker will lead the mission to keep them bottled up. BYU QB Jake Retzlaff has cooled in recent outings, and Arizona State DE Clayton Smith will do his best to keep him off schedule.

Why it could disappoint: It won’t if BYU’s recent pattern of wild finishes continues. But it’s possible that the book on the Cougars is out and the Sun Devils will take advantage of the friendly environs in a romp.

No. 4 Penn State at Minnesota

Time/TV: 3:30 p.m. ET, CBS

Why watch: The Nittany Lions have only the Ohio State setback marring their record and are still seemingly in the committee’s good graces with two weeks to go. They’d be advised, however, not to stumble on the road against the Golden Gophers, who’ve had some disappointing results but can be dangerous nevertheless. Since the rough outing against the Buckeyes, PSU QB Drew Allar has taken advantage of less-accomplished defenses with plenty of help from RB Kaytron Allen and TE Tyler Warren. They could meet stronger resistance from DL Anthony Smith and the Minnesota front. Gophers QB Max Brosmer has been very good in stretches, though his protectors were overwhelmed in his most recent outing at Rutgers two weeks ago. Nittany Lions DE Abdul Carter could make his day difficult again, but he does have reliable targets in WRs Daniel Jackson and Elijah Spencer if he has time to find them.

Why it could disappoint: The Golden Gophers have pulled out a couple nail biters in the final minute, but some holes are just too deep. Some of the Nittany Lions’ more lengthy road trips have been adventures, but they’ll do their best to remove the suspense from this one.

No. 18 Colorado at Kansas

Time/TV: 3:30 p.m. ET, Fox.

Why watch: Colorado can play its own way into the Big 12 title game. But this contest in Kansas City, KU’s home-away-from-home right now, is anything but a guaranteed win. The Jayhawks, fresh off handing BYU its first loss of the season, look to cause even more chaos in their late push to make the bowl lineup. While Buffaloes’ two-way standout Travis Hunter rightly draws a lot of attention, QB Shedeur Sanders has other weapons at his disposal as well, notably WRs LaJohntay Wester and Will Sheppard. KU, however, has the cornerback tandem of Mello Dotson and Cobee Bryant who can handle most coverage assignments. Jayhawks QB Jalon Daniels has played better of late after a miserable first half of the season. RB Devin Neal has also been a huge help, but Colorado DLs BJ Green and Keaten Wade will look to keep them in check.

Why it could disappoint: The Buffaloes must make sure that it does in all honesty. The Jayhawks have hung around in most of their games, though they’ve only recently figured out how to close. If this one is in doubt at all in the fourth quarter, there will be a lot of nervous viewers back in Boulder.

No. 9 Mississippi at Florida

Time/TV: noon ET, ABC.

Why watch: With some quality wins but that pesky ‘2’ in the loss column, Ole Miss finds itself in that precarious space between virtual playoff lock and the wrong side of the bubble. The Rebels hope to solidify their situation, but this trip to the Swamp against a rejuvenated Gators’ squad might not be a breeze. Ole Miss QB Jaxson Dart was able to dissect the Georgia defense two weeks ago despite missing several of his main weapons. He will unfortunately not have RB Henry Parrish Jr. rejoining him in the backfield, but top WR Tre Harris is expected back in the lineup. Regardless, Dart must steer clear of Florida DL Tyreak Sapp. Gators QB DJ Lagway has also been battling injuries but provided a needed spark in last week’s upset of LSU. LB Chris Paul Jr. and the Rebels’ front must be ready for him.

Why it could disappoint: It will if the Rebels bring their A-game against a banged-up Florida secondary. The Gators should still get to bowl eligibility but might have to wait a week against hapless Florida State to pick up their sixth win.

No. 12 SMU at Virginia

Time/TV: noon ET, ESPN2.

Why watch: With only a home date with California remaining after this week, the Mustangs can all but sew up their place in the ACC title game with a win here in Charlottesville. The Cavaliers ran into a buzzsaw last time out at Notre Dame but have a chance to wrap up bowl eligibility on their home field. The bad news for UVa is SMU QB Kevin Jennings poses a two-way threat similar to what DB Jonas Sanker and Co. encountered in South Bend, a week ago. Cavaliers QB Anthony Colandrea has been known to put the ball in harm’s way when under duress, and DB Ahmaad Moses and several of his teammates in the Mustangs’ secondary will be ready to snare any arrant deliveries.

Why it could disappoint: The Cavaliers must hope the Mustangs are as generous with the ball as they were the last time they came east when they narrowly escaped Duke. Then again, SMU wasn’t exactly lights out at home against a depleted Boston College squad a week ago, so UVa might keep it interesting.

Five-star quarterback recruit Bryce Underwood flipped his commitment from LSU to Michigan on Thursday. .Detroit Free Press sports writer Rainer Sabin answers three questions about the decision and what it means for the Wolverines amid their disappointing season under first-year coach Sherrone Moore.

How does this change the trajectory of Michigan?

Soon after the Wolverines won the national championship last January, the program began to fall from its perch atop the sport. Eighteen starters from the title-winning team departed. Head coach Jim Harbaugh left for the NFL’s Los Angeles Chargers fled to the NFL, and his entire defensive staff soon followed him out the door. In the wake of this mass exodus, Moore, one of Harbaugh’s top assistants, took charge in late January. The offense he coordinated under Harbaugh was now gutted.

Jason Kelce has conquered the podcast, commercial and studio spaces of the media business. His third Christmas album is about to come out. It’s clearly not enough to keep the former Philadelphia Eagles center off your screen.

Next up is late-night television.

Kelce announced Thursday on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ that his debut as a late-night variety show host will take place on ESPN’s airwaves in early 2025.

‘They Call It Late Night with Jason Kelce’ will air five consecutive Friday nights (technically Saturday mornings at 1 a.m. ET) in January and coincides with the final week of the NFL regular season and the playoffs until Pro Bowl Weekend. The one-hour show will be ‘an immersive experience,’ ESPN says, filmed hours before it airs with hundreds of fans in attendance at the Union Transfer, a Philadelphia concert venue.

Clips will be shared on social media and the episodes will be available on ESPN+ and the YouTube channels of both Kelce and ESPN.

NFL STATS CENTRAL: The latest NFL scores, schedules, odds, stats and more.

While the topics discussed will mainly be football and the weekend’s upcoming games, Kelce will use his fame to have guests from all walks of life participating in various hijinks typical of a Kelce endeavor.

Kelce hosts the ‘New Heights’ podcast with his brother, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. He joined ESPN on a multi-year agreement earlier this season and is an analyst for ‘Monday Night Countdown.’

Tickets to attend ‘They Call It Late Night with Jason Kelce’ in person are free and available through free-ticket company 1iota beginning in December. More details will be available in the coming weeks.

College football functions just fine without conference divisions, but some tiebreaker rules we can actually understand would help.
Lane Kiffin’s suggestion makes sense: Incorporate CFP rankings to break messy ties in conference standings.
Kenny Dillingham quote about Big 12 championship game shows coaches don’t even understand how these tiebreakers work.

I hereby declare elimation of conference divisions a smashing success.

If you disagree, tell me whether you enjoyed Ohio State at Oregon, or Georgia at Texas, or Penn State at Southern California.

Games such as those would occur less frequently if conference divisions persisted, because teams in those matchups almost certainly would have been placed in opposite divisions.

Television ratings suggest you very much enjoyed those games.

Georgia-Texas recorded the highest television audience of any game this season, logging 13.2 million viewers, while Ohio State-Oregon (9.6 million viewers) remains the second-highest rated Big Ten game.

True, eliminating divisions meant Missouri and Kentucky didn’t face off in an SEC East ‘clash,’ and we had to miss out on Florida State-Syracuse (on, no!), but lo and behold, the world kept spinning.

Conferences threaded a needle by dumping divisions while preserving the most important league rivalries. All in all, pretty good deal. So, all’s well that ends well, yeah?

Well, not exactly.

Progress often comes at a cost. The price of axing divisions? Logjammed conference standings means that, in some cases, messy tiebreaker rules will be needed to determine conference championship matchups.

Within the SEC, a six-way tie for first place remains in play. The SEC’s complex tiebreaker rules include the phrase “capped relative scoring margin” as a factor that could be considered.

Now, we just need to find someone with four Ph.D.s and a quarter-million dollars in school loans to explain for us what “capped relative scoring margin” means.

A battle royale takes place toward the top of the Big 12 standings, too, where winning the conference championship likely will be the only avenue to playoff entry.

Asked about the Big 12’s tiebreaker scenarios, Arizona State coach Kenny Dillingham admitted, “I literally have no clue.”

“Somebody was telling me, if we win and somebody else loses, and then ranch dressing falls on a wing, I don’t really know,” Dillingham said. “Just, play the very best you can play, … and don’t get lost in the sauce.”

WEEKEND FORECAST: Week 13 college football picks for every Top 25 game

PLAYOFF PREDICTION: Colorado enters field, Alabama grabs first-round bye

A solution to the conference tiebreaker dilemma

Some in and around the sport have mused that these oversized conferences and muddy tiebreaker rules prove that divisions ought to be restored.

Forget that idea.

No need to rekindle the past. Don’t sacrifice the quality of the regular season just to make the conference championship matchup more straightforward. Instead of reviving divisions, come up with a set of tiebreakers that normal people can understand.

I propose this simple three-step system for determining conference championship matchups:

1. Conference records.

2. Head-to-head record among tied teams.

3. If teams with identical conference records remain tied after applying the head-to-head tiebreaker, use the College Football Playoff rankings to decide the conference championship matchup. The highest-ranked team among the tied teams earns the nod.

Would that be controversial? Sure.

At least we could understand it, though.

And, if we trust a committee to choose playoff teams, why shouldn’t that committee be qualified to settle a deadlock in the conference standings?

I’ve got company in this line of thinking.

“All this seems really complicated,” Mississippi coach Lane Kiffin said of the SEC’s tiebreaker procedure. “… I would think it would have been a lot easier to say, ‘What are the top two teams in the (CFP) rankings?’”

Divisions within conferences started as a business opportunity. Roy Kramer, after becoming the SEC’s commissioner, seized on a little-known NCAA rule that allowed a conference to conduct a football championship game if that conference included at least 12 teams and split into divisions.

So, the SEC hatched a plan, and in 1992 it launched its revolutionary conference championship.

A championship game meant more conference exposure and more revenue. Other conferences followed the SEC’s lead by expanding, splitting into divisions and hosting conference championships.

Decades later, the NCAA modified its rules, and now conferences of any size can conduct a conference championship game without splitting into divisions.

By changing the rules surrounding conference championships, the NCAA eliminated the reason why divisions were created. Once conferences gained permission to conduct championship games without divisions, most leagues unified the conference. Starting this season, the Sun Belt is the only Bowl Subdivision conference still split into divisions.

I don’t miss divisions. I do miss the clarity they brought to conference championship matchups, but that can be solved by a solution right in front of our face. The CFP rankings are there in plainsight. Use them.

Here’s what else I’m mulling in this “Topp Rope” view of college football:

Name to watch in 2025 coaching carousel

This shapes up as a quiet Power Four coaching carousel. That points to the carousel kicking into overdrive next season, with several high-profile jobs potentially coming open.

Who will emerge as a top commodity on the 2025 hiring circuit? Monitor SMU’s Rhett Lashlee. He’s steered the Mustangs to unabated success in their ACC debut. They’re in the thick of the playoff hunt.

While Indiana’s Curt Cignetti earned every bit of the fanfare he’s received for this Hoosiers uprising, Cignetti mania overshadows Lashlee’s feat.

Lashlee built on predecessor Sonny Dykes’ success with three consecutive winning seasons, this year ranking as his best yet.

By ACC standards, Lashlee enjoys a good gig. He’s positioned in rich recruiting terrain. SMU benefits from a formidable NIL collective, making it a player in the acquisition circuit.

SEC and Big Ten jobs are a siren’s call, though, and those two conferences unlock the path to the national championship. The ACC projects as a one-bid playoff league.

Lashlee played quarterback at Arkansas, and he was Auburn’s offensive coordinator when its 2013 team reached the national championship game.

Arkansas and Auburn could become two of several ‘Super Two’ conference jobs open next year.

Emails of the week

Mike writes: When I look at teams like South Carolina, Florida and Alabama, I see teams that have clearly improved as the season progressed.  These teams now barely resemble what they were at the beginning of the season.

But when I look at Tennessee, I see a team that is no better now than it was in late August.  The offense might even be worse. 

My response: You’ll hear no disagreement from me, and, apparently, the CFP selection committee shares your view of the Vols’ stagnant progress. That’s reflected in Tennessee ranking behind fellow two-loss SEC teams Alabama, Ole Miss and Georgia in the latest rankings.

My response: ‘Baby cakes,’ now that’s one I haven’t heard. Kudos for originality.

My response: Careful, Jim, I wouldn’t want your fellow Irish fans to accuse you of SEC bias.

Three and out

1. Deion Sanders dismissed speculation that he’s got a foot out the door at Colorado, saying he’s got ‘a kickstand down.” Unrelated (or possibly related), I seem to recall my kickstand buckling and my bike toppling over every now and again when I was a kid. Kickstands aside, the more important indicator came Thursday, when blue-chip quarterback Julian Lewis committed to Colorado. Lewis, at least, believes Coach Prime will stay put.

2. Would coaches of playoff-positioned teams prefer to not earn selection for their conference championship game? My read on the situation: Most coaches would rather not risk the loss and instead head straight to the playoff. Most players would prefer to put it on the line and try to win the conference crown.

3. A low-key odd development from Tuesday’s CFP rankings: Alabama leapfrogged Miami, following the Tide’s blowout win over Mercer, while the Hurricanes had an open date. If you had Mercer influencing the playoff rankings on your bingo card, come claim your prize.

Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer. The ‘Topp Rope’ is his football column published throughout the USA TODAY Network. Subscribe to read all of his columns.