College Football Week 3 Saturday Schedule: Final non-conference tuneups for top teams

The third full Saturday of college football season has arrived and with most conferences now having nine-game schedules, that means that this week will be the final non-conference game for many programs. Aside from a few games here and there around the country, most of the SEC, Big Ten, and other power conferences truly begin their own schedules in earnest next week, with such games as Texas-Texas Tech, Florida-Tennessee, and Wisconsin-Ohio State coming up in seven days.

This week, however, most of these bigger programs are tuning up for conference play with non-conference matchups, often against lesser programs. #3 Ohio State and #4 Michigan host Toledo and UConn, respectively. #2 Alabama and #5 Clemson both play smaller schools from Louisiana, with Louisiana-Monroe heading to Tuscaloosa and Louisiana Tech going into Death Valley. Top-ranked Georgia is the only top-five team to play on the road, and the only one to have a conference game this week, as they visit unranked South Carolina.

Instead, a few non-conference matchups will move the needle a little bit, including the two games between ranked teams. In the afternoon, #25 Oregon hosts 12th-ranked BYU, then late in the evening #13 Miami travels to play #24 Texas A&M. This week gives us a rare Big Ten-SEC matchup as well, with #22 Penn State visiting Auburn.

Those are your most prominent games taking place today, so tune in, enjoy, and discuss here.