In the foreword to his book, "The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating," famed British chef Fergus Henderson wrote, "'Nose to Tail Eating' means it would be disingenuous to the animal not to make the most of the whole beast; there is a set of delights, textural and flavoursome, which lie beyond the fillet."
I feel the same way about college football. To be sure, the fillet -- in this case, the race for the College Football Playoff, the Heisman, the big-ticket games -- is delicious. But the excitement it can provide varies from year to year, and if that's all you focus on, you miss out on so much.
There are huge games to look forward to in 2021, from Clemson-Georgia and Oregon-Ohio State early on to Alabama-Texas A&M in October and into rivalry season, championship weekend and all the rest. We will see games with major title leverage and Heisman-worthy performances. But as 2021 begins in earnest, let's lay out a plan to eat the whole college football pig.
Here's how to make the most of the season, nose to tail.
The big ones
We will always have room for the big-ticket items, and we've got headliners for every week of the regular season. Here are the two games with the highest combined SP+ ratings for the two teams involved in each week.
Week 1: Clemson vs. Georgia; Alabama vs. Miami
Week 2: Oregon at Ohio State; Iowa at Iowa State
Week 3: Alabama at Florida; Nebraska at Oklahoma
Week 4: Notre Dame vs. Wisconsin; West Virginia at Oklahoma
Week 5: Ole Miss at Alabama; Michigan at Wisconsin
Week 6: Alabama at Texas A&M; Oklahoma vs. Texas
Week 7: Miami at North Carolina; Alabama at Mississippi State
Week 8: Ohio State at Indiana; Tennessee at Alabama
Week 9: Penn State at Ohio State; Florida vs. Georgia
Week 10: LSU at Alabama; Oregon at Washington
Week 11: Michigan at Penn State; Texas A&M at Ole Miss
Week 12: Iowa State at Oklahoma; Arkansas at Alabama
Week 13: Alabama at Auburn; Ohio State at Michigan
These are the satellites around which everything else will rotate. Watch these games, and you will likely keep up with most of the primary contenders for both the national title and the Heisman race. But this is merely step one for maximum enjoyment.
Follow the chaos teams
Rooting for a single team and following it through fall's travails -- wins and losses, recruiting drama, tailgate planning, quarterback battles, star freshmen, offensive coordinators who must be fired immediately!! -- can be an immersive experience. The thought of keeping up with other teams as well might seem exhausting.
Every season has chaos teams, however -- teams that maybe don't win big but constantly do entertaining things, for better or worse. They tend to have high ceilings and pretty low floors, and their watchability levels are high because of it, especially when you aren't emotionally invested in their actual success.
We figure out who these teams are within a few weeks of the season's start, but here's my best guess at 10 teams heavy on chaos potential in 2021:
Arizona State
Houston
Kent State
Maryland
Mississippi State
Pitt
SMU
Troy
UCLA
Virginia
Any time you're scrolling through the TV listings and find one of these teams on, click on that game just in case.
You could define "chaos teams" in a different way, too: teams constantly enmeshed in close games and tight finishes. According to SP+, there are 17 teams with at least seven games projected to finish within one score (~7.5 points), three with at least eight.
9 games: Southern Miss
8 games: Ball State, Louisville
7 games: Boston College, Central Michigan, Colorado State, Iowa, LSU, Maryland, Miami (Ohio), Michigan, Ohio, SDSU, SJSU, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest, West Virginia
If you're a fan of Southern Miss, Ball State or Louisville, stock up on aromatherapy candles and/or your favorite kind of brown liquor. If you aren't, keep an eye out for these teams regardless because wherever they're playing, a wild finish could follow.
With this in mind, here's another layer of games to follow -- games with potential for absolute nonsense in the form of either chaotic plays, wacky finishes or both. Games in bold pit two chaos teams against each other.
Week 1: Louisville vs. Ole Miss
Week 2: NC State at Mississippi State
Week 3: Troy at Southern Miss
Week 4: Toledo at Ball State
Week 5: Arizona State at UCLA
Week 6: Virginia at Louisville
Week 7: Kent State at Western Michigan
Week 8: Maryland at Minnesota
Week 9: SMU at Houston
Week 10: Penn State at Maryland
Week 11: Arizona State at Washington
Week 12: Virginia at Pitt
Week 13: Cal at UCLA
Watch fun players
Novel concept, right? We are blessed each year with a collection of particularly fun and explosive athletes. Get to know them before they leave for the pros or run out of eligibility. Here's an extra matchup for each week of the season that pairs particularly fun players, many of whom are among either the nation's most explosive or versatile players.
Week 1: LSU at UCLA -- LSU WR Kayshon Boutte and UCLA RBs Brittain Brown and Zach Charbonnet
Week 2: Tulsa at Oklahoma State -- Tulsa DT Jaxon Player and OSU quarterback Spencer Sanders
Week 3: Arizona State at BYU -- BYU RB Tyler Allgeier and ASU RBs Chip Trayanum and Rachaad White
Week 4: SJSU at WMU -- SJSU QB Nick Starkel and WMU QB Kaleb Eleby
Week 5: Boston College at Clemson -- BC CB Jason Maitre vs. Clemson WR Justyn Ross
Week 6: Coastal Carolina at Arkansas State -- Coastal QB Grayson McCall and ASU QB Layne Hatcher
Week 7: Iowa State at Kansas State -- ISU RB Breece Hall and KSU RB Deuce Vaughn
Week 8: Memphis at UCF -- Memphis WR Calvin Austin III and UCF WR Jaylon Robinson
Week 9: Texas at Baylor -- Texas RB Bijan Robinson and BU safety Jalen Pitre
Week 10: Liberty at Ole Miss -- LU QB Malik Willis and Ole Miss QB Matt Corral (plus, Ole Miss against former Rebel head coach Hugh Freeze)
Week 11: Nevada at SDSU -- Nevada QB Carson Strong and SDSU DE Cameron Thomas
Week 12: SMU at Cincinnati -- SMU WRs Rashee Rice and Reggie Roberson Jr. and Cincinnati QB Desmond Ridder
Week 13: North Carolina at NC State -- UNC QB Sam Howell and NC State WR Emeka Emezie
Watch the underrated rivalries
Michigan-Ohio State. The Iron Bowl. Army-Navy. We know college football's biggest rivalries by heart. You don't need me to tell you to watch the Red River Showdown or the Egg Bowl, right?
(RIGHT? Please tell me you watch the Egg Bowl. Two years ago, a guy fake-peed in the end zone after a touchdown, and the domino effect impacted about 20 head coaching jobs and might have helped LSU earn the No. 1 seed in the CFP.)
There are lots of other games, however, that (a) we don't talk about nearly as much and (b) deliver constantly. Every game either ends up a nip-and-tuck affair, produces surprising results or, in the case of something like Purdue-Iowa or Utah-USC, delivers a level of dislike that you might not have been expecting. Here are 15 more games to add to the watchlist:
Week 2: Iowa at Iowa State; Air Force at Navy
Week 3: Virginia at North Carolina
Week 5: Northwestern at Nebraska
Week 6: Arkansas at Ole Miss; Utah at USC; West Virginia at Baylor; Houston at Tulane
Week 7: Purdue at Iowa
Week 8: Tulane at SMU
Week 9: Baylor at TCU; Colorado State at Wyoming
Week 10: NC State at Wake Forest
Week 11: Oklahoma State at Texas Tech
Week 12: Tulsa at SMU
Between Arkansas-Ole Miss and Houston-Tulane (in addition to A&M-Bama and OU-Texas), Week 6 has massive silliness potential.
Some of the silliest things happen midweek
While Saturday is college football's anchor day, you can find a game on most days of the week, especially by midseason. Ignore them at your peril. From early-season AAC action to October Fun Belt nonsense to the long-celebrated November MACtion, weekdays deliver the goods.
Even in last year's disjointed mess of a season, weekdays still gave us Tulsa's mini-Hail Mary and overtime pick-six against Tulane, Western Michigan's fake-spike touchdown against Toledo, Louisiana's odd intentional safety against Appalachian State, Coastal Carolina's last-second win over Louisiana and a 111-point Jonesboro track meet. Not every midweek game is amazing, but this year's schedule is loaded with possibilities.
Week 1: Boise State at UCF
Week 3: UCF at Louisville
Week 4: Marshall at Appalachian State
Week 5: Houston at Tulsa
Week 6: Coastal Carolina at Arkansas State (and, of course, Houston at Tulane)
Week 7: Appalachian State at Louisiana
Week 8: Coastal Carolina at Appalachian State (plus Tulane at SMU and Memphis at UCF)
Week 9: Troy at Coastal Carolina
Week 10: Miami (Ohio) at Ohio; Central Michigan at Western Michigan
Week 11: Kent State at Central Michigan
Week 12: Toledo at Ohio; Central Michigan at Ball State; Memphis at Houston
Embrace the hot-seat angst
I enjoy celebrating success far more than failure, but when hot-seat anxiety is bleeding through the screen, it's hard to look away. We never fully anticipate twists and turns and how the coaching carousel will spin, but five games in particular could feature a certain amount of "lose and you're gone" anxiety on both sidelines.
Week 6: Michigan at Nebraska. Week 0 was not encouraging when it came to Scott Frost's status in Lincoln, and by Week 6 Michigan could be anywhere from 5-0 and back in the top 10 to 3-2 and flailing after a blowout loss to Wisconsin.
Week 6: Akron at Bowling Green. Tom Arth and Scot Loeffler are a combined 4-31 in their respective jobs. That probably says it all.
Week 8: Virginia Tech at Syracuse. Justin Fuente's Hokies do have decent bounce-back potential, but Fuente and Syracuse's Dino Babers are starting out with easily the hottest seats in the ACC.
Week 11: Houston at Temple. This could be the year things come together for Dana Holgorsen at Houston, and last year's Temple collapse could have been purely COVID-related and not long term. But both of these teams need significant rebounds this fall.
Week 12: UCLA at USC. The Los Angeles rivals are among the most fascinating teams for 2021 because of the sheer range of possibilities. Chip Kelly's UCLA team could be ready to surge into the top 25, and by mid-November Clay Helton's USC squad might be unbeaten and gunning for a CFP spot. There is reason for optimism at both schools...and there's very much a non-zero chance this game features two interim coaches after Kelly and Helton are both fired in early November.
Embrace the Georgia angst, too
The parallels between Mark Richt's and Kirby Smart's Georgia tenures simultaneously produce confidence and massive anxiety for Dawg fans.
Richt's first five years (2001 to 2005): 52-13, four top-10 finishes
Smart's first five years (2016 to 2020): 52-14, four top-10 finishes
Richt won the SEC and came within a break or two of the national title game in his second year, then ripped off three more top-10 finishes (and another SEC title) in his next three seasons.
Smart won the SEC and came within a single play of the national title in his second year, then ripped off three more top-10 finishes as well.
Considering Richt is one of the 30 or so best head coaches of the last 50 years, these parallels are pretty encouraging. When you're this consistently awesome, your odds of an eventual title breakthrough are pretty high. But Richt's breakthrough never came -- his Dawgs again finished a play or two away in 2007 and 2012, and despite 10 seasons of 10-plus wins, they never could reel in the elusive national title.
And now Smart enters what feels like quite the "If not now, then when?" season. His roster is absolutely loaded, his team is by far the most obvious Next Clemson candidate, and his quarterback, JT Daniels, is the most logical Next Mac Jones candidate and probably the most important player of the season. I recommend following Georgia closely this year, both because you might be witnessing a breakthrough 40 years in the making and, if the breakthrough doesn't come, the angst levels will be nuclear-grade.
Beyond the obvious encounters with Clemson and Florida, these are the most interesting Dawg games of the season:
Week 6: Georgia at Auburn
Week 7: Kentucky at Georgia
Week 11: Georgia at Tennessee
(Any time Tennessee is involved in anything, the angst triples no matter what.)
Oklahoma and Texas road games are going to be nasty
It says everything you need to know about how money and brands run the sport that Texas can play mid-level Big 12 football for a decade but still potentially blow the conference up by leaving it for a bigger conference. Sometime between now and 2025, the Longhorns and Oklahoma will leave for the SEC, likely dooming the rest of the Big 12 to massive future revenue cuts even if the conference survives. But if there's a bright side to that, it's that the remaining road games for OU and UT are going to be capital-H Hostile.
Week 5: Oklahoma at Kansas State; Texas at TCU
Week 9: Texas at Baylor
Week 10: Texas at Iowa State
Week 11: Oklahoma at Baylor
Week 12: Texas at West Virginia
Week 13: Oklahoma at Oklahoma State
Granted, Bedlam hasn't been particularly chaotic in recent years, but if the Cowboys and Sooners are close into the second half, Boone Pickens Stadium is going to be one hell of a place to watch a football game.
Watch as much small-school football as you possibly can
I cannot stress this enough. Virtually any college football game at any level is available to stream through school websites, if nothing else, and you should take advantage of it. Football beneath the FBS level is smaller in terms of crowd size and, typically, physical size, but it is an incredible rabbit hole to go down. Hundreds of teams have rich histories, proud fan bases and, in some cases, innovative approaches to the game. The more of it you can watch, the healthier your college football fandom becomes.
That means following Division II and III playoff races (NAIA, too), immersing yourself in the glories of the HBCU football universe and even keeping tabs on the innovative and exciting Ivy League.
Just so you are prepared, here are the preseason top-five rankings for each level. Sam Houston, West Florida, North Central and Lindsey Wilson are your defending champions.
FCS (coaches poll): 1. Sam Houston, 2. James Madison, 3. South Dakota State, 4. North Dakota State, 5. Delaware. (If you enjoy raw offensive firepower, also keep an eye on No. 11 Eastern Washington and No. 15 Southeastern Louisiana.)
Division II (AFCA poll): 1. West Florida, 2. Minnesota State, 3. Ferris State, 4. NW Missouri State, 5. Slippery Rock. (Slippery Rock and conference mates like Indiana (Pa.) are also quite aesthetically pleasing from a points perspective.)
Division III (via D3football.com): 1. Mary Hardin-Baylor, 2. Mount Union, 3. North Central (Ill.), 4. UW-Whitewater, 5. Wheaton (Ill.)
NAIA (via NAIA.org): 1. Lindsey Wilson (Ky.), 2. Northwestern (Iowa), 3. Morningside (Iowa), 4. Keiser (Fla.), 5. Grand View (Iowa)
In my Friday preview columns during the season, I always try to identify at least one smaller-school game to keep an eye on in a given week, but here are two games per week that, either because of rivalry, competitiveness or high preseason poll rankings, are all but guaranteed to rock.
Week 1: SC State at Alabama A&M (FCS); Eastern Washington at UNLV (FCS)
Week 2: Keiser at Lindsey Wilson (NAIA); Baker at Grand View (NAIA)
Week 3: James Madison at Weber State (FCS); North Central at Wheaton (D3)
Week 4: Mount Union at John Carroll (D3), Hardin-Simmons at Mary Hardin-Baylor (D3)
Week 5: North Dakota at North Dakota State (FCS); Montana at Eastern Washington (FCS)
Week 6: Yale at Dartmouth (FCS); Southeastern Louisiana at Nicholls (FCS)
Week 7: Indiana (Pa.) at Slippery Rock (D2); UW-Whitewater at UW-Oshkosh (D3)
Week 8: James Madison at Delaware (FCS); Jacksonville State at Sam Houston (FCS)
Week 9: SC State at NC Central (FCS); Princeton at Dartmouth (FCS)
Week 10: North Dakota State at South Dakota State (FCS); Morningside at Northwestern (Iowa) (NAIA)
Week 11: Yale at Princeton (FCS); Valdosta State at West Florida (D2)
Week 12: Division 2, Division 3 and NAIA playoffs begin. Immerse yourself.
Week 13: Grambling vs. Southern (FCS) and FCS playoffs begin
You probably won't be able to catch all 120-plus games listed above. You've got your own team to follow, tailgates to attend, etc. But the wider you can open your arms to take in the college football universe as a whole, the more you'll find to enjoy across the spectrum.
Some college football seasons are better and more memorable than others, but when you know where to look and what to watch, every season can be a blast.