Week 4 in college football wastes no time delivering the kind of heavyweight slate that makes Saturday feel overloaded before it even begins. It opens with No.
1 Texas heading to Knoxville for a Southeastern Conference showdown with No. 14 Tennessee, and the day only gets busier from there with five ranked-on-ranked matchups on the schedule.
Three of those top-25 battles come from the SEC. No.
4 Ole Miss heads to The Swamp to face No. 21 Florida, while No.
23 Texas A&M travels to No. 10 LSU.
Later, No. 19 Missouri takes on No.
24 Mississippi State in the nightcap of the ranked-versus-ranked group, a game that also puts breakout quarterback Kamario Taylor in the spotlight. Mississippi State enters as a 6-point favorite, and Taylor leads the nation in points responsible for with 26.0 ppg.
The other ranked-on-ranked games outside the SEC come from the Big Ten and beyond. No.
17 Iowa visits No. 18 Michigan at 3:30 p.m.
ET on CBS, and No. 20 Oregon faces No.
12 USC in a matchup of former Pac-12 rivals. Florida, meanwhile, gets a chance to build on its early momentum as a 3.5-point favorite over Ole Miss, with the Gators sitting at 3-0 and aiming for 4-0.
A pair of Peacock-exclusive games also land on the Saturday slate: No. 3 Notre Dame against Purdue at 2 p.m.
ET, and No. 13 Penn State against Wisconsin at 5 p.m.
ET.
For fans trying to watch without Streameast after the 2025 shutdown of the pirate streaming site, the cleanest free options are the five-day trials from FuboTV and DirecTV. SlingTV doesn’t have a free trial, but it does offer a first-month discount along with 1-, 3- and 5-day passes for its Orange Plan, making it the cheapest non-free route mentioned on the board. Peacock, Paramount+ and ESPN Unlimited also carry games tied to NBC, CBS and ESPN/ABC/FOX affiliates.
The full schedule stretches from early afternoon into the late-night window, with a long list of games streaming on ESPN+ or ESPN Unlimited and a handful landing on TV. Among the notable entries: Illinois at No.
7 Ohio State, Sam Houston at No. 11 Texas Tech, Wake Forest at No.
16 Louisville, Colorado at Baylor, and South Alabama at Kentucky all fall into the 1 p.m. ET block.
At 2 p.m. ET, No.
3 Notre Dame visits Purdue at Ross-Ade Stadium in West Lafayette, Ind., with the game available only on Peacock. Northern Illinois at Georgia State also kicks at 2 p.m.
ET and streams on ESPN+ or ESPN Unlimited.
The 3:30 p.m. ET window includes Robert Morris at Buffalo, Stonehill at Ohio, and the marquee Big Ten matchup between No.
17 Iowa and No. 18 Michigan.
Later in the afternoon, No. 25 Houston meets Georgia Southern on ESPNU, while North Carolina Central visits East Carolina on ESPN+ or ESPN Unlimited.
At 5 p.m. ET, Wisconsin travels to No.
13 Penn State, Nebraska plays at Michigan State, and South Florida faces Bowling Green. The 6 p.m.
ET group features James Madison at Old Dominion, where the game is set for S.B. Ballard Stadium in Norfolk, Va., and streams on ESPN+ or ESPN Unlimited.
The 7 p.m. ET window brings a heavy dose of ranked teams, including Central Michigan at No.
6 Miami, South Carolina at No. 8 Alabama, Kansas State at Cincinnati, Oklahoma State at West Virginia, and No.
23 Texas A&M at No. 10 LSU.
That same block also includes No. 20 Oregon at No.
12 USC, one of the day’s biggest matchups, along with No. 19 Missouri at No.
24 Mississippi State.
The late games continue at 9 p.m. ET with Massachusetts at Sacramento State, followed by Rice at Fresno State, Georgia Tech at Stanford, Air Force at Nevada, and Minnesota at Washington. The schedule runs deep, but the top of the board is where the weekend’s biggest collisions are stacked, and Week 4 wastes no time getting there.
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Penn State Turns To A Program Great For Wisconsin Weekend
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The chart is expected to move as the season goes along, and it will be updated every week as roles settle and availability changes. It also will include the player availability designations required by the Big Ten, giving a little more clarity even if the school itself keeps the full lineup card behind the scenes. [Read more 🡒]