STANFORD, CA, Sporting Alert – The 2016 college football early season action continues on Friday with another heavy schedule, including three games involving AP Top 25 ranked teams.
No. 8 Stanford, No. 12 Michigan State and No. 23 Baylor are the ranked sides on the fixture for Friday night and live online streaming, live score updates and text commentary, as well as TV broadcasting details for each game, will be provided.
At the Stanford Stadium in California, the Cardinal will play hosts to Kansas State, hoping to avoid the kind of start they had in the opening game 16-6 loss to Northwestern last year.
All eyes will be on home star running back Christian McCaffrey, who is back for another season to lead a Stanford team that has heavy ambitions of making the College Football Playoff this season.
McCaffrey, who finished second in last year’s Heisman Trophy race, is expected to have an even heavier workload this campaign with head coach David Shaw revealing that he intends to push his star man even further.
“The guy has handled everything,” Shaw said. “We’re going to push him harder, push him further, and see if there’s more he can do.”
Friday night’s clash will be the first meeting between the two programs and the home side will hope to make it a winning start, as it also seeks to improve on the 5-9 all-time record against Big 12 opponents.
Shaw’s team is the favourite to win the Pac-12 title this season and it heads into the clash with the Wildcats favoured by 85.2-percent, according to ESPN’s Football Power Index.
Meanwhile, Kansas State owns an 82-33-5 record all-time in season openers, including a 22-2 record under head coach Bill Snyder.
It is also the first time since 2007 the Wildcats were beginning their season with a road game.
Jesse Ertz, who missed last year with an unfortunate injury on the first offensive play, returns as the starting quarterback for K-State and he will go up against Stanford senior Ryan Burns, who has thrown just one college pass.
This game will be televised on FS1 with Gus Johnson doing the play-by-play commentary and Joel Klatt (analyst) and Shannon Spake (sidelines) on the team as well.
Friday’s college football fixture will also see the 12th ranked Michigan State going up against Furman and the College Football Playoff semi-finalist from last season will be hoping to make some kind of an early statement after being overlooked in the Big 10 again.
In the other game involving an AP Top 25 team, the 23rd ranked Baylor Bears start their new journey without former head coach Art Briles, who was dismissed at the end of last season – against Northwestern State at McLane Stadium in Waco, Texas.
Jim Grobe begins his first season as acting head coach and he will be hoping to continue Baylor’s recent trend of winning at least 10 games per season.
College Football Schedule: Top 25 and More
Friday, September 2
Mississippi Valley State at Eastern Michigan 6:00 PM ESPN3
Ball State at Georgia State 7:00 PM ESPN3
Albany at Buffalo 7:00 PM ESPN3
Colgate at Syracuse 7:00 PM ACCN
Army at Temple 7:00 PM CBSSN
Furman at No. 12 Michigan State 7:00 PM BTN Gametracker
Northwestern State at No. 23 Baylor 7:30 PM FSN Listen | Gametracker
Colorado State at Colorado 8:00 PM ESPN
Kansas State at No. 8 Stanford 9:00 PM FS1 Live Stats
Toledo at Arkansas State 9:00 PM ESPNU, WatchESPN
The NCAA official website will have more details of each game.
