It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
The spotlight of this week’s college football slate was supposed to be far from Columbia, MO. The mighty Crimson Tide of Alabama traveling to Wisconsin still had splendor all over it, even as the Badgers have descended from their top-20 status they held when the home-and-home series was announced in July 2019. Memphis-Florida State and UNLV-Kansas were supposed to be games in which potential Group of 5 representatives in the College Football Playoff traveled to battle ranked power conference opponents on their turf. Rivalries — six of them to be exact — are being rekindled, from the Backyard Brawl out east to the Apple Cup out west.