Football for breakfast on this glorious Saturday morning brings us Auburn v. Mississippi State, with Dan Mullen and his Bulldogs making the trek to the Plains for the first time since the Cam Newton drama. Mullen is 0-8 against SEC West teams not named Ole Miss, but Auburn struggled mightily a week ago against lowly Utah State, and in any event the tensions look to run very high in this one.
In other early action, we also have Oregon State v. Wisconsin, Rutgers v. North Carolina, and Kentucky tries to recover from their disastrous performance a week ago in the season opener by taking on Central Michigan. For lagniappe, you can also watch Iowa v. Iowa State battle over a bushel of a corn and not much else.
We'll post the 'Bama game threads in a few hours, and we'll have another thread up later this evening for the night games. Until then, chime in here with all of your thoughts and comments on the early action.
Update: As referenced in the comments, Duron Carter did not travel with the team to Happy Valley and will not play against Penn State this afternoon as once again academic issues are keeping him on the sidelines. Per Izzy Gould:
Sources confirmed to al.com newspapers that receiver Duron Carter will not play in Alabama's game against Penn State today.
He did not travel with Alabama to Pennsylvania, the sources said.
Carter was still in 'Bama's plans Thursday evening in Nick Saban's post-practice press conference, so this issue did not come up until sometime Friday morning. Nothing definitive yet on the nature of these latest concerns, or their source (either the NCAA or UA Compliance), but presumably this latest problem is related to the transcript issue that caused him to miss all of fall camp and by extension the presumption is that UA Compliance is the source involved. We'll update accordingly as news comes across, but I imagine it will be several days before this is resolved, so for the time being just be aware that Carter will not be on the field this afternoon.
Update II: UA releases an official statement and confirms this is academically related. From the sound of it, consider this an extenuation of the previous melodrama. Per the Tuscaloosa News:
"Wide receiver Duron Carter did not travel with the football team to State College for today's game. The University of Alabama is awaiting documents necessary for Duron to be certified. Until those documents are received, Duron may continue practicing with the team, but he cannot compete in a game."