This is always the second best weekend for college football in the whole year. Unfortunately, it’s often hard to untangle the mess of games on all sorts of channels. These days it is even necessary to screen FSN and TBS for the potential of good games. And with at least a few good games coming up on Friday, a “wait and flip channels Saturday afternoon” approach isn’t good enough.

What follows is my guide for viewing the Thanksgiving weekend of football with an eye towards BCS implications.

Nov. 24 Thu. Pittsburgh @ West Virginia 8:00 p.m. ESPN

Pitt has turned a few things around lately, and this game is always a brawl. These two teams love punching each other in the face. Metaphorically, of course. This has BCS implications as well, because WVU is in the driver’s seat for a conference championship and BCS berth. Plus, the Hokies need WVU to keep winning for computer purposes. It might not matter, but just in case.

Nov. 25 Fri. Texas @ Texas A&M Noon ABC

This could turn out to be the Vince Young Heisman Extravaganza. Texas A&M does not have the strongest defense, and if Mr. Young is going to score a statue in NYC this year, he needs to respond to that 500+ yard explosion from Reggie Bush on Saturday night. All the poll and Heisman voters will be checking this game out.

Plus, this is the last opportunity to hang an L on Texas before the Big 12 Championship, causing the sort of BCS controversy that we all know and love.

Nov. 25 Fri. Arkansas @ LSU 2:30 p.m. CBS

LSU is a tough, tough 1-loss team that we can expect to see playing in January. Arkansas is a program that has fallen on hard times lately. Watch just long enough for things to start to get out of hand, then switch to:

Nov. 26 Sat. Florida State @ Florida 3:30 p.m. CBS

Pope Urban Meyer the Awesome needs this game badly to salvage his rookie season at Florida, one of the hottest of the hot seats in college coaching. Wins over Georgia and Tennessee don’t look so great anymore. Struggling at Vanderbilt and losing to USC aren’t options for Gator fans. This may be the best possibility for a quality win in his first year.

At the same time, Florida State is a potential (knock on wood-colored plastic!!) VT opponent of the future. They need to halt their current slide if they want a shot on Dec. 3 against whoever they may happen to play.

Nov. 26 Sat. North Carolina @ VA Tech 7:45 p.m. ESPN

First off, go Hokies.

Secondly, if you want to win in Blacksburg at night, you need to bring the game of your life from every position and pray that the Hokies will make mistakes. Absolutely nothing has changed about that. Can UNC play out of their minds for 60 minutes with 140,000 screaming Hokie fans in their face? What will the announcers talk about more: Miami, or Michael Vick? I intend to find out!

Note: MaxPower points out that there are actually 298,452 screaming Hokie fans at the average VT home game, but that in normal college football fan units, it would be measured at 784,599. Thanks for the correction, Max!