AI-assisted summary
• Five matchups will take place between teams ranked in the US LBM Coaches Poll Top 25.
• Key rivalry games include Ohio State at Michigan and Texas A&M at Texas.
• Only one of the top 10 ranked teams, Oklahoma, will be playing at home.

Fittingly for this holiday weekend, the college football schedule offers a fully laden buffet table. Every team in the US LBM Coaches Poll Top 25 is in action, with five ranked matchups highlighting the menu that will impact the College Football Playoff. That means there are 20 games for our panel of pigskin prognosticators to ponder.

As is usually the case, the final weekend features a number of the sport’s most intense rivalries. Topping the list are No. 1 Ohio State heading up north to meet No. 15 Michigan, and No. 3 Texas A&M putting its unblemished record on the line at No. 16 Texas. In other ranked matchups, No. 4 Georgia heads to Atlanta to meet No. 19 Georgia Tech, No. 18 Tennessee hosts No. 12 Vanderbilt, and No. 13 Miami (Fla.) heads to No. 24 Pittsburgh.

Oh yeah, there are a few other notable neighborhood contests. No. 6 Mississippi braves the cowbells for the ‘Egg Bowl’ showdown with Mississippi State, No. 10 Alabama looks to avoid an upset at nemesis Auburn, and No. 5 Oregon travels to Seattle to face Washington.

In a curious quirk of the calendar, only one of the top 10 squads will conclude the regular season at home as No. 8 Oklahoma hosts LSU. Does that mean there’s a greater potential for surprises? Read on to see if our staffers think so.

College football predictions for Week 14

Cade Cunningham and the Detroit Pistons have been one of the NBA’s biggest stories in the early going.

But the Pistons’ winning streak finally came to an end Wednesday, the team falling just short of setting a new franchise record with 14 consecutive wins.

The Boston Celtics held off the Pistons 117-114 in a back-and-forth contest at TD Garden. The Pistons hadn’t lost since Oct. 27, a 116-95 home defeat against the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Pistons are now 15-3 after a 2-2 start to the season.

The game was tied at 97 with 5:48 left in the game. The Celtics led the Pistons 111-110 with 12.8 seconds left in the fourth quarter, when Cunningham had the ball stolen by Derrick White. The two teams would go on to exchange free throws, with both Cunningham and White making their respective free throws.

After a shooting foul, Cunningham was back at the line with 4.4 seconds left and his team down three. He made just two of his three free throw attempts, though, giving the game away.

The Pistons tied a franchise record on Monday with their 13th consecutive win, tying their highest mark from the 1990 and 2004 championship seasons. In 2023, Cunningham and the Pistons suffered through a historic 28-game losing streak.

Pistons winning streak

• Oct. 29: vs. Magic, 135-116
• Nov. 1: vs. Mavericks, 122-110
• Nov. 3: at Grizzlies, 114-106
• Nov. 5: vs. Jazz, 114-103
• Nov. 7: at Nets, 125-107
• Nov. 9: at 76ers, 111-108
• Nov. 10: vs. Wizards, 137-135 (OT)
• Nov. 12: vs. Bulls, 124-113
• Nov. 14: vs. 76ers, 114-105
• Nov. 17: vs. Pacers, 127-112
• Nov. 18: at Hawks, 120-112
• Nov. 22: at Bucks, 129-116
• Nov. 24: at Pacers, 122-117

LSU football has officially closed the book on the Brian Kelly era in Baton Rouge… Again.

According to multiple outlets, including ESPN’s Pete Thamel, LSU put in writing on Wednesday, Nov. 26 to Kelly that the university terminated his contract without cause, which means he’ll receive his full buyout pay of approximately $54 million as long as he continues to search for a new job.

The 64-year-old coach was dismissed by the Tigers Sunday, Oct. 26.

The decision by the Tigers to solidify that Kelly was fired without cause comes after Kelly filed a lawsuit against LSU on Nov. 11, claiming the school was trying to fire him for cause to avoid paying him his approximate $54 million buyout fee, which is according to his contract obtained by the USA TODAY Network. 

Kelly’s approximate $54 million buyout is second second-most-expensive buyout in college football history, only behind Jimbo Fisher’s $76.8 million at Texas A&M in 2023.

He was relieved from his duties by former LSU athletic director Scott Woodward on Oct. 26, one day after the Tigers dropped their third-straight top-25 ranked game of the season, a lopsided 49-25 loss to No. 3 Texas A&M at home.

It marked the first time that Kelly had been fired in his coaching career, which has included stops at Central Michigan, Cincinnati and Notre Dame.

There are currently seven Power Four conference jobs other than LSU still open for Kelly this coaching carousel in Florida, Arkansas, Penn State, Auburn, UCLA, Stanford and Cal. Virginia Tech and Oklahoma State have already filled their openings with James Franklin and Eric Morris, respectively.

‘Moving to Baton Rouge four years ago, my family and I were clear. There would be no halfway. We would be all-in for LSU and for Louisiana. This journey began with great expectations with my own vision of how to get there. Sometimes the journey does not end the way we hope,’ Kelly said in his first public statement since his firing on Nov. 6. ‘… The losses will always hurt, but I will always remember all of the wins.’

In four seasons at LSU, Kelly finished with a 34-14 overall record and missed out on the College Football Playoffs in each season. He led the Tigers to one SEC championship game appearance, which came in his first season.

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Quarterback Joe Burrow will be back on the field for the first time since mid-September this week against AFC North rival Baltimore. The team confirmed as much today ahead of the Thanksgiving triple-header capped off by Ravens-Bengals.

Burrow last played in Week 2 against the Jacksonville Jaguars. He suffered a Grade 3 turf toe injury in the second quarter and missed the subsequent nine games as the Bengals fell to 3-8 after a 2-0 start.

Burrow’s surgery had a timetable that predicted a return in mid-December so this is a faster turnaround than many expected. Cincinnati needs him – plus some luck with the rest of the schedule – to have a shot at making the playoffs in a competitive AFC wild-card race.

Thanksgiving marks the first of two games between the Bengals and Ravens over the next three weeks. Cincinnati will take on the Buffalo Bills on the road next week, giving Burrow two marquee matchups immediately upon his return to the field.

Who is Joe Burrow’s backup?

Joe Flacco will be Burrow’s backup as he makes his return to the field. The Bengals acquired Flacco from the Cleveland Browns earlier this season after multiple losses with Jake Browning at quarterback for Burrow.

Cincinnati’s operated with three quarterbacks on its active roster with Burrow out: Flacco, Browning and Sean Clifford. Clifford will likely be moved off the active roster with Burrow back in action.

Cincinnati Bengals schedule

AFC North standings

• Baltimore Ravens: 6-5 (2-0 AFC North)
• Pittsburgh Steelers: 6-5 (2-1)
• Cincinnati Bengals: 3-8 (2-1)
• Cleveland Browns: 3-8 (0-4)

• NFL games on Thanksgiving Day have been a tradition since the league’s inception in 1920.
• The Detroit Lions first started playing games on Thanksgiving Day in 1934.
• The Dallas Cowboys have played on every Thanksgiving Day – with the exception of 1975 and 1977 – since 1966.

The NFL on Thanksgiving Day has featured some memorable moments, from Clint Longley leading a Cowboys comeback in 1974 and a national TV showcase for the incomparable Barry Sanders to the infamous Butt Fumble in 2012 and Leon Lett’s blunder in 1993.

NFL games on Thanksgiving have been a tradition since the league’s inception in 1920 (there were six games that first season!).

This season — for the 20th season in a row — will feature three games:

• Green Bay Packers at Detroit Lions, 1 p.m. ET (FOX)
• Kansas City Chiefs at Dallas Cowboys, 4:30 p.m. ET (CBS)
• Cincinnati Bengals at Baltimore Ravens, 8:20 p.m. ET (NBC)

A third prime-time game was added in 2006, and includes teams other than the Lions and Cowboys, who each play their traditional Thanksgiving home games.

Why do the Lions always play on Thanksgiving?

For a while, watching the Detroit Lions lose on Thanksgiving Day had become a holiday tradition unlike any other. However, the Lions snapped a seven-game losing streak on Thanksgiving with last year’s win over the Chicago Bears, and sport a 38-45-2 all-time record on Turkey Day. However, that trend could end this year as the Lions are off to their best start since starting 10-0 in 1934, which was a seminal year for the Lions franchise and Thanksgiving football.

The Lions are a quality team now, but if in years past you often found yourself cursing the fact that Detroit would always host a game on Thanksgiving Day, it’s George A. Richards who is responsible. In 1934, Richards purchased the Portsmouth (Ohio) Spartans for the sum of $8,000 and moved the team to Detroit, renaming the team the Lions (inspired by the local baseball team, the Tigers). 

While football on Thanksgiving was a normal thing for the NFL since its inception, it was Richards who took it to another level. Richards was a radio executive, and used his connections to negotiate a deal with NBC to broadcast a Thanksgiving game nationally on its 94-station network. Richards also convinced Chicago Bears owner/coach George Halas to be the Lions’ opponent, suggesting the game would give the still-fledgling NFL vital exposure. The game was a massive success; a Detroit-record crowd attended the game while listeners across the U.S. enjoyed the gridiron action over the airwaves. A new great American tradition was born.

With the exception of 1939-44 during World War II, the Lions have hosted a Thanksgiving Day game every year since 1934. The first nationally televised game was in 1953, when the Lions defeated the Green Bay Packers en route to winning a second consecutive NFL championship.

A year after that initial Thanksgiving Day game in Detroit, the Lions collected the first NFL title in team history. Detroit would win three more championships in the 1950s before enduring a title drought that Detroit does not enjoy to this day.

Why do the Cowboys always play on Thanksgiving?

By the mid-1960s, the NFL was well on its way to becoming the entertainment behemoth it is today. Television networks, eager to satisfy the sporting appetites of audiences, worked with the NFL to add a second Thanksgiving Day game for the 1966 season. Dallas Cowboys team president Tex Schramm shrewdly volunteered his team to play in a Thanksgiving game, so long as Dallas would host the game each year.

That decision — as well as the team’s long run of success from the mid-60s well into the 1980s — profoundly contributed to the Cowboys earning the ‘America’s Team’ moniker.

With the exception of two seasons since 1966 — in 1975 and 1977 when the St. Louis Cardinals hosted a Thanksgiving Day game — the Cowboys have hosted a game on the holiday every year, always scheduled after the Detroit Lions’ annual game. Unlike the Lions, the Cowboys typically enjoy success on Thanksgiving, posting a 34-22-1 all-time record on the holiday.  

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