The October games you'd have skipped
Every night I look at the slate before anything starts and make a guess about what's worth watching. So does the app. In October that guess was wrong a lot, in the good direction.
We followed 2,967 finished games in October, and most of the ones that ended up worth watching didn't look it beforehand: about three in five. Kickoff tells you what a game is on paper, not what it turns into. That's why our ranking keeps moving while a game is on, and why these are worth knowing about even after the fact.
Here are twelve of the biggest turnarounds: games that sat low on their day's list before the start and ended up among the best of the night. Ratings here use our scoring as of November 12, which gives regular-season overtime and early upset leads less weight than it used to.
College football
- Pitt at Virginia Tech, Oct 2. Pitt 35, Virginia Tech 33. Neither team was ranked, and Virginia Tech went up 14-0 in the first quarter. Pitt scored four straight touchdowns to lead 35-24 early in the fourth, then Virginia Tech got a safety and a touchdown pass to make it a two-point game with ten minutes left. Ethan Grunkemeyer threw for 434 yards and three touchdowns in the loss.
- Louisiana at Southern Miss, Oct 24. Southern Miss 35, Louisiana 31. A 2-5 Southern Miss team at home. An interception returned for a touchdown tied it at 28 in the fourth, Louisiana kicked ahead with 2:51 left, and Jamarice Wilder won it with a 16-yard touchdown run with 58 seconds to go.
- Troy at James Madison, Oct 29. Troy 24, James Madison 21 (OT). A .500 Troy team at James Madison, which led 14-0 and then 21-7. Troy tied it in the third quarter with a 37-yard pick-six and a 28-yard run, nobody scored again in regulation, and H. Wolfe's 27-yard field goal won it in overtime.
More on tonight's college football.
NFL
- Chiefs at Raiders, Oct 4. Chiefs 30, Raiders 27. Kansas City trailed by three after three quarters. Kenneth Walker III scored twice in 19 seconds late in the fourth to make it an 11-point game, and the Raiders came back within three with under two minutes left. Kirk Cousins threw for 365 yards in the loss.
- Cardinals at Rams, Oct 18. Cardinals 18, Rams 16. Two 2-4 teams. Arizona never scored a touchdown. Chad Ryland kicked six field goals, and the last one, a 43-yarder as time expired, came after the Rams went ahead with 47 seconds left.
NBA
- Nets at Celtics, Oct 27. Celtics 125, Nets 124 (OT). A winless Brooklyn team on the road in Boston. It took overtime and a one-point finish. Jayson Tatum had 40 points and eight assists.
- Spurs at Jazz, Oct 28. Spurs 117, Jazz 111 (OT). A 1-4 Utah team at home. Victor Wembanyama had 36 and 14, and the game went to overtime before San Antonio pulled away.
NHL
- Canadiens at Penguins, Oct 3. Penguins 6, Canadiens 5 (OT). Pittsburgh led 5-1 midway through the second period, which is usually where you switch off. Montreal scored four straight, the last two in the final 68 seconds of regulation. Tommy Novak won it 1:33 into overtime.
Soccer
- Arsenal at Fleetwood Town, Carabao Cup, Oct 27. 1-1, Fleetwood won 5-3 on penalties. Fleetwood scored in the 21st minute and then defended for most of the night while Arsenal had 78% of the ball. Viktor Gyökeres equalized after half-time, Arsenal went down to ten men in the 85th, and Fleetwood scored all five of their penalties.
- Real Oviedo at Numancia, Copa del Rey, Oct 29. 3-3, Numancia won 4-2 on penalties. Numancia led 2-0, Oviedo scored twice in two minutes, Numancia went ahead again in the 86th, and Mikel Goti equalized in the 89th. Nobody scored in extra time, and Numancia won the shootout.
- Leverkusen at Mainz, Bundesliga, Oct 10. Leverkusen 4, Mainz 3. Leverkusen were 2-0 up after nine minutes. Anthony Caci scored twice to level it before half-time, Leverkusen scored two more after the break, and Mainz pulled one back in the 90th.
Tennis
- Alex de Minaur vs. Alexander Zverev, Erste Bank Open semifinal, Oct 31. The top seed against the fifth seed in Vienna. De Minaur won the first set 6-4, Zverev took the second 6-1, and de Minaur won the third in a tiebreak, 7-4, to reach the final.
What these have in common
Almost none of them looked interesting before the start, and for fair reasons. A winless team on the road. Two 2-4 teams. A lower-league club against Arsenal. None of that changed. What changed was the game itself: a 5-1 lead that disappeared, a winning touchdown with 58 seconds left, a shootout where one team didn't miss.
The pre-game view isn't useless. Plenty of October's best games were also the ones that looked best on paper. But if you only watch what looked good before the start, you'd have missed most of what was worth watching this month.
Our take
This is why the score in The Lineup Is keeps moving once a game starts. The pre-game number is a guess. Once there's a game clock, the app watches what's actually happening and moves the game up the list when it gets close, when someone starts coming back, or when it heads to overtime. It can also send you an alert when a game gets good, so the Penguins blowing a four-goal lead doesn't have to happen without you. I'll do this again for November, with that edition out on December 1.
The Lineup Is is an iPhone app that ranks every game by whether it's worth watching and tells you when one gets good.
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