Bonus coverage … Thursday night football makes a triumphant return to the NFL airwaves later this evening when the New York Jets travel to Buffalo to play the Bills in what seems to be a never ending race for 2nd place in the AFC East behind New England. Kick-off is at 8:25 PM ET on CBS. Meanwhile, there is a potentially interesting college later this evening to help warm up for Saturday’s slate of really good games on the college schedule. Tonight’s game on ESPN has Houston playing at Cincinnati in a key early-season American Athletic Conference contest. The game also has national implications as Houston has hopes of forcing its way into the BCS playoffs after upsetting Oklahoma the first week of the schedule. To get there, though, the Cougars will have to run the table and tonight’s game against Cincinnati, which is 2-0 including a 38-20 win at Purdue last weekend, represents one of their biggest challenges within the conference. This game also gives fans who have not yet seen Houston QB Greg Ward a chance to see him play. Ward isn’t necessarily a legit NFL prospect, at least as a QB, but he’s a terrific dual-threat QB who is probably the top 1-2 Heisman Trophy candidate outside the Power 5 conferences. In fact, tonight’s game had been expected to be a dual between Ward and Cincinnati gunslinger Gunner Kiel, but the latter has been relegated to 3rd string on the Bearcats’ depth chart behind sophomore starter Hayden Moore. Unfortunately, neither school has much in the way of prime prospects for the 2017 draft, although Houston has a couple of quality OLBs with late-round potential in Tyus Bowser and Steven Taylor, while FS Zach Edwards, OLB Eric Wilson and C Deyshawn Bond could get free-agent looks from the Bearcats, but that’s not really the reason to watch this game. Enjoy!
