1) College football, 7:30 p.m. ET, ABC. For most schools, the season starts next weekend. Each year, however, two historically Black colleges gets a one-week jump. This time, South Carolina State (3-8 last year) faces Jackson State, which was 12-0 in the regular-season (with an average score of 38-11), before losing a bowl game. Now its coach (Deion Sanders) and its star quarterback (his son Shedeur, shown here) have switched to Colorado.
2) More football. There are a five more games on national TV. That starts at 2:30 p.m. ET on NBC with Navy (4-8 last year) and Notre Dame (9-4, including a Gator Bowl win) in Dublin. The CBS Sports Network has El Paso and Jacksonville State at 5:30 p.m. and Florida International and Louisiana Tech at 9. Also: New Mexico State-Massacusetts, 7 p.m., ESPN; Ohio-San Diego State, 8, Fox Sports 1.
3) “Saturday Night Live, 11:29 p.m., NBC. Pedro Pascal has had a huge year – starring in HBO’s “The Last of Us” and Disney+’s “The Mandalorian” and hosting the Feb. 4 “SNL.” It reruns tonight, with Coldplay as the music guest.
4) “Shakespeare & Hathaway,” 7 and 8 p.m. ET, Ovation. This wraps what was the show’s second season in England. (Don’t worry, the third starts next week on Ovation.) After solving 19 crimes, Luella Shakespeare might actually get her private-eye license. That’s in the 7 p.m. episode which, as usual, is strong on charm and fairly weak on plotting a mystery.
5) ALSO: Tonight has baseball on Fox (7:15 p.m. ET), NASCAR on NBC (7 p.m. ET) and an “NCIS: Los Angeles” rerun on CBS (8), with a Marine felled by a genetic weapon. Movies include “The Flash” (2023), at 8 p.m. on HBO; the witty “Pil’low Talk” (1959), at 8 p.m. ET on Turner Classic Movies; and the great Indiana Jones trilogy (1981, 84, ‘89) at 5, 7 and 9 p.m. on Showtime, with the so-so fourth film (2008) at 11:10.