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Opening week of college football brings a few interesting brands face to face, but equally interesting it is often the week of the year with the most opportunities for the hilarious upset of a team in the FBS by a team in the FCS, power bonus for a team in the power five. Who is going to take one for team schadenfreude? Let's have a look at week 1's most interesting games.
Saturday, August 29
3:30 PM - North Dakota State at Montana
The defending FCS national champion bison will actually be the first televised kickoff this year, what will feel like a full week before you can watch the rest of these on this list. Their victim, the Montana Grizzlies lost last year in a 22-10 decision en route to winning 9 games. North Dakota State, known for ritually devouring about 1 FBS team per season, doesn't have one on their schedule this year (took the FBS long enough to figure this out), so to make this right I'm officially declaring NDSU an honorary FBS member. Should they lose this game, they will have officially participated in the first FCS over FBS upset of the year! Congrats, NDSU. Opportunity awaits.
Thursday, September 3
6:00 PM - North Carolina vs South Carolina
The opening of Power Five Football and round 1 in the perennial season-long regional grudge match between the ACC and SEC, as well as the 12 football teams at various levels with the word "Carolina" in their names, and their 35 neighbors. Both of these teams are historically okay, and figure to be at least okay this year, so this football game should be okay. Personally, I'll eat this up like it's the freaking super bowl because I am chemically addicted to this game and it has been a long long time since my last fix.
7:00 PM - Elon at Wake Forest
Admittedly this is a long shot, because Elon last year was to the FCS what Wake Forest was to the FBS, but it's the first of our games that presents the tantalizing possibility of a Power Five FCS upset. Wake Forest was one of the lower performing teams in the entire FBS last year, although they had a defense which was increasingly reliable late in the year which will probably be enough to bail them out here barring any increase in productivity on the other side of the ball. I'm hoping we don't see Wake Forest have some kind of offensive renaissance for a reason other than that the tears of FBS fans are a delicious seasoning in the cuisine of my people, and that reason is Alex Kinal. The Australian punter for Wake Forest is very near the all time NCAA record for career punts and other fun things, and if he remains on last year's trajectory he will etch an unobtainable mark into the record books which will stand long beyond the time when graduate students at the University of Cydonia on Mars studying ancient Earth cultures line the game of football up along the same pages as ancient Aztec blood sport. I want the punctuation mark on Alex Kinal's campaign of field flippery to be something you could only write in Nazgul. I want to see him punt 40 times a game, all season. Sorry, Wake Fans. Actually, admit it, Wake fans, you'd like to see this too in kind of a twisted way.
7:30 PM - Alcorn State at Georgia Tech
You should watch this game because Georgia Tech should be your favorite team. In fact, you should go to this game, that'd be fun!
8:00 PM - Western Kentucky at Vanderbilt
Western Kentucky games should always be on your radar, because if they are anything like last year, they will always be fun. Western Kentucky either scored or allowed a billion points in each and every single game last year, capping off its regular season with a borderline erotic 67-66 overtime win at a nationally ranked Marshall. Both of the lowest scoring games last year in which WKU was a participant were blowouts, a 59-10 loss to Louisiana Tech and a 45-7 win vs UTSA. I can tell you one thing about this game for sure, just knowing WKU is on the field, it will be fun. As insurance on that statement, WKU's starting quarterback Brandon Doughty is back for a SIXTH year of eligibility. Now that we have established the presence of gasoline, let's try to add some fire: Vanderbilt. As awful as their record was last year, they are liable to put up a good fight in this game. I don't think we'll see a repeat of their 37-7 loss to Temple (if only because WKU wouldn't stop at 37), but they are in real jeopardy here if they don't have great improvement over last year. Bonus points to Vanderbilt for upping the stakes on South Carolina, as well. If the Gamecocks don't take care of business, the SEC could very well start the season out 0-2. Paul Finebaum would be delighted at the wealth of trolling opportunity.
9:00 PM - TCU at Minnesota
Let's take a break from the regional tribe warfare and the genuine joy upon seeing the suffering of others and visit what could actually be a very good football game. These two teams last year jumped out to anomalous seasons, and TCU's victory over Minnesota was a big part of the debate over precisely where they should fall in (or out of) the playoff picture for a while. Both teams are obviously going to be looking for more than they wound up with last year, with TCU hankering to win a playoff berth and Minnesota itching to represent in the Big 10 championship game, so in their 2015 debut I expect both teams to put their best foot forward.
8:30 PM - Michigan at Utah
Michigan was a lake of salty emotions last season, and the epicenter of some truly embarassing stuff, thanks in large part to the journalistic prowess of some of its fans (thank you all, truly). Now they've hired a coach who may actually have a progressive psychosis of some kind but is erstwhile very good at football things, or so his resume says. Rebuilding is probably the order of the day, but they'll have to get off to that in a hurry against Utah. In case you missed this contest last year, Utah soundly beat a Michigan team that probably wasn't expecting to be raided by a group of respect pirates who come from a state with an actual salt lake. Utah was no joke, losing to only a bunch of top 15 teams and uh... Washington State, whose coach is an actual dread pirate and probably didn't appreciate any kind of unauthorized piracy in his domain. Either this will be a good game where we get to see what's in store for the Harbaugh era, or it will re-open some very fresh wounds for Michigan fans. Either way, we get to see something fun.
9:30 PM - Duke at Tulane
Duke has been a surprising story for the last two years, arguably the best back to back years for the program in living memory. Coach Cutcliffe has made a ton of people really really mad that their programs lost to DUKE of all schools, but can he keep it up? Duke loses a ton of important pieces this year, and isn't a school which traditionally reloads... or rebuilds. I don't expect a game against Tulane to really tell anyone much, but if Duke wins comfortably, I think you can keep them on your radar for the rest of the season. On its own merits, this game should probably be a close one, if you find yourself unable to pay attention to the rest. Bonus points for watching this if you're a Georgia Tech fan (you should be), both of these teams are on the schedule.
10:00 PM - UTSA at Arizona
Last year, a senior laden UTSA took a talent laden Arizona down to the wire, and it was incredible fun to watch. Whether this was a function of UTSA or was just the way Anu Solomon seems to prefer every game is difficult to know, but UTSA didn't recapture near-Arizona levels of production again last season, finishing with just 4 wins. Can they recapture the magic?
