Father’s Day seems like the right time to start thinking about CFB Week 1, right?
Let’s speculate on how many Top 25 teams (using whoever’s rankings by then you wish) will no longer be Top 25 after Week 1, and who all will move into that list that week.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
South Carolina at Vanderbilt 7:00 PM
UCF at Akron 7:00 PM
Eastern Michigan at Ball St. 7:00 PM
Northern Colorado at Utah 7:15 PM
Texas A&M vs. Louisiana Tech
(at Shreveport, LA) 7:30 PM
UCLA at Rice 7:30 PM
Massachusetts at Connecticut 7:30 PM
Southern Illinois at Eastern Illinois 7:30 PM
South Dakota Mines at North Dakota 8:00 PM
Azusa Pacific at UC-Davis 9:00 PM
Chadron St. at Montana St. 9:00 PM
Washington St. at BYU 10:15 PM
Northern Arizona at Arizona St. 10:30 PM
Minnesota at UNLV 11:00 PM
Friday, August 31, 2012
Villanova at Temple 7:00 PM
NC State vs. Tennessee
(at Atlanta, GA) 7:30 PM
Boise St. at Michigan St. 8:00 PM
San Jose St. at Stanford 10:00 PM
Saturday, September 01, 2012
Notre Dame vs. Navy
(at Dublin, Ireland) 9:00 AM
Ohio at Penn St. 12:00 PM
Northwestern at Syracuse 12:00 PM
Appalachian St. at East Carolina 12:00 PM
Western Michigan at Illinois 12:00 PM
Miami (OH) at Ohio St. 12:00 PM
Elon at North Carolina 12:30 PM
Nicholls St. at Oregon St. 3:00 PM
Nevada at California 3:00 PM
Richmond at Virginia 3:00 PM
William & Mary at Maryland 3:00 PM
Miami (FL) at Boston College 3:30 PM
Southern Miss at Nebraska 3:30 PM
Iowa vs. Northern Illinois
(at Chicago, IL) 3:30 PM
Eastern Kentucky at Purdue 3:30 PM
Northern Iowa at Wisconsin 3:30 PM
South Dakota at Montana 3:30 PM
Colorado St. vs. Colorado
(at Denver, CO) 4:00 PM
Murray St. at Florida St. 6:00 PM
Youngstown St. at Pittsburgh 6:00 PM
Liberty at Wake Forest 6:30 PM
Clemson vs. Auburn
(at Atlanta, GA) 7:00 PM
FIU at Duke 7:00 PM
Chattanooga at USF 7:00 PM
San Diego at Cal-Poly 7:00 PM
Hawai'i at USC 7:30 PM
Alabama vs. Michigan
(at Arlington, TX) 8:00 PM
Rutgers at Tulane 8:00 PM
Indiana St. at Indiana 8:00 PM
Texas St. at Houston 8:00 PM
Carroll at Portland St. 8:00 PM
Arkansas St. at Oregon 10:30 PM
Oklahoma at UTEP 10:30 PM
Toledo at Arizona 10:30 PM
San Diego St. at Washington 10:30 PM
Sunday, September 02, 2012
Bethune-Cookman vs. Alabama St.
(at Orlando, FL) 12:00 PM
Kentucky at Louisville 3:30 PM
SMU at Baylor 6:30 PM
Monday, September 03, 2012
Georgia Tech at Virginia Tech 8:00 PM
Southern Miss is a gutsy little team. They’ll play anybody, anytime, anywhere. They usually have to go on the road for big games, because their stadium isn’t very big. The two SEC schools in the state refused to play them for many years…likely because in any given year, Southern Miss might just whip their ass. Think State is going to finally play them next year. Think they beat Nebraska at Nebraska a few years ago. Hope to see them do it again…
Who cares about Notre Dame-Navy, Alabama-Michigan, Clemson-Auburn? Big deal. Listen to Bleacher Report … it’s the Texas-San Antonio vs South Alabama game the nation will be talking about!
Seriously, that made their best games of opening weekend list? I realize it’s UTSA’s first game as an FBS school, but … really?
There are some surprisingly good matchups for week one. North Carolina State-Tennessee could be intriguing, as well as Miami-Boston College. Even the doofuses at Bleacher Report mention Georgia Tech-Virginia Tech. I guess they overlooked that South Dakota School of Mines-North Dakota donnybrook.
I’m seriously considering going to the CoSt vs CU game in Denver. I went to CU for a while and lived in Ft Collins for awhile a couple of years ago. So, I could root against both teams.
That’s a fun way to be. Sad thing is that they can’t both lose!
Last year I made a point of ranking the Week One games based on the Sagarin rankings of both teams to come up with a difference by which all games could be ranked. That “South Dakota School of Mines-North Dakota donnybrook” might well be one of the more tightly matched games!
If anybody wants to go through that same sort of exercise, use the numbers at http://www.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/fbt11.htm which are probably not a lot worse than anybody else’s and which apply to all the Division I teams.
What’s the early line on where the ESPN Game Day set-up will be in week 1? I’d lean toward Dallas for the Michigan-Alabama game, but they may prefer a campus site.
Making the trip up to Dublin for the Notre Dame v Navy game. Should be a good atmosphere up there. I fear I might spending most of my day explaining the rules to the lads I convinced to tag along though.
Inconsistent as ND are* I still the think the match itself will be a blow out.
They have 4. Gunner Kiel, Everett Golson, Andrew Hendrix, and Tommy Rees. I really think Rees is done (terrible last year, off-season legal issues), and Kelly will want to keep Kiel off the field as much as possible this season. I really like Hendrix this season.