What Kentucky fans should know about CFB's Week 0
Throughout the upcoming college football season we'll be previewing action around the country and then breaking it down once it's in the books.
Believe it or not, college football is here!
Week 0 doesn't bring us many games, but we're previewing it since the long offseason is finally over.
Florida State at Georgia Tech
An ACC contest between the Seminoles and Yellow Jackets in Dublin, Ireland is the college football headliner of Week 0. Last year we saw Notre Dame take on Navy in Ireland.
Mike Norvell had Florida State right on the cusp of the playoff last year with only an injury to Jordan Travis keeping the undefeated Seminoles on the outside looking in. This year, Florida State is once again expected to be a top tier challenger for the ACC crown, and that makes them a prime contender for the first edition of the 12-team College Football Playoff.
Former Clemson and Oregon State quarterback DJ Uiagelelei is now in Tallahassee and while he brings some good qualities and plenty of experience to the table he has to be more efficient as a passer. FSU will have different weapons than we saw last year and will lean on what should be a strong offensive line. We'll see if FSU's defense is as good as a year ago but they have a great recipe with an ability to get after the quarterback up front with good coverage corners on the back end.
Georgia Tech is a once-proud program that is still trying to find its stride after a transition away from Paul Johnson several years ago. Brent Key gave them their first winning season in half a decade last year and that included wins against talented teams like Miami and North Carolina.
QB Haynes King returns after he gave Georgia Tech some serious offensive improvements last year. This is a team that should be able to run the ball and put points on the board against most opponents. This is a team that rushed for more than 200 yards in six of its final seven games last year and played respectably against Georgia at the end of the regular season.
FSU is a 10.5-point favorite but this is one of the games to watch for the Noles' playoff chances. We'll start learning about them against a solid opponent trending the right direction right off the bat. GT is generating some recruiting momentum as well so the Yellow Jackets could be interesting to watch for the next little while. Remember, this is the first year the ACC includes Cal, Stanford, and SMU, and with rumors of the league's demise everywhere, it's a very interesting year for the conference.
Montana State at New Mexico
Former UVA coach Bronco Mendenhall will be coaching New Mexico and he has a big rebuilding project ahead while Montana State should be one of the better teams at the FCS level as they so often are. It's not common to see an FCS team as an 11.5-point favorite against an FBS foe but that's where this game is.
New Mexico did some nice things on offense last season but they were completely undisciplined and not good at all on defense.
SMU at Nevada
This is SMU's first season in the ACC and it's not the best Nevada team we've seen over the years. That explains why the Mustangs are a 25-point favorite. SMU is throwing serious money around as a football program and it will be interesting to see what that can do for them as they step into a power conference, at least for the time being.
PFF says SMU may have been the most well-rounded non-power conference team in college football last season with strong scores on both sides of the ball.
On top of that SMU returns a ton of their top players from last year's 11-3 squad. But last year's SMU team also lost to Boston College in the Fenway Bowl. Could that be a sign that moving to the ACC might be difficult?
QB Preston Stone has the potential to put together a big season. When he played last year he was very good and only an injury stopped him. On the other side of the ball pass rusher Elijah Roberts had 13 sacks last year.
SMU seems to project as a middle of the pack ACC team but there's some upside here and that's why they'll be interesting to watch early in the season.
Delaware State at Hawaii
Hawaii is a 40-point favorite and that should tell you something about Delaware State. Timmy Chang is going into his third season as Hawaii's head coach and that means the expectation is they're ready to turn the corner.
Brayden Schager is going into his third year as Hawaii's starter and he threw for 3,500 yards and 26 touchdowns last year. Now he needs to cut back on those 14 interceptions.
Hawaii started last season 2-7 but the Warriors won three of their final four games to end the season with the defense showing significant improvement in those games.