Okay, that was a nice warmup. While week zero didn’t include any momentous interconference battles, nor even a whisper of SEC action, there was some solidly compelling football played by schools across the spectrum.
But now, as they say, it gets real. Week one of the college football season is upon us, and it’s a supersized three day holiday weekend, which means even more action. The full, unadulterated, unabridged schedule is below. Here however are the highlights that I think deserve your attention.
Thursday Night: Deion returns to Atlanta
Colorado visits Georgia Tech tonight at 8:00 pm on ESPN in a game that promises to tell us a little about two teams that we really don’t know anything about. The Buffalos as usual are an entirely different team than the one that Primetime skippered last year.
But Brent Key’s Yellow Jackets aren’t much less of a mystery. Gone is offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner (now at Florida), replaced by former Tech QB George Godsey. Jackets signal caller/heedless battering ram Haynes King is also gone, replaced by Indiana transfer Alberto Mendoza, last seen backing up his brother Fernando Mendoza in the Hoosiers’ improbable national title run. He’ll be joined in the backfield by tailback Justice Haynes. Haynes, the son of Bulldog great Verron Haynes, spent 2025 at Michigan after transferring from Alabama, but missed most of the second half of the season with a foot injury. I expect him to have a good night against the Boulder boys, given Coach Sanders’ teams’ log history of slap dash defense.
Friday Night: A Hurricane warning in Palo Alto, and Trojan fans avoiding a nasty moon burn.
Friday night brings some halfway decent Power 4 football, as the #7 ranked Miami Hurricanes travel to Stanford for 9:00 pm eastern start on ESPN. The Cardinal are unlikely to put up a major fight here, but it will be our first chance to see what Mario Cristobal’s offense looks like sans Carson Beck and with Duke transfer Darien Mensah at the…