It's that time of year again.
The 2022 college football season begins with a soft launch on Saturday, and so On the Line begins with a soft launch today.
For those new around here, each week in this space we'll examine the coming weekend's schedule with an eye toward what teams are playing for beyond a simple victory or defeat. Only one team will hoist the national championship trophy on Jan. 9 and chances that team will be Alabama, Ohio State or Georgia. But 131 teams will soon embark on their own journeys, with 131 destinations, and our goal will be to point out which teams have arrived at forks in their respective roads.
Let's get going.
Austin Peay at Western Kentucky (noon ET, CBS Sports Network). Austin Peay played the first game of the 2020 season, and the Governors kicks us off again in '22. After losing the nation's leading passer in Bailey Zappe (5,967 yards and 62 touchdowns last season), Tyson Helton's Hilltoppers will start true freshman and Bowling Green product Caden Veltkamp at quarterback.
Nebraska vs. Northwestern, at Dublin, Ireland (12:30 p.m. ET, Fox). I don't want to get too hyperbolic here, but this is the biggest game involving 3-9 teams played on the British Isles. Or at least I think it is.
We discussed this a bit in the Mark Whipple entry of our 15 Most Important Assistant Coaching Hires series, but Nebraska needs this game more than Northwestern. A loss drops Frost's winning percentage to a clean, horrific .333 at his alma mater, 45 games in, extends the Huskers' losing streak to seven games, puts Nebraska a 1-9 in Big Ten dating back to the beginning of last season, and puts Frost at an abysmal 1-4 in openers at Nebraska.
Remember, Nebraska treated us to a 30-22 loss to Illinois in Week 0 of 2021. Things didn't really get better from there.
Win in Ireland, though, and Nebraska returns home with a real shot at being 4-0 when a more-vulnerable-than-they've-been-in-a-long-time Oklahoma comes to Lincoln on Sept. 17.
Northwestern, meanwhile, has been consistent in its inconsistency. The Wildcats won their first Big Ten West title in 2018, then went 3-9 in '19. They won the B1G West again in 2020, then went 3-9 in '21. I might stay away from the 'Cats in 2023, but even-numbered years have been kind to them lately.
UConn at Utah State (4 p.m. ET, FS1). It's Jim Mora's first game since Nov. 18, 2017, a 28-23 loss to USC that ended his 6-year tenure at UCLA. UConn hasn't beaten an FBS team in a season opener since 2009.
Charlotte at Florida Atlantic (7 p.m. ET, CBS Sports Network). The 49ers and Owls are jumping into the deep end early with a divisional game. Both of these squads went 5-7 a year ago, and so both are counting on a win over the other to reach the postseason.
Florida A&M at North Carolina (8:15 p.m. ET, ACC Network). The last time anyone other than Sam Howell threw 20 passes in Carolina blue was Nov. 24, 2018. Redshirt freshman Drake Maye beat out sophomore Jacolby Criswell to win the honor. The son of a former Tar Heel football player and younger brother of a former Tar Heel hooper (plus an other older brother that won a national title as a Florida baseball player), Maye has waited his entire life for this moment.
North Texas at UTEP (9 p.m. ET, Stadium). A much more interesting game than meets the eye.
UTEP is looking to build on a 7-6 season, its best since 2014, although it didn't finish as good as it started; the Miners began the year 6-1. UNT's 2021 was the complete opposite; the Mean Green began the year 1-6, then salvaged things with a 5-game winning streak to close the regular season. One of those wins was a 20-17 triumph over UTEP, UNT's fifth straight in a series that began in 1951.
I'll be most interested to watch North Texas quarterback Austin Aune. The 28-year-old former minor league baseball player was pretty good in 2020 but... not in 2020. Across 295 passes, Aune's 111.89 rating did not rank among the top 100 nationally. The staff brought in once-highly-touted-recruit Grant Gunnell from Memphis to compete for the job, but Aune won the QB1 job in camp.
Seth Littrell's teams have been really good running the ball lately -- they were fifth in 2021 at 234.1 yards per game -- but they're going to need better quarterback play to achieve their goals in 2022.
Nevada at New Mexico State (10 p.m. ET, ESPN2). Two head coaches making their debuts, albeit in different stages of their respective careers. For Nevada's Ken Wilson, it's Game 1 as a head coach at any level, after 36 years in the business and 58 years on the earth. For New Mexico State's Jerry Kill, it's Game 256. Kill led TCU for the final four games of 2021, proof of concept that he was ready to return to the grind after his epilepsy condition pushed him away from Minnesota in 2015.
Vanderbilt at Hawai'i (10:30 p.m. ET, CBS Sports Network). It's the celebrated homecoming of Timmy Chang, in his first game as a Warrior since throwing for 405 yards in a 59-40 Hawai'i Bowl win over UAB on Christmas Eve in 2004, capping off a then-career record with 17,072 yards . His debut comes against Vanderbilt, who lost to East Tennessee State en route to a 2-10 season in Clark Lea's debut.