On The Line: A Week 1 mega-preview

Week 0 was the appetizer, and now we have the main course. And the other main course. And then the third main course. Then the dessert, and the second dessert.

The Week 1 college football schedule begins Thursday evening and runs, almost continuously, until the early hours of Tuesday morning. In between, we'll get three AP ranked matchups, a non-ranked game pitting teams that won a combined 24 games in 2021, 26 head coaching debuts, the return of the Backyard Brawl, an ultra-rare Pac-12-SEC game, and Tennessee Tech-Kansas. 

On The Line is here to provide you the stakes on every game that matters. In all, we'll touch on nearly 50 games, spread across more than three thousand words. Let's get going.

THURSDAY

-- St. Francis at Akron (6 p.m. ET, ESPN3): The first game of the first full week of the 2022 season is also the first game of the Joe Moorhead era at the Rubber Bowl.

-- Bryant at FIU (7 p.m. ET, ESPN3): Mike MacIntyre finally makes his debut at historic Riccardo Silva Stadium. 

-- West Virginia at No. 17 Pittsburgh (7 p.m. ET, ESPN): It's the 105th Backyard Brawl, and the first since WVU left the Big East in 2011. Like any bitter divorce, the decade apart gave us petty posturing, but not much else.

Thursday's is the first of four straight games, so let's enjoy it. It's also the first games for quarterbacks and former USC teammates Kedon Slovis (Pitt) and JT Daniels (WVU), as well as WVU OC Graham Harrell (who coached Daniels for a year at USC and Slovis for three, including in 2021), while Pitt OC Frank Cignetti, Jr., returns to the program after 12 seasons away. Here's hoping Cignetti doesn't throw the ball too often. 

-- Central Michigan at No. 12 Oklahoma State (7 p.m. ET, FS1): It's a rematch of a 2016 game where MAC officials incorrectly awarded Central Michigan an untimed down, which they used to complete a game-winning Hail Mary. Mike Gundy still isn't over it. CMU puts its 5-game winning streak on the line, tied for the third-longest active streak in FBS.  

-- Ball State at Tennessee (7 p.m. ET, SEC Network): Would you believe this is the first meeting between the Cardinals and Vols? Oh, you would? Oh, ok. Well. Moving on.

-- Penn State at Purdue (8 p.m. ET, Fox): Remember the late 2000s when it seemed every season unofficially started with a South Carolina game? That mini-tradition has been replaced with a Big Ten game, this one an always-intriguing East at West game, which has a history of treachery for favored East teams. Penn State has won nine straight in this series.

-- Alabama A&M at UAB (8 p.m. ET, CBS Sports Network): The first game of Bryant Vincent's season-long tryout for the full-time UAB job.

-- Louisiana Tech at Missouri (8 p.m. ET, ESPNU): It's Sonny Cumbie's first game at La Tech and his first game as a full-time head coach following a 5-game interim stint at Texas Tech last season.

-- New Mexico State at Minnesota (9 p.m. ET, BTN): It's a homecoming for New Mexico State head coach Jerry Kill, his first time back in Minneapolis since his health pushed him out of the job midway through the 2015 season. Let's put it bluntly: Kill does not like PJ Fleck. "(W)hen he went into Minnesota and treated the people the way he treated my guys and telling ‘em he had to go in and completely change the culture, and it was a bad culture and bad people, you know, he made it sound like we didn’t know what we were doing, and I took it personal," Kill said in 2019. "You just don’t treat people that have been with you and helped you career and you don’t even talk to him, you know, once you get the job."

-- Cal Poly at Fresno State (10:30 p.m. ET, FS1): It's Jeff Tedford's second, first game as Fresno State's head coach. The 60-year-old went 10-4 with a division title in 2017, 12-2 with a Mountain West championship and a No. 18 ranking in '18, then stepped away after a 4-8 2019. Kalen DeBoer went 12-6 in the two seasons in between and, with DeBoer now at Washington, Tedford is back. Fresno State should be an instant contender for the MW title.

FRIDAY

-- Western Michigan at No. 15 Michigan State (7 p.m. ET, ESPN): While Western Michigan's offense is on the field, coordinator Jeff Thorne will do his best to get WMU's offense in the end zone. When MSU's offense is on the field, Jeff Thorne will do his best not to root out loud for Spartans quarterback Payton Thorne. It's the 17th meeting of the Broncos and the Spartans. WMU has not defeated State since 1919.

-- Virginia Tech at Old Dominion (7 p.m. ET, ESPNU): Brent Pry's first game as the Head Hokie comes at the site of Virginia Tech's 2018 loss in Norfolk, which remains ODU's only victory over a Power 5 opponent since re-launching the program in 2009. 

-- Temple at Duke (7:30 p.m. ET, ACC Network): Stan Drayton spent five seasons at Texas, Mike Elko spent four at Texas A&M, and their first game against each other comes as the head coaches in a Temple-Duke game. Both men are making their respective debuts; both at their schools and as head coaches, period.

-- Illinois at Indiana (8 p.m. ET, FS1): Illinois enters this game 1-0, and a W gives them their seventh 2-0 start in the last 10 seasons. In none of the previous nine did the Illini finish with a winning record, so let's not get ahead of ourselves if Illinois wins this one. As for Indiana, what does Tom Allen's team have after sinking like a stone in 2021 after going 14-7 in 2019-20?

-- TCU at Colorado (10 p.m. ET, ESPN): Sonny Dykes's first game as TCU's head coach comes after dark and in the mountains. The Frogs may play as many as three quarterbacks in this game; who among them will stand out?

SATURDAY 

-- Colorado State at No. 8 Michigan (noon ET, ABC): Cade McNamara has an on-the-job tryout to keep his job as Jim Harbaugh tries to split the baby in his quarterback room. Meanwhile, Jay Norvell makes his Colorado State debut after five seasons at Nevada.

-- No. 13 NC State at East Carolina (noon ET, ESPN): In Alabama and Arkansas, the big state schools refuse to acknowledge their Group of 5 neighbors. In North Carolina, the big state schools visit their Group of 5 neighbors. In a season where the Wolfpack enter with ACC championship hopes, the most NC State thing ever would be to go out and lose to ECU.

-- Rutgers at Boston College (noon ET, ACC Network): Greg Schiano looks to deliver Rutgers's first win over BC since 1991 and its first victory in Chestnut Hill since '88.

-- North Carolina at Appalachian State (noon ET, ESPNU): Another example of a big NC school doing its neighbors a solid. For UNC's first visit to Boone, the get-in price at Kidd Brewer Stadium is 184 bucks. 

-- Richmond at Virginia (12:30 p.m. ET, ESPN3): Tony Elliott's UVa debut, and also his head coaching debut.

-- No. 11 Oregon vs. No. 3 Georgia, at Atlanta (3:30 p.m. ET, ABC): Have we ever seen an opener with this particular dynamic? In Dan Lanning's last game, he coached Georgia to a national championship. In his next game, he coaches against Georgia. The Bulldogs are 17-point favorites, but it'll be interesting to see how Lanning uses his knowledge of Georgia's personnel and tendencies to make the Bulldogs' title encore more difficult than it otherwise would be.

-- Bethune-Cookman at No. 16 Miami (3:30 p.m. ET, ACC Network): All the above is only applicable because Mario Cristobal took the Miami job, where he debuts here.

-- No. 23 Cincinnati at No. 19 Arkansas (3:30 p.m. ET, ESPN): Sam Pittman detailed the challenge of facing a Cincinnati team replacing so many key parts off last year's 13-1 team. Losing Desmond Ridder and co. will be tough, but the Bearcats are 44-7 over their past four seasons because of Luke Fickell, who's still in red and black.

-- No. 24 Houston at UTSA (3:30 p.m. ET, CBS Sports Network): Only one Week 1 game pits two 12-win teams from 2021 -- this one. The 2022 American favorites take on the 2022 C-USA favorites in just the third meeting of these I-10 neighbors.

-- Arizona at San Diego State (3:30 p.m., CBS): In a rare network TV opportunity for both programs, Jedd Fisch has a chance to capitalize on a "great" off-season by upsetting the perennial Mountain West contenders before an audience flipping around during Oregon-Georgia and Cincinnati-Arkansas commercial breaks. 

-- North Dakota at Nebraska (3:30 p.m. ET, BTN): Northwestern takes this weekend off, but Nebraska is back on the field seven days after the Dublin Debacle. This could be a good thing for the Huskers or a really, really bad thing.

-- UTEP at No. 9 Oklahoma (3:30 p.m. ET, Fox): It's Game No. 381 for Brent Venables as a coach, and Game No. 1 as a head coach. Also, OU has played UTEP four times; in all four cases, the Sooners won at least a share of the Big 12 title that season. 

-- Troy at No. 21 Ole Miss (4 p.m. ET, SEC Network): Jon Sumrall's head coaching debut comes at Vaught-Hemmingway Stadium, the Trojans' second all-time visit.

-- Rice  at No. 14 USC (6 p.m. ET, Pac-12 Network): In possibly the most relevant moment Pac-12 Network history, Lincoln Riley makes his USC debut.

-- Morgan State at Georgia Southern (6 p.m. ET, ESPN3): 2,389 miles and an entire world away, Clay Helton makes his Georgia Southern debut at the same time his old team kicks off its new regime.

-- Middle Tennessee at James Madison (6 p.m. ET, ESPN+): James Madison plays its first game as an FBS member.

-- No. 7 Utah at Florida (7 p.m. ET, ESPN): It's Florida's first home game against a Pac-12 team since 1982, and Utah's first trip to an SEC venue since 1984. While Billy Napier makes his Florida debut and puts his personal 13-game winning streak up for grabs, Utah plays for its Playoff hopes and the entire Pac-12's honor. 

Since the Pac-10 became the Pac-12 in 2011, no team has gone 10-0 in league play. That's 10 years, 120 individual seasons, and it's never been done. So we can bank on the Utes dropping a conference game at some point between September and December. And we know no 2-loss Pac-12 team is making the CFP, so this is the definition of a must-win game for Kyle Whittingham's team. In other words, the type of game Week 1 was made for. 

-- Elon at Vanderbilt (7 p.m. ET, ESPN+): Coming off last week's 63-10 demolition of Hawaii, Clark Lea's team can complete its first 2-0 start since 2018 and match its 2021 win total.

-- Army at Coastal Carolina (7 p.m. ET, ESPN+): Army's triple option and Coastal's spread triple deserves a bigger spotlight than an ESPN+ window against Utah-Florida and the big one a few entries down. Is it too late to move this game to Thursday night? 

-- UMass at Tulane (7 p.m. ET, ESPN+): Don Brown leads his own team for the first time since Nov. 22, 2008, when he guided UMass to a 28-14 win over Hofstra. That win closed a 7-5 season, the fifth winning season of Brown's 5-year tenure, and the program's 39th non-losing season in its last 49 tries, dating back to 1960. How many non-losing seasons has UMass enjoyed in the 13 seasons in between Brown's stints? One. 

-- Southeastern Louisiana at Louisiana (7 p.m. ET, ESPN3): In his first game as a head coach since leading Ascension Episcopal School back in 2015, former Cajuns quarterback Michael Desormeaux looks to run UL's best-in-the-nation winning streak to 14. 

-- Utah State at No. 1 Alabama (7:30 p.m. ET, SEC Network): The Tide have won 20 straight openers, the second longest streak in the nation. We don't usually make predictions in this space, but here's thinking Alabama squeaks by for its 21st straight 1-0 start.

-- No. 5 Notre Dame at No. 2 Ohio State (7:30 p.m. ET, ABC): There's so much going on here we've got to enter Bullet Point Mode.

• This is the first opener between AP Top 5 teams since No. 1 Alabama beat No. 3 Florida State in 2017. We all agreed at the time that was the biggest opener ever. Bama won the title that year, while Florida State has still yet to recover from that game. 
• Ohio State and Notre Dame have won 1,871 games all-time, second and fourth most nationally, but only six combined against each other. Notre Dame won the first two, in 1935-36, and the teams didn't play again until 1995. Saturday's game and next year's return visit to South Bend will be just the third time each of these titans of the sport have stepped foot on the other's campus. 
• It's Marcus Freeman's first real game as a head coach (we all know about the Fiesta Bowl but, c'mon), and it's against his alma mater. 
• Ohio State has won 22 openers in a row, the longest streak in the nation. 
• To anyone thinking Ohio State can't lose this game: the Buckeyes are 2-5 against Power 5 non-conference opponents at the Horseshoe since 2005. They lost to No. 2 Texas in '05, No. 3 USC in '09, unranked Virginia Tech in '14, No. 5 Oklahoma in '17 and No. 12 Oregon last September. Wins came over a a meh Miami team in 2010 and a bad Cal team in 2012. The atmosphere will not beat the Irish on its own. 
• The last time Notre Dame beat an AP Top 3 team away from Notre Dame Stadium: Sept. 10, 2005, which was also the same day Ohio State lost at home to No. 2 Texas. Coincidence?

-- Memphis at Mississippi State (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPNU): The Tigers and Bulldogs have played off and on since 1951. The last time Memphis won in Starkville? 1993. The last time Memphis took two in a row from State? 1983-84. Proceed accordingly.

-- Georgia State at South Carolina (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN+): Georgia State enters with a 4-game winning streak, tied with three others for the fourth-longest in the nation and also tied with three others for the longest in school history. The Panthers have never won five straight. 

-- SMU at North Texas (7:30 p.m. ET, CBS Sports Network): Officially known as the Safeway Bowl, it should be called the Hayden Fry Classic, an appropriate honor for the College Football Hall of Famer who once coached both places. SMU leads the HFC 34-6-1, but UNT is 4-2 in the last six games played in Denton, dating back to 1990. Seth Littrell's team has already started the season with a win, while SMU will debut the Rhett Lashlee Era, his first game as a head coach at any level.

-- Murray State at Texas Tech (8 p.m. ET, ESPN+): Technically speaking, no head coach has waited longer between First Day and First Game than Clay Helton, hired way back on Nov. 2 of last year... but Helton coached a game less than two months prior. Joey McGuire, hired Nov. 8, hasn't led a team of his own since Dec. 3, 2016, when his Cedar Hill Longhorns lost to DeSoto in the regional final of the Texas Class 6A Division II playoffs. That's a 2,100 day wait. Expect McGuire to let out 2,100 days worth of bottled up energy by the first commercial break.

-- Louisville at Syracuse (8 p.m. ET, ACC Network): Louisville defeated Syracuse in each of the past three seasons, and all three games happened to be played in Louisville. The last time the Cardinals and Orange met in Syracuse, Syracuse won. Both head coaches need a victory almost as much as they need to avoid a loss. "To go down 0-1 in conference, that's a heavier weight than just losing," Dino Babers said Monday.

-- Idaho at Washington State (9:30 p.m. ET, Pac-12 Network): It's Jake Dickert's seventh game as Wazzu's head coach, but his first as the full-time head coach. He takes on Jason Eck, making his debut as Idaho's head coach.

-- Boise State at Oregon State (10:30 p.m. ET, ESPN): A fantastic start to the #Pac12AfterDark season. The Broncos and Beavers have played nine times previously, and a Boise victory levels the ledger at 5-5.

-- Kent State at Washington (10:30 p.m. ET, FS1): Kalen DeBoer makes his debut as the Head Husky. Buoyed by a 67-3 run at the University of Sioux Falls in NAIA, DeBoer looks to run his lifetime record to 80-9. 

SUNDAY

-- Florida State vs. LSU, at New Orleans (7:30 p.m. ET, ABC): This is the "How did we get here?" game of the week. In fact, imagine tapping an LSU fan on the shoulder the last time they were in the Superdome -- in the wee hours of Jan. 13, 2020, as they celebrated arguably the most impressive national title run in modern college football history -- and telling them, "The next time you'll be in this building, Brian Kelly will be your head coach, and he'll be looking to lead the program out of a streak of two straight non-winning seasons. Also, the world is about to endure a pandemic unseen on the global scale for an entire century, and all of that is going to happen by 2022." 

The Seminoles and Tigers have combined for six national championships since their last meeting (1991), so it looks like a massive game on paper. In reality, LSU hasn't simply enjoyed a winning season since 2019 and FSU since 2017. 

MONDAY

-- No. 4 Clemson at Georgia Tech (8 p.m. ET, ESPN): There's no especially good time to play Clemson if you're Georgia Tech, but the opener feels like an especially bad time. In fact, Geoff Collins's first game was a Thursday night opener at Clemson, the first football game ever aired on the ACC Network. Now they get the finale of Week 1 all to themselves. After three straight 3-9 seasons, Georgia Tech will look to hang with Clemson and perhaps defeat the Tigers for the first time since 2014. Clemson will look for an improved DJ Uiagaleilei and, if he doesn't show, how long Dabo Swinney will wait to put in 5-star true freshman Cade Klubnik. Clemson fans and haters will watch for signs of cracks in Brandon Streeter and Wes Goodwin's first games as offensive and defensive coordinators. 

And when Clemson takes a 24-3 lead at halftime, the rest of us, after approximately 30 hours of football consumed over five consecutive days, will wonder if it's time to turn in or simply fall asleep on the couch like we did last year and the year before that, too.

Football's back, y'all.