College Football Week 0 Preview

Who will win in the top college football games of week zero?

Transcript

00:00Get excited, football fans, because college football is back on our TVs this Saturday.

00:06Things kicking off with Week Zero. I'm Claudette Montana-Pattison with SI Right Now,

00:11and joining me is John Garcia Jr., our Sports Illustrated recruiting analyst.

00:15John, we got a more limited slate of games this upcoming weekend, but still some fun ones to watch.

00:21Personally, I'm looking forward to UConn versus Utah State.

00:25Jim Moore Jr.'s debut as UConn head coach.

00:29Yeah, there's some buzz there for the first time, and it feels like maybe a decade,

00:34so hopefully for their sake, there's some bright future ahead for the Huskies.

00:38Might play a freshman quarterback there, Zion Turner, keep an eye on him

00:42if he sees the field. And then Utah State had some big-time transfers

00:46come in, so there could be some star power on that side of the field there, but you gotta shift

00:52towards the across the pond. We're going to Europe to play some college football. Why not?

00:58Nebraska versus Northwestern in Dublin, the only Power Five versus Power Five matchup

01:05of the Week Zero slate, as you mentioned. And normally, you wouldn't get too excited about

01:10two teams that are coming off of three and nine campaigns in the Big Ten, but

01:15Northwestern's got some QB drama. They won't name the starter until basically pregame,

01:20so that'll be fun under Pat Fitzgerald. And of course, even more attention on the Nebraska side

01:25for what feels like a do-or-die year for Scott Frost, who just named his starter in Casey Thompson,

01:32the Texas transfer. So a lot of offensive question marks going into that one, and the

01:37true table setter, not only in the Big Ten, but for the entire Power Five slate nationally.

01:42All right, well, that is certainly a fun game that we will be watching.

01:46Anything else football fans should keep on their radar this weekend?

01:50Claudette, I've got Florida State on my radar in this entire offseason, whether you talk about

01:55new hires or recruiting. All of the attention has been elsewhere in the state of Florida,

01:59mainly on Miami and Mario Cristobal, as well as the Gators under new coach Billy Napier.

02:05So I think this is a nice opportunity for Florida State to capture some momentum.

02:09They're playing Duquesne, so not a marquee opponent. They should be able to thrive and

02:14perform well offensively, which is something we didn't see consistently enough under Mike Norvell

02:19in 2021. So a big chance for FSU to get a head start on the entire slate there

02:24and try to capture some momentum in the great state of Florida.