Week 1 is officially here, and with five games between top-25 teams, there’s already a lot of promise it’s going to be an entertaining weekend.
The waiting is over. After one of the most stressful, unusual and just plain weird seasons in college football history, Week 1 is here and boy, does it have a lot to offer. For the first time since the Associated Press preseason poll began in 1950, there are five games between top-25 teams in the season’s full opening week, most notably No.3 Clemson facing No.5 Georgia in Charlotte, North Carolina ( 7:30 p.m. ET Saturday, ABC/ESPN App). But this season is all about betting on potential at the top. There are new quarterbacks taking over the reins for four of the top six teams in Alabama ’s Bryce Young, Ohio State ’s C.J. Stroud, Clemson’s D.J. Uiagalelei and Texas A&M ’s Haynes King, and they’re facing big expectations. In the Heisman Trophy odds, Uiagalelei (8-1) and Young (9-1) trail only Oklahoma quarterback Spencer Rattler (6-1), with Stroud coming in at 14-1 at Caesars Sportsbook. It’s not just the old-school blue bloods having all the fun in the preseason rankings, either. Iowa State earned its highest ranking in school history at No.7. Cincinnati is at No.8, the highest initial ranking ever for an American Athletic Conference team. North Carolina starts off in the top 10 for the first time since 1997. Indiana ’s No.17 mark is its highest preseason mark since 1969. Coastal Carolina (No.22) and Louisiana (No.23) are the first Sun Belt schools ever to land in the season’s first rankings. Most importantly though, the college football experience is back. Bands will be playing the fight song. Fans will be in the stands roaring along with pregame entrances, including „Enter Sandman“ on Friday night when Sam Howell and UNC are in Blacksburg to face Virginia Tech ( 6 p.m. ET, ESPN/ESPN App). Mascots will be back roaming the sidelines, including a new Ralphie (Ralphie VI) making her first run on Friday night before Colorado ’s game against Northern Colorado and Reveille X making her Kyle Field debut at Texas A&M on Saturday. Ralphie VI even got her own hype video. A new era. Run, Ralphie VI, Run. pic.twitter.com/q84g2bAw8Q And just like that, we’re off to never-never land. We’ve been hearing about it for months, and now we’re just days away from Clemson-Georgia. It’s hard to overstate the importance of Saturday night’s game. Per ESPN Stats & Information research, the matchup has the highest playoff leverage of any regular-season game this season according to the Allstate Playoff Predictor. Regardless of the rankings or playoff impact, we’re getting a matchup between two of college football’s strongest programs in the past half-decade. The game will set the table for the season for both teams early on and help everyone jump headfirst back into the season. SEC Now analysts discuss what the Georgia-Clemson Week 1 contest means for both teams. For Clemson, there would be no better way to kick off the post-Trevor Lawrence era than with a win over Georgia. Uiagalelei’s skills aren’t a secret to anybody after what we saw him do last season against Boston College and Notre Dame, but there’s no easing into the new era for the Tigers going up against Georgia. The good news for Clemson is this game will be as tough as it gets for the Tigers in the regular season, but Georgia’s defense won’t make things easy for the first-year starter. Georgia, on the other hand, is facing the pressure of expectation. This is supposed to be the year the Dawgs put it all together and take the leap beyond just being in that second tier of consistently great college football teams. Quarterback JT Daniels showed what their offense could be at the end of 2020, and of course, Kirby Smart is expected to have one of the best defenses in the country yet again. There aren’t many better ways to open a season than between two of college football’s powers that are separated by just 70 miles. We’re here to kick off the season in a big way, so let’s go down to Dallas, where they’re doing the same thing — with a larger-than-average kicker. First, let’s start with the weirdness of this true freshman class. Because of COVID-19, a lot of coaches couldn’t see players in person for a while before they arrived on campus.
