Week Zero Preview: Let the fun begin

The college football season officially begins in three-month run of shenanigans on Saturday when 11 games will take place over a 12-hour window. It won’t have the depth of your typical college football weekend, but there will be options.

Who can complain about that?

Six Power Five programs will be participating in the event this year highlighted by a Big Ten West showdown between Nebraska and Northwestern in Ireland. Let the Scott Frost hot seat watch begin against the purple cats.

To get us gassed up for the event, KSR is putting together a primer for the weekend. Let’s get this party started.

The Card

— Noon: Austin Peay at WKU (CBS Sports Network)

— 12:30: Nebraska vs. Northwestern (FOX)

— 3:30: Idaho State at UNLV (CBS Sports Network)

— 4:00: UConn at Utah State (FS1)

— 4:00: Wyoming at Illinois (Big Ten Network)

— 5:00: Duquesne at Florida State (ACC Network)

–7:00: Charlotte at Florida Atlantic (CBS Sports Network)

— 8:15: Florida A&M at North Carolina (ACC Network)

— 9:00: North Texas at UTEP (Stadium)

— 10:00: Nevada at New Mexico State (ESPN2)

— 10:30: Vanderbilt at Hawai’i (CBS Sports Network)

Week zero provides a must win for Nebraska

Let’s just be real here, there’s likely no way that Scott Frost is the head coach at Nebraska in December if Northwestern wins on Saturday. The proud program is just 15-29 under their famous alum and hasn’t made the postseason since 2016. Athletics director Trev Alberts (another famous alum) enters year two and granted Frost a reprieve after 2021.

Nebraska has made seismic offense and special teams staff changes while leaning hard into the transfer portal to find help. The two biggest names — offensive coordinator Mark Whipple and quarterback Casey Thompson — come over from Pittsburgh and Texas and will look to provide a boost.

Northwestern is also dealing with some adversity after a woeful 3-9 performance in 2021 that included some uncharacteristic bad defense and atrocious offense. The Wildcats are unsure who QB1 is, but left tackle Peter Skoronski will be the best player on field on Saturday and the Wildcats have two good tailbacks.

Expect Pat Fitzgerald and Northwestern to try and shrink the game by playing heavy zone defense and establishing the run early and often on offense. Nebraska is the more explosive and talented team in the conference matchup, but there are a lot of moving parts. If this game gets close, Nebraska is a team that could be very tight as they are playing for their coach’s job after finishing an amazing 0-8 in one-score games last season.

The anxiety will likely be high on the Big Red sideline making this a perfect game to start the season.

Is year zero over at Vanderbilt?

Last year was very tough for new head coach Clark Lea. The former defensive coordinator at Notre Dame returned to his alma mater and had to make a change at offensive coordinator before the season started. A year filled with blowouts, an FCS loss, and a quarterback shuffle followed.

In the offseason, Vandy signed a good recruiting class but saw some key contributors leave as this roster is still in bad shape. The Commodores are looking to make some strides, and we should learn something in Saturday’s nightcap.

Another alum, Timmy Chang, was brought back to Hawai’i after a trainwreck under Todd Graham saw a boatload of players leave the program. Chang is inheriting a rough situation made tougher by the fact that Aloha Stadium has been deemed unplayable. The Rainbow Warriors have shifted to a makeshift stadium that was once a track and field home.

Vanderbilt is facing a program worse off than them for the first time in two years. The Commodores need to make Saturday count. With a national window that the program will not have for the rest of the year, an impressive win could go a long way for Lea’s rebuilding efforts.

ACC debuts

Both Florida State and North Carolina enter the 2022 season needing to make a splash. Both ACC programs will get their season started on Saturday.

Over in Tallahassee, Mike Norvell is 8-13 over two seasons at Florida State and has to put together a winning season this year. The Seminoles return 14 total starters and have the pieces to potentially field a top-25 defense. FSU has to have Jordan Travis stay healthy at quarterback. With huge games coming against LSU, Louisville, and Boston College in September, Norvell’s program needs to build some confidence against Duquesne after losing to an FCS opponent last season.

Flipping to the ACC Coastal, Mack Brown should have a top-15 roster in college football. The Tar Heels have recruited very well under his watch, but things got bad last year due to some awful line of scrimmage play. UNC is hopeful that those issues were fixed in the offseason. Former blue-chip recruit Drake Maye steps in at quarterback as a redshirt freshman. The Heels have a schedule with many winnable games if North Carolina can just not beat itself.

Can WKU’s offensive resurgence continue?

After fielding one of college football’s worst offenses in 2020, Tyson Helton decided to make some seismic schematic changes to his program. The former Tennessee offensive coordinator hired Houston Baptist offensive coordinator Zach Kittley, and the Air Raid play-caller brought quarterback Bailey Zappe with him.

With those two, WKU put together a top-five offense last year that averaged 44.2 points per game. However, Kittley is at Texas Tech, and Zappe is in New England for 2022. The Tops also lost some key offensive players to the transfer portal.

WKU is rebuilding but is doubling down on the same blueprint.

Ben Arbuckle takes over play-calling duties in Bowling Green after serving as Kittley’s No. 2 at both Houston Baptist and WKU. The Tops went into their transfer portal to find their next quarterback as D-II transfer Austin Reed beat out West Virginia transfer Jarret Doege during fall camp.

The Tops are going to spray the football through the air again, but with different personnel. You’ll get your first look at the new attack on Saturday.

“Tempro” at Illinois

What is “tempro”? New Illinois offensive coordinator Barry Lunney Jr. says his offense is a mix of tempo and pro-style. The Illini have been hyping it up over the offseason and will be giving the keys to Syracuse transfer Tommy DeVito at quarterback.

📞Talked with Illinois head coach Bret Bielema

• New “Tempro” offense = Tempo + Pro-Style
• IL native; focus on rebuilding IL High School ties
• #4 Most Improved D from ‘20 to ‘21

Great insight for my 2022 Season Preview Book— thanks @BretBielema @IlliniFootball @MooreBrett pic.twitter.com/jG7qhg4Mdi

— Pick Six Previews (@PickSixPreviews) June 1, 2022

Northwestern did a similar thing when the Wildcats brought in Mike Bajakian after he experimented with uptempo offense in a pro-style setting at Boston College. It hasn’t gone great in Evanston. We’ll see if anything will be different in Champaign.

Best Bets

KSR’s Pick 3 will be here throughout the college football season to take us all to covertown. Our newest YouTube show made its debut on Thursday. Make sure you’re subscribed to our YouTube Channel as our video content is getting ramped up.

There’s already an alliance forming in the KSR offices.