College Football Preview: Ranking The Best Weekend Schedules 2017

Week 1 9/2 (SAT)

Now technically the weekend prior is when the season kicks off, but outside of Stanford and South Florida playing a few jabroni-like squads, the real season opening weekend is on the second of September.

The greatest season opening matchup is ticking down between Alabama and Florida State. The winner will likely have the best resume all season long whereas the loser will have its work cut out for them. I would argue the loser is still a top four team, especially if they win out. I will probably argue that even an 11-2 FSU/Bama team that wins their coveted conference is worthy as the fourth team in the CFP. Some chaos would have to ensue since there is a great chance this season that all of the power five champions have no more than a single loss.

Florida against Michigan will be huge as both will be ranked in the Top 20 and perhaps even higher. The loser will have some extra pressure on them and the winner may get a ton of hype heading into conference play. Jim Harbaugh hasn’t beaten anybody great as of yet in Ann Arbor, so this would be a great start. UF is looking for momentum after suffering a few too many late season losses over the last few seasons. Both offenses have some question marks so look for the defenses to own the day. One of the two coaches will get a huge victory and hope that it transcends into something special.

The 2:30 and 7 pm central time zone slots are simply sexy. However, the 11 am kickoff slot is vastly underrated. Maryland and Texas could be decent, but the one everybody should be glued to their couches for is Iowa hosting Wyoming. The Cowboys nearly knocked off BYU in their bowl game last season thank to star QB Josh Allen. There are a ton of returnees to make this one an upset alert. I favor the Hawkeyes in a close one thanks in large part to the addition of former Nevada RB James Butler. The guy led the Mountain West in rushing last season and is now going to help out Akrum Wadley.

It is the freaking beginning of the college football season. It always feels like Christmas morning for the true die-hard fans. Hello and welcome to yet another exciting season!!!

Wyoming at Iowa; Maryland at Texas; Ohio State at Indiana (THU); BYU vs LSU (Houston); Texas A&M at UCLA; West Virginia vs Virginia Tech (SUN, Landover); Tennessee vs Georgia Tech (SUN, Atlanta); NC State vs South Carolina (Charlotte); Temple at Notre Dame; Florida vs Michigan (Arlington); Florida State vs Alabama (Atlanta).