Good news, everyone: College football is officially back! Well, kind of – there are college football games this weekend. It is pluralized because across FBS and FCS, there are two games.
But still! We may not be at the point of the calendar where we all wake up at 11:45 on Saturday, order a pizza, watch Lee Corso put a mascot head on, then sit on the couch for the next 12-14 hours until #Pac12AfterDark ends, but we’re still getting a taste this weekend. Think of this as the appetizer to the main course, and as we saw last year from the game between Montana and North Dakota State, this can be a super good thing.
Fortunately the games this weekend have a bit of #narrative to them, as two of the teams playing (Cal and North Dakota State) were responsible for the No. 1 and No. 2 picks in the 2016 NFL Draft. Those two teams are playing Hawaii and Charleston Southern, respectively. Let’s get into both games in this week’s viewing guide:
FRIDAY: Cal vs. Hawaii, 10 p.m. EST, ESPN (Game played in Australia)
Everyone loves the craziness that comes from hanging out on a Friday night and knowing that you’re not going to bed until after midnight because a Pac-12 game is on. This is also what makes watching Hawaii football fun, so we’re getting the fun-ness of a late Pac-12 game and the fun-ness of a Hawaii game at the same time. Plus there’s the added wrinkle of “this college football game is being played in Australia” and this game has the potential to be silly.
Cal is probably going to win this game. Yes, it loses Jared Goff, and Sonny Dykes was basically sending his resume to anyone who was looking for a coach this offseason, and defense is more of a theory for the Golden Bears than a thing they practice, but Hawaii is in for a long year and Goff’s replacement, former Texas Tech signal caller Davis Webb, can play. Cal’s pass defense has some talent, and on offense, look out for the running back trio of Khalfani Muhammad, Vic Enwere, and Tre Watson, all of whom rushed for at least 500 yards last year. Also: five-star freshman WR Demetrius Robinson was the nation’s best pass-catching prospect in the class of 2016 and is going to be a star.
On the other side, Hawaii is a long way away from the Colt Brennan-led team that went 12-1 in 2007. SB Nation’s Bill Connelly thinks they are the second-worst team in America. It has a new coach in former Nevada offensive coordinator Nick Rolovich and a pretty solid running back in Paul Harris. Still, this team is in for a long rebuild. Also, its first four games include this matchup (again, in Australia, because the silliness of that cannot be stated enough) and road trips to Michigan and Arizona. Woof.
SATURDAY: Charleston Southern at North Dakota State, 7:30 p.m. EST, ESPN
You may know Charleston Southern as the FCS team that always gets scheduled by a Power 5 school down south. You may know North Dakota State as the school that gave us Carson Wentz. But in the FCS ranks, this is a pretty huge game. North Dakota State is a legitimate powerhouse that has won the last five FCS national championships and enters the season ranked No. 1 in the nation. Charleston Southern is the defending Big South champion and has gone 28-10 over the last three years and is the sixth-best team in the country in the preseason Coaches’ Poll. The point is this isn’t a game to watch only if you’re a football junkie – this is going to be fun.
Everything’s going to be fun. College football’s back and college football’s fun.
