This season I’ll be separating the weekly games to watch and winner picks from the 18 Stripes Top 20 Poll. Just like old times. Taking stock of the opening week(s) of college football we have a solid lineup but not a very deep one. As the mega conference continue to get larger I’m not sure we’re going to see as many opening weekend clashes as in the past, particularly in non-league games.
I went back and looked at my recent Top 50 Games to Watch for 2024 and excluding Notre Dame games, there are zero non-conference matchups inside the top 15, although a couple snuck inside the top 20 and will be featured today.
The Big Ten and SEC should start scheduling more games earlier in the season. We only have 10 matchups in week 0/1 between Power 4 teams.
Week 0/1 Games to Watch
All times are Eastern. Rankings are from the AP Poll.
#10 Florida State [-10.5] vs. Georgia Tech (Dublin, Ireland)
Saturday, Aug. 24th, 12:00 PM, ESPN
Yes, a solid game to open the season! Last year it was us romping all over Navy inside Aviva Stadium. Now we sit back and watch an ACC matchup to start 2024. The Noles are on a nice little run in league play winning 12 straight stretching back to the middle of 2022. But, they’ll have to be really careful against the Yellow Jackets. Georgia Tech is feisty and should have a decent offense. Florida State is in full rebuild mode on both sides of the ball and I expect a tight game until the end.
FSU 29
Georgia Tech 21
North Dakota State [+9.5] at Colorado
Thursday, Aug. 29th, 8:00 PM, Fox
Tyson Zone Committee has been meeting about Colorado football.
Folks in Fargo are pretty high on this Bison team, especially on offense. This is a nightmare matchup for the Coach Prime hype machine and we have a 68% chance that the post-game press conference is going to make headlines in a negative way for Colorado. The press has been circling around like vultures and in his brief media appearances this off-season you can tell Deion Sanders is starting to crack under the weight. An outright upset here would be one of the best moments of the 2024 season, I think. I’m not sure we’ll be that lucky, though.
Colorado 34
NDSU 27
TCU [-8] at Stanford
Friday, Aug. 30th, 10:30 PM, ESPN
TCU falling back down to earth seemed like one of the most predictable outcomes from 2023. Now, they sit squarely in the middle to lower pack of the expanded Big 12 and aren’t going to scare many teams. Actually, Stanford might be a team that is scared, though. However, maybe be careful with this Cardinal team because there are signs they will be improved quite a bit (over on 3.5 wins in Vegas is a smart bet) and they have a solid foundation to build off from last year heading into year 2 of Troy Taylor. Stanford isn’t in session so a predicted upset will only be seen by a few thousand on the Farm.
Stanford 31
TCU 30
#14 Clemson [+14] vs. #1 Georgia (Atlanta, GA)
Saturday, Aug. 31st, 12:00 PM, ABC
Swinney talking about…something.
If Clemson is going to be really good it mostly comes down to whether or not Cade Klubnik becomes a Dude in 2024. If not, this is probably another 3 or 4 loss season for the Tigers. They have to re-load on defense (they feel overdue for a regression IMO) and might have to rely on their offense to stay competitive against Georgia in this opener. That’s…probably not happening. I’d like to see a pressed Dabo Swinney press conference on Saturday afternoon to pair with Coach Prime a couple days prior.
UGA 45
Clemson 19
#8 Penn State [-10] at West Virginia
Saturday, Aug. 31st, 12:00 PM, Fox
This game feels like it should’ve been the primetime Thursday night event live from rocking and drunk Morgantown for Week 1. Having it stuck at Noon against a game that will probably get the highest ratings in the afternoon is a miss. Last year, this was a deeply disappointing game for the Mountaineers who fooled the entire country into thinking Penn State’s offense was good. Let’s see the truth this time!
Penn State 17
West Virginia 14
#19 Miami [-2.5] at Florida
Saturday, Aug. 31st, 3:30 PM, ABC
The march to paying Billy Napier’s buyout begins now. According to reports, if he’s fired after the 2024 season, Florida will have to pay somewhere in the $20 million range to make him go away. I can’t believe this once proud program continues to start Graham Mertz at quarterback, plus their schedule is a death sentence. I actually like Miami to surprise a little bit this season and I’ll pick a win in the Swamp as they head up north as road favorites.
Miami 29
Florida 20
Fresno State [+21.5] at #9 Michigan
Saturday, Aug. 31st, 7:30 PM, NBC
This game will have the absence of Jim Harbaugh and the threat of sanctions looming as major storylines for Michigan. Don’t forget Jeff Tedford stepped down at Fresno State several weeks ago due to health issues and the Bulldogs are going with interim head coach Tim Skipper. It could be all sorts of weird but Fresno has a pretty veteran squad while Michigan will have a ton of new pieces, and hopefully the worst of title hangovers imaginable.
Michigan 34
Fresno State 24
#23 USC [+6] vs. #13 LSU (Las Vegas, NV)
Sunday, Sept. 1st, 7:30 PM, ABC
This is a super fun game because no matter who loses us Irish fans can find some laughter in it all. Although, for SOS considerations I’d say let’s hope the Trojans win. I’m pretty cautious about LSU, especially starting as a top 15 team having to re-load so much on offense. In fact, I might argue that USC (who seems to be slept on a little bit heading into 2024) should be favored outright in this game. I think Riley will find ways to move the ball and LSU is going to struggle offensively in the opener.
USC 32
LSU 23
We’ll be back in 2 weeks after the first full weekend of games are completed. Welcome back, football.
Great call (and reference) on colorado in the tyson zone. I would believe absolutely any story posted to message boards about them at this point. Literally anything is possible.
So, along those lines…
Speaking of simmons, they did a rewatchables pod on Rudy, released it this morning/last night. I know Eric had referenced rewatchables a few times on here.
I’m about 2/3rd through and I was a little nervous but they do a great job capturing nd fans love for it. I never realized brandt was that level fan growing up. They made it fun
We were talking about in the writers Slack chat. I’m about 1/3 into it right now and will finish later.
and if and wins saturday night I will soak up every minute of that usc lsu game, and if not….probably not gonna be real into football for a week or so
I agree it is mostly upside whoever wins the LSU-USC game. The one thing I’ll add though is that a loss to LSU warms Riley’s seat a little more, and any internal chaos for a rival is always a good thing.
I think it was the Athletic, but one of the major sports sites/writers has ND hosting LSU in the 1st round of the playoff in their preseason projection. Talk about drama!
I feel like that Miami-Florida game is going to be packed with tons of pressure, sloppy as hell, and be lost on a massive coaching blunder. Can’t wait!
this is what we want college football to be
LMFTFY: