What are the biggest week one college football matchups?

There are few times in the calendar more exciting than the start of college football season. This weekend will see the return of marching bands, incredible team entrances and the chance for one team to take home the coveted national championship trophy. Week Zero has technically already happened, but this week will see the real return of college football Saturdays!

This matchup takes the prime time slot on Sunday evening and looks to be the best matchup in week one by a distance. Featuring number 5 LSU vs number eight Florida State, this is a real tone-setter for the season. Both teams have legitimate ambitions of reaching the College Football Playoff and a loss here will be a real setback.

Jordan Travis vs Jayden Daniels is a dream QB matchup for this early in the season. Both are amongst the best players at their position in the country and a win here could see them start gaining some national Heisman Trophy hype.

FSU head coach Mike Norvell is entering his fourth year coaching the Seminoles, having inherited a woeful roster, he has helped turn his team into one of the best offenses in the nation and will be desperate to be amongst the CFP race late in the year.

Brian Kelly is one of the biggest names in college football coaching after his long and relatively successful spell at Notre Dame. His LSU team is looking stacked all over the field going into 2023 and the expectations are high in Baton Rogue. Can he harness his players and truly make an impact on the playoff landscape this season?

Neither of these teams is expected to make too big a splash when it comes to the CFP but this is still a truly exciting week one matchup. Featuring two of the top QBs in the nation and with an inter-state rivalry on the line, this should be a good one.

As mentioned, both QBs are very exciting players. Drake Maye for UNC is expected to be one of the top draft picks in 2024 and Spencer Rattler was finally showing off his true ability by the end of the 2022 season. If Maye can keep on his trajectory, the Tarheels could win a lot of games this year and for Rattler, it’s a chance to showcase how far he’s come since a disappointing spell at Oklahoma.

This is another meeting of two very exciting offenses who look to score bulk points and keep their foot on the gas throughout the game. UNC finished last season averaging a hair under 35 points per game last year whilst Rattler and the Gamecocks put up 44 ppg in the final three games of the 2022 season.

Deion ‘Prime Time’ Sanders won’t be featuring in a prime-time game in week one of his FBS career, but that doesn’t mean the nation won’t be watching as the ex-Jackson State makes his debut as the head coach of Colorado. For TCU, they are looking a very different team to the one that got humbled in the 2022 National Championship game, but rarely are the Horned Frogs bad.

Deion Sanders didn’t mince his words when he became the head coach of the Colorado Buffaloes. "We got a few positions already taken care of because I’m bringing my own luggage with me,” was what he told the players on the team when he joined, leading to an unprecedented 53 scholarship athletes jumping on the transfer portal. He has brought a lot of talent with him, and now it’s time to see it in action.

For TCU, the expectations this season are presumably quite low. They lost their star QB, wide receiver, and running back as well as their offensive coordinator from last season. If they are able to repeat the victory of last season’s opener, also against Colorado, it would be a very impressive result for a rebuilding Horned Frogs squad.

Penn State start the season ranked number 7 in the country and have a shiny new quarterback under center for the first time since 2018. Drew Allar is a highly touted prospect with huge size and an even bigger arm if he can live up to the hype, the Nittany Lions could be a problem in 2023 and potentially get over their CFP hump.

Last year there was some level of excitement around the Mountaineers as they looked to rally behind their quarterback, J.T. Daniels. Daniels was already on his third college program at that point and unfortunately for the ex-USC and Georgia player, he couldn’t really make his mark in Morgantown. This year there is less buzz as they look to rebuild.

Speaking of J.T. Daniels, he is now a Rice Owl and will be making his debut for Rice in an intra-state matchup against the Longhorns.

For a while it looked like there would be some competition for the starting quarterback spot at UT, but that was quickly put to rest as Ewers was named the starter way back in April. Arch Manning wasn’t able to put Ewers despite him being touted as the next great QB prospect.

Every season it seems there is hype built around Texas only for them to lose a couple of games and not really do anything particularly impressive. That may well be the case again in 2023 but they do look like the real deal with talent across the roster, perhaps this is the year they truly make a splash…