Week 0 College Football Schedule 2022: All the Games, Ranked

Now that Kansas State pounded severely-undermanned LSU in the Texas Bowl, we wait with bated breath for the next FBS college football action.

With that in mind, we looked ahead to Week 0 of the 2022 college football season so you’d have an idea of the best games to look forward to.

Here’s what you’ll be able to watch on August 27 (let’s assume all times are TBD—absent a kickoff time for Northwestern-Nebraska in the Ireland Bowl I chose 8am CT, which is roughly when the last three iterations have kicked off).

T-Last. P5 Teams Hosting FCS Squads, for Some Reason?

Duquesne Dukes at Florida State Seminoles
Florida A&M Rattlers at North Carolina Tar Heels

Warm yourself by the fire of what happened the last time Florida State played an FCS team:

These games are dumb. Why would you host an FCS team in Week 0?

6. Austin Peay Governors at Western Kentucky Hilltoppers

Will a post-Bailey Zappe WKU be as fun? Probably not, but whatever new QB Tyson Helton has brought to Bowling Green to replace the record-breaking 2021 performance of Zappe should be learning on the job. That’ll be good enough against a Governors team that started the year ranked and went 6-5 but could put up plenty of points along the way.

5. UConn Huskies at Utah State Aggies

FINALLY, some FBS matchups with some really disgusting potential. This one’s the first game for new Huskies head man Jim Mora, Jr., who finally needs a paycheck again now that his UCLA buyout is done.

We assume, however, that a UConn rebuild will not just happen overnight.

4. Nevada Wolf Pack at New Mexico State Aggies

I’m tempted to move this one up to #3, if JUST because it’s the debut of new New Mexico State HC...

...HELL YEAH, IT’S JERRY TIME.

See the above warning about rebuilds at already-moribund FBS independents...but Nevada will be undergoing a similar rebuild now that Jay Norvell has left for Mountain West rival Colorado State, so maybe Jerry red-asses his way to an interesting season-opener.

Hopefully this one gets flexed out to CBSSN or something, because otherwise the Aggies are, as of now, relegated to the wasteland that is FloSports.

3. Nebraska Cornhuskers vs. Northwestern Wildcats

Aer Lingus College Football Classic (Aviva Stadium, Dublin, IE)

This tremendous mistake will, presumably, proceed as planned unless COVID cancels yet another overseas game. Instead of Illinois springing their 2021 upset on Nebraska, it’ll just be Nebraska running wild on Northwestern’s stuck-in-molasses defense. BUT, on the plus-side, I’ll be about five sheets to the wind at 7am CT and the rest of the day will be gravy.

ALSO, from the “College Football Ireland” wiki:

The game is intended as an annual event to attract some of the 40 million Americans of Irish descent back to their fatherland. College teams with particularly Irish or Catholic background were chosen in an effort to attract Irish nationals to the games as well.^{[citation needed]}

That “citation needed” is the most beautiful bit of understatement for a game featuring Pat Fitzgerald, a man who has not changed his hairstyle since seeing Luck of the Irish on Disney Channel in 2000.

2. Wyoming Cowboys at Illinois Fighting Illini

Number one—WHY?

Number two—forget number one, just give me Craig Bohl and Bert HORRRRRRPing up against one another in a game that should only last about two and a half hours. The ‘Pokes can score the damn ball with mountain man Levi Williams at QB, and Illinois is silly enough to make this one a game.

1. Vanderbilt Commodores at Hawai’i Rainbow Warriors

Likely 15+ hours AFTER Northwestern-Nebraska kicks off in Ireland, this beautiful, beautiful shitshow will finally put a bow on the first day of the 2022 FBS season. Vanderbilt is, I assume, on a new coach or one who’s still rebuilding a program that played the sickos game of the year with UConn or whatever. Hawai’i, meanwhile, is in open revolt against Todd Graham—and even Graham’s son has transferred out of the program.

That’s the kind of beautiful shitshow that should close out Week 0 of 2022.

I can’t wait.

‘Til next year, college football.