The Original College Football Czar

Week 1

If you're reading the College Football Czar's Week 1 picks, that must mean that yet another long summer of terrible TV is about to come to a merciful end. So -- if you've been calling radio shows to demand that Hayden Fox be fired for holding Bo Whitley out of the game until the last minute; if you've been stalking Paul Finebaum because you've got to see for yourself whether he's a living person or a Jeff Dunham puppet; if you actually watched the cavalcade of buttmonkery that was the Olympic opening ceremony, just because you wanted to see what the NFL will look like five years from now; if you've bothered naming every one of your electric football players, just because they were there -- then do not despair, for another exciting, fun-filled season of college football has arrived, and not a moment too soon.

The Czar was remiss in omitting from his season preview issue the news that The Powers That Be Stupid have added a two-minute warning to the end of each half this season. If this strikes you as counterintuitive, you are being far too kind, because it is downright lardheaded. Just last year, it was so important to shorten the games that the rules were changed to keep the clock running on first downs, except for the last two minutes of each half. Now, apparently to cue the officials and coaches that the end-of-half rules have kicked in, they have added a two-minute warning. So, to summarize, they have shortened the games by taking some of the football out of them, and then gone back and padded them out by adding some more not football. Just as in Major League Baseball, the issue in college football had never been so much the length of the games as the pace of play. The last thing the fans needed was two additional timeouts. The Czar is beginning to suspect that Marge and Lisa Simpson have taken over the rules committee, and decided that every second in which football is not being played is a triumph for player safety. He wishes he was joking about that.

Because the Czar only picks games between Division I-A teams, there will be no preview here of one of the week's most intriguing contests, on Thursday night between Division I-AA giant-killer North Dakota State and Deion Sanders' Colorado Buffaloes. If NDSU wins, we can expect the buzzards to start circling over Boulder, for reasons that should be evident from the recent Athlon Sports story about the CU program. Or rather, not because of the article itself, but from the fact that it has been so widely cited by others. Had such a flimsy, anonymously sourced story been written instead about a politician from the media-approved party, no other journalist would even mention it, other than to excoriate the author and his publication. The Czar attributes the comparatively hostile treatment Coach Sanders has received to his unnecessarily contentious press conferences, in which he paranoically treats his sycophantic media as if they were the enemy.

The Czar often criticizes the media for fetishizing sports figures who wantonly disrespect the rules, their opponents, the fans, and society in general. Many college football writers and announcers who were alive in the 80s have even grown nostalgic for the Miami Hurricane teams of that era. As far as they're concerned, the only thing Deion has done wrong is that he's turned his disrespect toward them. They have repeatedly approached him in posterior-puckering mode, only to have him expel fumes in their faces. Reactions to the Athlon story suggest that at least some of them are taking this lack of reciprocity personally. The Czar believes we will see the sports media become increasingly critical of Coach Prime's behavior and that of his players, not because they've suddenly begun to take their journalistic responsibilities seriously, but only because they are suffering from unrequited love.

As always, this opening week's installment of picks will be considerably longer than usual, in that it encompasses the first ten days of the season, beginning with a Week Zero matchup, and running all the way through Labor Day. So now, without further ado:

Aug. 24

Florida State vs. Georgia Tech

This year's Weak Zero is so much so that the College Football Czar is only including one of that day's games in his picks, that being this Emerald Isle Classic in Dublin. The only other meeting between Division I-A teams on this opening Saturday matches offensively explosive SMU against Mountain West doormat Nevada, in a night game on CBS Sports.

At the risk of sounding obtuse, the Czar has got to ask, what is it about the Seminoles' mopey 63-3 Orange Bowl loss to Georgia that justifies this narrative of their being a hyper-motivated team on a mission? That final score was not simply the result of being undermanned against a superior team. FSU had given up before the game had even started, perhaps weeks before. Were they not already mad about getting snubbed by the CFP committee? Why should they be any more inspired now?

The Noles return an excellent secondary this season, but that suits the Yellowjackets, whose ground game led the ACC last year in both total yardage and yards per carry. (Suits. Yellowjackets. It's a joke, son, you missed it!) Tech would prefer not to pass the ball too much, if last year's results are any indication. Although they finished with a winning record of 7-6, they went 0-3 in games in which QB Haynes King threw for more than 300 yards.

The Seminoles welcome former Clemson quarterback D.J. Uiagalelei, who played all of last season at Oregon State without fumbling, while tossing three times as many TD passes as interceptions. That improved discipline may be the key to pulling out a game like this one, but a passer who has had only one 300-yard game in three seasons is not likely to keep this team in the national title hunt for very long.

It's a little-known fact that the reason Dublin got its name is that dublin is just something they always do there, and why not? You were going to order a double, anyway.

Florida State 23, Georgia Tech 20

Aug. 29

North Carolina at Minnesota

The Tar Heels have got a productive quarterback in Texas A&M transfer Max Johnson, but how much will it matter? In each of the past two seasons, this team has managed to lose five games behind Drake Maye, even as he posted the first and fourth biggest single-season passing totals in team history.

By far the more significant QB transfer is the one that brought Max Brosner to Minneapolis from Division I-AA New Hampshire. Brosner, who has thrown for at least one TD in each of his past 22 games, replaces the ineffective Athan Kaliakmanis, who had been given the unintentionally derisive moniker "the Greek Rifle." When these same teams met a year ago in Chapel Hill, Kaliakmanis gained only 4.4 yards per attempt, while completing only 11 of 29 with an interception. A repeat of that easy 31-13 UNC victory appears unlikely, now that the Golden Gophers have got somebody who might take advantage of a Carolina pass defense that ranked dead last in the ACC.

P.J. Fleck's team only went 5-7 last regular season, but because there were not enough eligible teams to fill all the bowl berths, they were granted an exemption to play in the Quick Lane Bowl because of their high Academic Progress Rate. The College Football Czar wonders whether this standard will still be used, now that the NCAA has all but given up on the whole concept of student athletes. If, instead, they award a bid to the team with the shiniest head coach head, the radiant rodents remain in business.

It's easy to see why "Greek Rifle" would be an intimidating nickname, because the Greeks are world famous for their ... um ... pottery. And yogurt. This isn't getting any better, is it?

Minnesota 35, North Carolina 31

Coastal Carolina at Jacksonville State

Thanks to the NCAA's propensity to make up or discard rules on the fly, the Gamecocks got to play in a bowl game to finish their first season in Division I-A, after initially being denied on the basis of their being a "transitional" program. They played a full Conference USA schedule, and won enough games against I-A opponents to qualify for a bowl. The Czar fails to see where the transitional part is in all of that. Their 34-31 overtime victory over Louisiana-Lafayette in the New Orleans Bowl capped a 9-4 season for former WVU, Michigan and Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez on his return to major college football.

The Chanticleers have lost star quarterback Grayson McCall to Nc State through the transfer portal, but NCSU let them use its practice facilities in Raleigh when they were temporarily displaced by Hurricane Debby. Doesn't quite seem like a fair trade, somehow. The most likely starter for this game appears to be Ethan Vasko, who threw three TDs while leading CCU to a 24-14 Hawaii Bowl victory over San Jose State.

The College Football Czar had been wondering what nincompoop is in charge of naming hurricanes these days, but then he imagined what somebody named Debby with a Y must actually be like. She's probably a grown woman who festoons her bedroom with unicorns. With such a person approaching, who wouldn't heed an evacuation warning?

Jacksonville State 29, Coastal Carolina 21

Aug. 30

Western Michigan at Wisconsin

The Broncos are 1-4 all-time against the cheeseheads, their most recent meeting being a scrappy 24-16 defeat in the Cotton Bowl at the end of the 2016 season. Well, it wasn't really in the Cotton Bowl; it was in a game called the Cotton Bowl Classic, played in Arlington, at Jerry Jones' House of Inadequacy. Even the good games in that building are depressing to watch. Thankfully, the series returns to Camp Randall Stadium, the same site as the four previous regular season games in this series. But this time, there's beer!

The Badgers' new, more aggressive offensive scheme (nicknamed "CheddAir" by this publication) failed to take off last season with Tanner Mordecai at quarterback. This year, they will give it another try with Miami transfer Tyler Van Dyke. The senior slinger will need to cut down on last year's total of 12 interceptions, however.

If WMU thought it had a rough road schedule last year, it hasn't seen anything yet. A week after this stop at UW, they travel to Columbus to take on perennial national contender Ohio State. They don't get a home game against a Division I-A opponent until Akron comes to town in Week 7.

There seems to be a theme to this game, with Hayden Wolff playing quarterback for the Broncs, while the Madison Reds are led by a QB who shares a surname with the guy who played Luther. If that's not coincidental enough, each of them played too much like Leonard Kraleman last year.

Wisconsin 28, Western Michigan 13

TCU at Stanford

Each of these teams had a noteworthy performance against Colorado last season, and the Horned Frogs probably wouldn't care to remember either of them. In their own opener, they allowed four different CU receivers to gain over a hundred yards in a devastating 45-42 setback. Six weeks later, the Cardinal came back from a 29-0 halftime deficit to beat the Buffs 46-43 in double-overtime, on the strength of a 294-yard, three-touchdown performance by WR Elic Ayomanor.

In an odd scheduling quirk, the leaping lizards play two road games against ACC expansion teams, and neither of them anywhere near the Atlantic Coast. In Week 4, they play their traditional Iron Skillet rivalry game against SMU in Dallas.

The Frogs have their two leading receivers back from last season, and they will be joined by Boise State transfer Eric McAlister, who led the Broncos with 873 receiving yards. Expect plenty of attention to be spread among the three of them, against a Cardinal defense that ranked fourth-worst in the nation against the pass.

It's a little-noticed fact that "Ayomanor" is an anagram for "Yo, a Roman!" Kind of makes you thankful that Sylvester Stallone has never made a gladiator movie, but let's not give him any ideas.

TCU 40, Stanford 31

Aug. 31

Kent State at Pitt

The Panthers have had their share of losses to MAC teams, but against this, their most frequent foe from that conference, they are 6-0. The last time these teams met was way back in 2003, when Pitt coach Walt Harris suspended QB Rod Rutherford for one quarter. By the end of that quarter, the Golden Flashes led 3-0. Then Rutherford entered the game, and his team went on to win 43-3. Guess he learned his lesson.

KSU coach Kenni Burns went winless against legitimate competition in his first season, beating only Division I-AA Central Connecticut State. If his name sounds familiar, you might recall that he played running back at Indiana twenty years ago. Should've left the "i" back at IU, frankly.

Coach Pat Narduzzi has had to replace nine defensive starters this year, but the College Football Czar wonders whether that's such a bad thing. A year ago, they were so soft up the middle that they were beaten by a Syracuse team whose game plan consisted mostly of handing off to the tight end. This could be a feelgood game for them, against a K-State offense that ranked last in the MAC in scoring last year, with 14.7 points per game.

Last year's 3-9 campaign was a career low for Narduzzi, but things could have been worse. He could have had a winning record, and gotten hired away by Michigan State.

Pitt 34, Kent State 10

Penn State at West Virginia

At first glance, the Nittany Lions' schedule might look like a clear path to the playoff, with Ohio State at home, and no games against Oregon or Michigan. Their next four toughest tests are on the road, however, at WVU, Southern Cal, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

The Mountaineers return their entire backfield from a ground game that ranked fourth in the nation last season, with running backs Jaheim White and C.J. Donaldson, and QB Garrett Greene, each rushing for well over 750 yards. One game in which they didn't fare particularly well, however, was an opening 38-15 loss at PSU, where they gained a pedestrian 3.7 yards per carry. That's roughly two thirds their season average.

Drew Allar's 325 passing yards that night turned out to be his season high by a long shot. Through two seasons, he has only been picked off twice in 459 attempts, but part of the reason is that he has been too tentative. How far he can lead the Lions this year depends on how much more aggressively he is willing to attack downfield, and whether he lets himself be inhibited by the occasional turnover.

The fans from State College aren't going to like the treatment they get in Morgantown, but what can they do about it? Complain about what a bunch of overly intense, belligerent bottom burps the opposing fans are? That would be kind of like a weird vice presidential candidate calling another weird vice presidential candidate weird.

Penn State 24, West Virginia 14

Clemson vs. Georgia

That dastardly "vs." in the line above is a tipoff that this is a neutral-site game, and between these two teams, you must have already guessed that the location is Merecedes-Benz Stadium. Nothing makes a marquee game less appealing than a noon kickoff in a dome. It makes the College Football Czar happy that he will be outdoors at the Pitt-Kent State game at the time, and no, he's not being sarcastic. Why can't this just be a home game for the Bulldogs? Not only would that be infinitely better for TV, but Sanford Stadium holds about 20,000 more people, and the trip for Tiger fans would be only half as long.

The Tigers must have made Phil Mafah an offer he couldn't refuse. Why else, in the NIL era, does an outstanding running back return to the same team for a fourth season? Mafah led the Son of Clem in rushing last year, even with Will Shipley playing in the same backfield. Now that he'll be getting the bulk of the carries, he should easily clear the 1,000-yard mark, which he missed by only 35 yards in 2023.

If the Czar were more prone to conspiracy theories, he might think UGA was deliberately robbed of the SEC championship in order to justify playoff expansion. The peculiar decision not to review an Alabama fourth-down conversion let the Tide keep the ball late in the first half, when it should have gone over to the Dogs on downs. We'll never known how the rest of the game would have been different if the pass had been ruled incomplete, but the subsequent Bama touchdown provided more than the margin of their eventual 27-24 victory. Unlike Florida State, it was Kirby Smart's team that played as if it had something to prove in the Orange Bowl, and will continue to do so as it enters a new season.

It's best to avoid conspiracy theories. It's a little-known fact that they were created at a secret underground meeting of the Trilateral Commission, in order to control our minds.

Georgia 29, Clemson 12

Miami at Florida

As usual, it's the U that has made the flashy move, with the addition of former Washington State QB Cam Ward, while the understated Gators continue to steadily improve in Billy Napier's third season as head coach. UF had better pile up as many victories as possible before November, because that's when they run into Georgia, Texas, LSU, Ole Miss and Florida State, all in a row.

Ward is not the only remnant of the Pac 12 that the Hurricanes have salvaged. Running back Damien Martinez, formerly of Oregon State, led the dissolving conference with 1,185 rushing yards in 2023. If he can duplicate that effort, he will become the Canes' first 1,000-yard rusher since Mark Walton in 2016.

You can't get an un-flashier QB transfer than former Wisconsin Badger Graham Mertz, whom the Czar nicknamed Ethel after a particularly weak performance against Penn State in 2021. Well, Lucy was never allowed to be in the show, but Ethel is still harboring hopes of getting there, after a successful first year in Gainesville. Over three seasons, his touchdown-to-interception margin has gone from minus-1 to plus-9 to plus-17.

When Mario Cristobal was hired at Coral Gables, he immediately retired the turnover chain, yet he has been more than competitive at recruiting through the portal. It's almost as if sports cars and mountains of cash are preferable to temporary possession of a gaudy piece of jewelry somebody picked up at the jerk store.

Miami 28, Florida 24

Notre Dame at Texas A&M

The Fighting Irish outpointed Mike Elko 21-14 a year ago, when he was head coach at Duke. Now we'll see how they fare against him when he's got a little more to fight back with. Under Jimbo Fisher in 2023, the Conjunction Boys went off the rails frequently, to finish 7-6 after losing every game they possibly could. Most of those were on the road, however. Their only setback in seven games at Kyle Field was a 26-20 decision against Alabama.

Marcus Freeman's team faces only three opponents on their home fields this season. That's because both their games against Army and Navy at neutral sites, and the Georgia Tech game is being played at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, just to enhance its boringness. A year ago, the Irish only went 3-2 in true road games, with losses at Louisville and Clemson.

The Aggies may have the ex-Duke coach, but the golden domers have grabbed the QB from that same team. The oft-injured Riley Leonard was hurt late in the game when these teams met in 2023, however, and he missed much of spring camp after having foot surgery. Nevertheless, Freeman has named him the starter, and expects him to contribute significantly to the ND rushing attack.

They have so many dumb traditions surrounding the games at College Station that the Irish fans who make the trip will say to each other, "What a bunch of dumb traditions they have here."

Texas A&M 23, Notre Dame 16

Fresno State at Michigan

The defending national champion Wolverines were supposed to welcome Jim Harbaugh this week as an honorary team captain, but after receiving a typically ludicrous punishment from the NCAA for his sign-stealing scandal, the former coach has decided that he did not want to be a distraction to his team. The Powers That Be Stupid have suspended the ex-skipper for an entire season, should he ever return to college football, which he almost assuredly won't.

Hopefully, the in-helmet communication and other technological advancements that are being introduced this season will put an end to the whole matter, which the Czar found rather silly to start out with. How did coaches ever have any reasonable expectation of privacy for something they're doing in the middle of a crowd of 100,000 spectators? It's as if they had become a bunch of visor-wearing Harry and Megans.

Whereas this Wolverine team has had a whole offseason to adapt to a coaching change, FSU only learned in mid-July of Jeff Tedford's departure for unspecified health reasons. Expecting the Bulldogs to be fully prepared for such a big opener just doesn't seem realistic, even though they still have veteran quarterback Mikey Keene to lead them.

Instead of handing out phantom suspensions, why doesn't the NCAA just announce that it is no longer prosecuting certain entire categories of violations? Everybody's doing it these days.

Michigan 38, Fresno State 14

Miami OH at Northwestern

With Ryan Field under construction, the Wildcats have to forage for places to play their home games this year. For this opener and a few other contests, they have constructed a temporary, 15,000-seat lakeside stadium called Northwestern Medicine Field at Lanny and Sharon Martin Stadium. Actually, it's an already existing, picturesque soccer and lacrosse field you may have seen on the Big Ten Network, which will be surrounded by thousands of bleachers for football.

During the Cats' miracle season in 1995, their only regular season loss was to the team that was then known as the Redskins, 30-28. Not that it was any big shocker. MU leads the overall series 7-3, including a 17-14 victory in 2022.

The RedHawks have been picked both here and elsewhere to win the MAC this season, based on their bringing back last year's conference championship team pretty much intact. One notable exception is Lou Groza Award-winning kicker Graham Nicholson, who has transferred to Alabama. Understandably embittered coach Chuck Martin complains that incoming Crimson Tide coach Kalen DeBoer "illegally recruited" him. He's almost certainly correct, but tampering is a very difficult charge to substantiate, and seriously, what would be done about it anyway?

This just in: the NCAA has decided to punish the Wildcats over their hazing scandal by banishing them from Ryan Field for the entire 2024 season.

Miami OH 20, Northwestern 19

Boise State at Georgia Southern

The Broncos embark on a road trip of more than 2,000 miles to Statesboro to open the season. Perhaps the visiting fans should get used to making the trip, for surely these two are destined to become conference rivals in the near future.

BSU must be hoping that Maddux Madsen makes the dux mad in Week 2, because last year's backup QB has been named the starter over USC transfer Malachi Nelson. Madsen led the team last season in both completion percentage and TD-to-INT ratio.

There can be no such surprise in the quarterback competition at GASO, because there has been no clear favorite among the three all along. Regardless of who gets the opening day start, the Eagles are expected to re-incorporate the option game into their scheme.

The Broncs are now the only Division I-A team in their state, but the Idaho Vandals used to play in the Sun Belt Conference, where the Eagles reside. Just goes to show that the stupidity of conference nomenclature is not a recent development. Of course, it has gotten progressively worse since college ball has been striving to emulate the NFL, the league that put Dallas in the East and Atlanta in the West.

NFL: Never Fear the Lard.

Boise State 15, Georgia Southern 12

Uconn at Maryland

At this time last year, it was becoming the conventional wisdom that the Huskies had some kind of secret formula that was helping them succeed as one of the few remaining Independents in college football. After a 3-9 season in 2023, they are not so much independent as they are all alone.

The Terrapins just might turtle up like a bad hockey fighter, now that they no longer have Taulia Tagovailoa throwing haymakers on their behalf. Their new quarterback is M.J. Morris, who only played four games for Nc State last season before arrogantly redshirting himself, just as D'Eriq King had done at Houston. The College Football Czar will never understand how a head coach can tolerate such a thing. The redshirts are his to use as he sees fit, to keep talent in reserve for his own team for the following season. Like King, Morris was obviously not going to stick around. He simply abandoned his Wolfpack teammates, and wasted one of Dave Doeren's redshirts so that he could have another year's eligibility left when he transferred. Why could Doeren not have simply said no?

The Czar's next question is why Mike Locksley, the top Terp, even wants this guy. In those four games, Morris only completed 55.8 percent of his passes, while throwing seven touchdowns and five INTs. Nothing about that makes it remotely worthwhile to turn the offense over to such a selfish player.

Husky coach Jim Mora is the son of the former NFL coach and two-time USFL champion by the same name. In a way, it's a good thing that the younger Jim Mora is coaching a dead-end Independent college team, because that means there are few reasons for the word "playoffs" to come during his press conferences.

Maryland 10, Uconn 6

Wyoming at Arizona State

The Sun Devils need to get a big season out of their new QB, redshirt freshman Michigan State transfer Sam Leavitt. If he doesn't develop quickly, there's not much they can do to spork up more than the 17.9 points per game they averaged a year ago.

In 2023, the Cowboys took a poke at two Big XII opponents, upending Texas Tech in double-overtime, and yielding to Texas 31-10 in a game that had been tied 10-10 after three. Their defense, which held the Horns to 316 total yards, returns basically intact, with eight of last year's starters.

New Cowboy coach Jay Sawvel will have a tough time following the retired Craig Bohl, but one improvement he has made over his predecessor's way of doing things is the addition of names on the jerseys. Enough of this tiresome team-building tripe about playing for the name on the front of the jersey instead of the back. The purpose of the names is not to pump up the players' self-esteem, it's to help the spectators identify the players. Just think how much easier it would have been to keep score when the bullets started flying at the OK Corrall, if the participants had the names EARP and CLANTON on their backs. Besides, Clint Eastwood's character in the spaghetti Westerns was no less out for himself than he would have been, if he'd had a name to sew on the back of his poncho.

Gosh. How do you suppose that guy ever identified his own swimming trunks when he went on vacation?

Arizona State 22, Wyoming 14

Eastern Michigan at Umass

These teams are soon to be conference opponents for a second time, with the Minutemen accepting an all-sport invitation to rejoin the MAC, beginning next season. When they were a football-only member from 2012-15, they faced their cross-divisional foes from Ypsilanti twice, defeating the Eagles by scores of 36-14 and 28-17. This is a different EMU team, however, than the one that had a combined record of 3-21 during those two seasons.

How confident can the Eagles be in QB transfer Cole Snyder from conference foe Buffalo? In last year's regular season finale, they held Snyder to 11 completions on 26 attempts. For the season, he only completed 54.6 percent, and he went without a 200-yard game since the first week of October. They must get more production from their passing game than that, unless their rushing attack is going to improve significantly, which does not appear likely.

They're probably going to have trouble getting the ground game going in Amherst as well, where Kay'Ron Lynch-Adams picked up his 1,157 yards from last season and departed for Michigan State, where the grass, among everything else, is always greener.

At the rate that talent is evacuating the Mid-American Conference, it is soon to be demoted from the MAC to the bub or the pally.

Eastern Michigan 17, Umass 7

UNLV at Houston

There's a lot more unlove in Space City than in Sin City these days, with the Cougars having fired coach Dana Holgorsen after a woeful 4-8 season. By contrast, the worst that can be said about Barry Odom's inaugural campaign in Vegas is that he failed on three consecutive attempts to secure a 10-win season.

New head coach Willie Fritz arrives at UH from former conference rival Tulane, where he compiled a record of 54-47 over eight seasons. His Cotton Bowl "Classic"-winning team went 12-2 in 2022, and he had a chance to equal that record last season, but was hired away before his team's bowl game.

Rebel wide receiver Ricky Whiteiii is the nation's returning leader in passing yards from last season. He was third nationally in 2023, behind only Rome Odunze and Malik Nabers, who have both moved on to the NFL. Whiteiii caught 81 passes for 1,386 yards, which comes out to 27 catches and 462 yards for each of him, which still isn't bad.

Why does Houston call itself Space City, anyway? It doesn't even have a space in it, like El Paso or San Antonio. Some people can be so ignorant.

UNLV 44, Houston 35

North Texas at South Alabama

One might expect the Mean Green to have trouble handling the upgrade from Conference USA to the American Athletic Conference, but they rallied for a league record of 3-5 last season, and this year their November AAC slate appears to set up nicely for them. The tough part is this early nonconference schedule, which includes Texas Tech and Wyoming, in addition to this treacherous trip to Mobile.

Major Applewhite returns to the head coaching ranks with the Jags, having previously gone 15-11 in two-plus seasons at Houston. He was dismissed at the end of the 2018 season, after an inexplicable 70-14 stomping by Army in the Armed Forces Bowl. He was then employed by Nick Saban as an "analyst" at Alabama for two seasons, before becoming the offensive coordinator at SA.

What the crud does an "analyst" do, anyway? Tell the players to lie down on a couch and then ask them if they hate their daddies?

South Alabama 28, North Texas 27

Florida International at Indiana

The International Men of Mystery have been too tough a puzzle for head coach Mike MacIntyre to figure out so far, finishing 4-8 in each of his first two seasons. If anything, the Golden Panthers declined in 2023, falling to a Conference USA record of 1-7, even with two newly minted Division I-A teams in the league.

Oh, wait a minute. MacIntyre had previously coached at Colorado, where he also went 4-8 in his first season. The Czar stands corrected. The coach is a legend, it turns out, and sunglasses look better on him than on anyone else, especially at night or indoors. But seriously, after stints as head coach at San Jose State and CU, MacIntyre served for two years as the defensive coordinator at Memphis, where his teams ranked in the lower third of the AAC, allowing more than 425 yards per game. Kind of strange for his very next job to be a Division I-A head coaching gig.

IU welcomes super-senior quarterback Kurtis Rourke from Ohio, where he had been for so long that he could just as easily be a veteran of the Ohio Express as the Ohio Bobcats. Part of the reason it seems that way is that the four-year starter was preceded by his brother Nathan for three years as quarterback at OU.

The Ohio Express was not a football team, by the way. It was a phony pop group hired by Buddha Records in the late 60s, to tour in support of singles that had been recorded by session musicians. Its biggest hits were "Yummy Yummy Yummy" and "Chewy Chewy," songs that call to mind Larry, Darryl and Darryl's prize-winning popcorn jingle ("Poppedy-pop poppy, Crunchedy-cruch crunchy," etc.). In the Czar's opinion, any of these inane tunes is preferable to Neil Diamond's ode to pedocuriosity.

Indiana 45, Florida International 26

UCLA at Hawaii

Former Bruin tailback DeShaun Foster takes over as head coach for his team's first season of Big Ten play. That's got to be good news for junior running back T.J. Harden, who won't have to split carries this year with Carson Steele, who is now with the Kansas City Chiefs.

The Rainbow Warriors may have already scheduled their way out of a bowl game this season. In addition to opting against scheduling the thirteenth game the NCAA allows them to play, they have got two games against Division I-AA opponents, only one of which can be counted toward bowl-eligibility. Now, they'll have to go 7-5 in order to qualify for the postseason, just like it used to be way back in the original Magnum P.I. era. Ex-trohr-dnerry!

Clarence T.C. Ching Stadium will be expanded to a capacity of just under 17,000 for this season. By now, they've been without Aloha Stadium for so long that some of the state politicians are questioning the need to build a new one, and nobody seems to have a good answer. By the time it was demolished in 2020, the Rainbow Warriors were its only tenant, and they only filled the diminutive Ching to 75 percent capacity last year.

After getting evicted from the old stadium, the Warriors were fortunate to still have a place to play. For that, they can say, "Thanks, T.C., I owe you one."

That's a quote from the real show, for those among the Czar's readers who are only old enough to remember the lardheaded reboot. And another thing, Higgins is a man. And he even identified as such. So there!

UCLA 37, Hawaii 24

Sept. 1

LSU vs. USC

Each team is without its superstar quarterback from a year ago, which one might assume to be a bigger blow to the Trojans, since Caleb Williams was the #1 pick in the NFL draft. As team leadership goes, however, there's no doubt that ex-Tiger Jayden Daniels was a far more valuable college QB than the Sultan of Sulk from Southern Cal. Louisiana State now turns to junior Garrett Nussmeier, who has two years' familiarity with the offense. Miller Moss is in a similar position with the Trojans if he wins the starting job, but he must first beat out UNLV transfer Jayden Maiava, who flipped his transfer commitment to SC after initially deciding on Georgia.

Louisiana State led the nation in offense last season, which went a long way toward covering for a defense that ranked among the bottom fourth in the nation. In 2023, they allowed 30 or more points on eight occasions, meaning every time they faced an opponent that was halfway competent offensively. This Trojan team fared even worse, however, finishing outside the top hundred in rushing, passing and scoring defense.

The city of Las Vegas rolls out the crinkly carpet for this neutral-site game at Allegiant Stadium, where the Raiders' grass surface is stashed outside for college games, which are played on artificial turf. The College Football Czar has noticed that at UNLV home games, the rug has wrinkles that are visible on TV. If only they could hire Wayne Newton's surgeon to do some work on it.

LSU 55, USC 51

Sept. 2

Boston College at Florida State

If FSU wins both of these early ACC games, expect to hear unjustified hype like you haven't heard since Colorado started 3-0 last season. In another twelve days, however, the Noles face Memphis in one of the Czar's booby-trap ballgames, and after that they still have road games against SMU, Miami and Notre Dame. CFP contention remains a long way off.

Early last season, they almost stumbled against this Eagle team on the road, where they nearly let a 21-point second-half lead get away from them. A missed extra point set back the BC comeback effort, which finally failed, 31-29.

New head coach Bill O,Brien arrives at Chestnut Hill with an abundance of football knowledge and experience tucked away in that dimple on his chin. Seriously, have you seen that thing? It looks as if someone tried to do a tracheotomy, and missed. Anyway, the former Penn State skipper led that program to two winning seasons in the wake of the Sandusky scandal, then won four NFL division titles as head coach of the Houston Texans, and has since been offensive coordinator for both the Alabama Crimson Tide and the New England Patriots.

Last year's Labor Day ACC opener bedeviled expectations, as Duke downed Clemson by a decisive final score of 28-7. The Czar thinks the Seminoles are set up for a similar fall, but he's not sure BC is strong enough to knock them over.

For some reason or other, you're not supposed to wear white after Labor Day. Whoever made that up must not have played many road games. Probably somebody from the SEC.

Florida State 19, Boston College 10

The College Football Czar

a sports publication from The Shinbone