College football dips its toes into the water tomorrow, kicking off in Dublin for the fourth straight year. The Big 12 title…might be on the line?
A few orders of business:
- If you’re familiar with Movelor, welcome back. We’ll be rolling out playoff probabilities and bracketology over the next week or so. We’ve made some updates, and we’ll explain those when the full model is live, but none of them affect teams’ preseason ratings. Those are still mostly built off of how teams finished last year, with an added splash of the preseason AP Poll (the only AP Poll of the year which is not a mortal sin).
- If you’re unfamiliar with Movelor, it’s a margin of victory-based elo system which incorporates recruiting. By the end of the season, it’s about as good as ESPN’s SP+ and FPI, two of—seriously, FPI is good—the best rating systems in the business. At the beginning of the season? About a point per game worse than both of those. (We’ve made an adjustment to speed up Movelor’s catchup, but more on that in a few days). Movelor’s strengths are 1) its simplicity and 2) that it openly ranks FCS teams rather than ranking them in the shadows like FPI and SP+ do. In Week Zero, that’s relevant.
- If you’re reading this on our Substack…welcome back? It’s weird to say “welcome back” when we’re in your inbox, but welcome back to having us in your inbox. Sorry for going dark on you like that. The child is going to daycare twice a week now and basketball season’s still a few months away, so the extremely tentative plan is to do College Football Morning every morning but Saturday. College Football Morning: For all the days when there isn’t college football in the morning.
Now. Movelor’s line on each of these nine games, its rankings for all eighteen teams (within Division I), and a few thoughts.
#20 Kansas State vs. #25 Iowa State: Wildcats by 1.7
Warning: Gratuitous Iowa State thoughts ahead.
If I’m not missing somebody, Movelor has these guys the second and third-best teams in the Big 12, behind Arizona State but ahead of Colorado, TCU, BYU, Kansas, Texas Tech’s Wallet, Baylor, North Dakota State (not in the Big 12 but should be pretty good), and Utah, to name a few more than a few. Given that the Big 12 is probably headed for another tiebreaker singularity, there’s a real chance this game decides the Big 12 Championship, which is more than enough to make this the biggest Aer Lingus Football Classic in history.
That said.
This is probably chance, but each year they’ve played this game, one of the teams has turned out terrible. Nebraska in 2022. Navy in 2023. Florida State in 2024. Navy’s a bit of an anomaly, crumbling the already small-sample “trend,” but Nebraska and FSU had expectations—Nebraska’s from people who knew things (lot of close losses in 2021!) and FSU’s from people who didn’t (we needed to have a conversation about the ACC, and I’m still not sure we ever had it).
Probably chance.
But for their own sakes, Avery Johnson and Rocco Becht better show up.
As a descendant of Iowa State, I’d like to share how scared I am to face dream rugby player Johnson on a wet rugby pitch. How scared am I? Very! The path to a Heisman Trophy is clearer for Johnson than it is for Becht, and regression towards original expectations bodes well for the long-haired son of Wichita. That isn’t to say Avery Johnson’s going to win the Heisman, but the guy is a highlight reel waiting to happen, and Iowa State’s Week 1 issues under Matt Campbell have already done a number on my fingernails more than 24 hours before kickoff. Hopefully those wait until Week 1 again. Or just take a year off?
As for Becht: I love him. I love that he is Iowa State’s quarterback. He has guts and he makes the throws and Iowa State’s been good for long enough that he gets more honest treatment from the public than Brock Purdy did. That said, the receiver position is one of very few where Iowa State should be worse this year, and it’s reasonable to fear that inexperience going full tetherball and swinging around into the backfield’s face.
The returning production is getting a lot of noise in Ames, but Kansas State brings back more of it. Both teams are down a starting lineman, but that area has always been Chris Klieman’s staff’s developmental advantage. It’s a weird game, and Becht and Campbell both won a lot of those last year alone. But I am concerned that Iowa State’s going to open the season in a hole. Ideally, if that does happen, the hole is shaped like Avery Johnson and that K-State O-line. That would be preferable to a hole shaped like Iowa State’s own bullet.
#126 Incarnate Word at #199 Nicholls: Cardinals by 10.9
There is very little to say about this football game, but I will offer three things.
Both these teams are in the Southland, which is a conference and not a region. Nicholls is in a town named Thibodaux. I’m never sure whether we’re supposed to call it Nicholls or Nicholls State, but it has a great logo.
Thank you.
Ooh, bonus thing!
I went looking for the Nicholls logo, so I could look at it, and evidently Colonel Tillou has drawn comparisons to a Red Army soldier, which…yes. I don’t know how to tell this to the good people of Thibodaux, Louisiana, but Joseph McCarthy would like a word. And in this case, I’m not sure he’s out of line?
#194 Idaho State at #50 UNLV: Rebels by 36.4
We mentioned Movelor’s clumsy approach to preseason rankings, and…well, we did test whether teams should get a deduction for changing head coaches, and the data showed the opposite. The problem is that we didn’t take the time to check which coaching changes of the last twenty years involved a coach getting plucked for a higher job as opposed to a coach getting canned. Is Dan Mullen a step up from Barry Odom? We won’t learn that in Week Zero.
#134 Tarleton State at #161 Portland State: Texans by 1.7
We might have some readers going to this one. I hope we do. Movelor is (relatively) big in Portland.
#86 Fresno State at #37 Kansas: Jayhawks by 16.4
Oh, KU. Even in Week Zero, they couldn’t let K-State have a day to themselves.
#98 UC Davis vs. #116 Mercer: Aggies by 5.0
UC Davis opens the year as Movelor’s fifth-ranked FCS team. Mercer’s eighth. That basically just means that’s where they finished last year. Fun matchup, though, and fodder for Big Sky vs. SoCon debates, which shouldn’t be debates but in football, the SoCon is in open conflict with a reasonable narrative, kind of like how the ACC’s been approaching men’s basketball.
This game is in Montgomery (shoutout the Cramton Bowl), and that theoretically hurts UC Davis but more because of humidity than crowd. If you stare at it too long, the FCS Kickoff starts looking weird. Why does this game exist? Why is it played in Montgomery? Why don’t they call it a Football Classic and get it sponsored by an Alabamian airline?
#100 Sam Houston at #105 Western Kentucky: Hilltoppers by 1.6
Not to be outdone by the Big 12 (but, you know), Conference USA is also throwing a conference title-impacting game our way. SHSU and WKU are ranked second and third in Conference USA, at least by Movelor. Though, as it goes with the FCS, that just means that’s where these guys finished last year. Conference USA is technically an FBS conference, but in reality it’s a murky, brackish marsh through which FIU ferries programs from FCS living to the Sun Belt and soon the Mountain West. Conference USA is often worse than the MVFC. Or at least it was. Then the MVFC accidentally added Murray State.
#155 North Carolina Central vs. #232 Southern: Eagles by 17.7
The FCS Kickoff is strange, but the Cricket MEAC/SWAC Challenge Kickoff is not. This exists for the marching bands. All hail The Sound Machine (NCCU) and the Human Jukebox (Southern U).
#107 Stanford at #112 Hawaii: Rainbow Warriors by 1.7
To save you and your dad a Google: Andrew Luck is still only 35 years old. And yes, that means RG3 is 35 too.
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