Farmageddon headlines Week 0 slate as NCAA football returns
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It’s been 215 days, but NCAA college football is finally back.
To celebrate, we’re getting the matchup dubbed “Farmageddon” in one of the greatest farming nations in the world. Iowa State and Kansas State get things started in Dublin, Ireland on Saturday – the headliner in five-game Week 0 slate.
If your favourite Power Four team resides in the SEC, Big Ten, or ACC (provided it’s not Stanford), you’ll have to wait another week. On Saturday, the Big 12 gets centre stage, and a Group of Five (G5) playoff hopeful gets its chance to start its season on the right foot.
Here are five storylines to keep an eye on this weekend:
College football returns to Ireland, and this might be its best game yet
Three times in the previous 10 iterations, we’ve had Notre Dame face Navy in one of college football’s most celebrated rivalries – and seen the Irish win by a combined 106 points. Last August, Florida State entered the season as a national title contender, lost to Georgia Tech in Dublin, then spiralled out of control, finishing with an unimaginable 2-10 record.
Iowa State and Kansas State aren’t necessarily big-name programs, but this too is one of the sport’s great rivalries – its longest-running uninterrupted one, dating back to 1917, and taking place for the 109th consecutive year – and we’re catching it in a season where both programs have genuine playoff ambition.
Want a close game? You’ve stumbled upon the right teams in the right conference. Last year, 43 per cent of Big 12 games were decided by seven points or fewer, and eight of its 16 teams finished within two games of first place. Iowa State reached the conference championship, losing to Arizona State, and Kansas State was in contention until the final day of the season, when it lost to the Cyclones in the most recent Farmageddon installment.
Read into preseason rankings at your own discretion, but this is also the first time both teams enter college football’s Ireland game ranked, with Iowa State starting the season 22nd in the AP Poll and Kansas State 17th.
Big 12 lacks legitimate national title contender, but has more playoff contenders than any other conference
This is for all the reasons just mentioned. The Big 12 is wide open, and nearly any team could win it and find itself playing meaningful football into January. Look no further than this time last year –in the preseason, Arizona State was widely predicted to finish in last place in the conference, and all Kenny Dillingham’s team did was win 11 games and give Texas all it could handle in the playoff quarter-final on New Year’s Day.
Iowa State, Kansas State and Kansas get their first test on Saturday. Utah, BYU, Baylor, TCU and Colorado all have playoff expectations. Texas Tech was one of the most active programs in the portal, signing 13 four-star transfers – one more than the rest of the conference combined – and is one of the trendiest picks in all of college football this season. Arizona State, behind outstanding sophomore quarterback Sam Leavitt, is also out to prove last season’s Cinderella run was far from a fluke.
The Big 12’s list of contenders might not have the prestige of the SEC’s or Big Ten’s, and it may not have a standout like the ACC with Clemson, but that’s more than made up for in depth. If you enjoy seeing good teams compete week after week, this is a conference that’s worth following from the outset.
Continuity counts, especially at the most important position
The Big 12 returns nine of its 16 starting quarterbacks from last season – the highest percentage of any Power Four conference – including the starter for each of the three programs that open in Week 0: Iowa State’s Rocco Becht, Kansas State’s Avery Johnson and Kansas’ Jalon Daniels.
Arizona State’s Leavitt is the standout of the conference’s quarterback pack entering this season, but Becht and Johnson also put themselves on NFL radars with strong sophomore years in 2024. Becht finished third in the conference in passing yards – trailing only since-drafted Shedeur Sanders of Colorado and TCU’s Josh Hoover – and Johnson had 25 passing touchdowns while leading all Big 12 quarterbacks in rushing yards.
Can UNLV unseat Boise State in the Mountain West and be the G5 playoff representative?
UNLV lost just twice in Mountain West last season, both times to Boise State – first, in the regular season, then again in the conference title game. This year, the Rebels won’t have to answer to Heisman runner-up Ashton Jeanty, but they have their own share of questions after one of the biggest overhauls in all of college football.
Incoming head coach Dan Mullen brings 13 years of SEC experience, having roamed the sideline at Mississippi State and Florida between 2008 and 2021. UNLV also added 28 players via the portal, including 18 from Power Four schools.
Remember Alex Orji, the heir apparent to J.J. McCarthy at Michigan? He’s in Vegas now, splitting snaps with Anthony Colandrea, who also transferred in after a pair of underwhelming seasons at Virginia. It’s a group of castoffs, to put it kindly – but is it one that’s ready to shine in a lesser conference?
We’ll learn a lot about UNLV when it hosts UCLA in two weeks, and again in October during its visit to Boise State. With an otherwise soft schedule – beginning Saturday against Idaho State – the Rebels again have a clear path to their third straight berth in the Mountain West Championship. If they want a chance to compete in the 12-team playoff, they’ll need to win it this time.
It’s never too early to start talking about the Heisman
College football’s greatest trophy isn’t handed out until December, but it’s never not fun to talk about. So why not name five players that are in the conversation this season?
1. Arch Manning, Texas
Arch Manning Texas
Manning did it his way, waiting out Quinn Ewers and ignoring the temptation of the transfer portal. Now, in his third year in Austin, he gets his shot as Texas’ full-time starting quarterback.
Last year’s cameo was impressive: Eight passing touchdowns over a span of three games in Ewers’ absence, while flashing a burst that apparently skipped a generation in football’s first family. The hype is immeasurable, and we won’t have to wait long to see how Manning stacks up on the big stage, with the Longhorns facing Ohio State in Week 1 in maybe the highest-profile game of the entire college football season.
2. Jeremiah Smith, Ohio State
Jeremiah Smith Ohio State
Smith was a standout in his true freshman year with the Buckeyes but saved his best for the playoffs and capped it with a game-clinching catch in the national title game against Notre Dame. So what does he do for an encore?
Smith will share the stage with Manning in Week 1, with a chance to get a leg up in the Heisman race. If he ends up winning, he’d be the first true wide receiver – Travis Hunter, excluded – to get the trophy since Alabama’s Devonta Smith in 2020.
3. Cade Klubnik, Clemson and 4. Garrett Nussmeier, LSU
Cade Klubnik T.J. Moore Clemson
Two Tigers, two Death Valleys, two Heisman candidates. Both are also potential first-overall picks in next April’s NFL Draft. So which of Klubnik or Nussmeier asserts himself when Clemson and
LSU meet in Week 1?
Clemson is the consensus favourite in the ACC but was badly overmatched in a blowout loss to Georgia to start last season. Klubnik is eager to prove this year’s team can hang with one of the best teams in the SEC. He might be catching LSU at the right time – it hasn’t won a season opener since its national title team did it in 2019, behind eventual Heisman Joe Burrow.\
5. Diego Pavia, Vanderbilt
Vanderbilt
Alright, this one’s a little tongue in cheek, but only because Pavia insists. At SEC media days last month, he stated Vanderbilt’s clear goal is a national title. And he apparently meant it. Two weeks ago, Pavia doubled down, telling ESPN’s Paul Finebaum that a championship was “the standard” and claiming – when asked, at least – that he was the best quarterback in the sport.
Here’s what’s unquestioned: Pavia engineered one of the great upsets in recent memory last season against Alabama, and led perennial SEC doormat Vanderbilt its first winning season since 2013. So, what’s stopping him and the Commodores from being even more entertaining in 2025?