week 1 (part 1) TV viewing guide and open thread

Whenever I hear some ask “do you want the good news or the bad”, I immediately go to the “bad”. I like to take my medicine up front.

In that spirit, I’d like to offer you the bad news first. It is my sad duty to inform you that the world has encountered a critical shortage of chicken wings. Heed my warning, fellow football fans. This is not a drill. This is not a clever ploy to manipulate market pricing. This is not fake news.

The world is quite literally almost out of chicken wings.

The good news is that college football - REAL college football - is back on television starting today. And it counts!

Technically, this is the beginning of “week 1” in the NCAA. However, “week 1” actually happens over the course of two weeks with some teams (Oregon State, Colorado State) actually having two games in the “week 1” time period.

Thus, I’ll exercise my inner Don Draper and creatively designate this week as “week 1a”.

Normally, I recap the big storylines for the week before sharing with you the full TV schedule of every game for the weekend. There aren’t that many big storylines to go into, so I’ll hit on a quick few “little” storylines that I’m seeing other than the fact that the season is, in fact, kicking off.

Oregon State at Colorado State

• The Beavers are breaking in a new QB in Jake Luton
• The Rams are breaking in a new Stadium

ADVANTAGE: Colorado State

#14 Stanford vs Rice

• Is Stanford overrated?
• Is Stanford underrated?
• Is Rice the Stanford of Texas?
• Are you really going to pay for McGregor vs Mayweather?

ADVANTAGE: College Football fans

Florida A&M vs Texas Southern

• In this game, we try to learn just the names of each team’s starting QB. Mastering those two data points alone would qualify you as a “rabid” fan.
• This is the first football game of the season for the entire NCAA

ADVANTAGE: Push

#19 South Florida at San Jose State

• The only ranked opponent to play on the west coast today is USF
• The only ranked team who will win a game on the west coast today will be USF

ADVANTAGE: USF

That’s it. Here is your college football television viewing guide

There you have it. This is your first CFB Open Thread of the season.