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There was football last night? Sorry, it’s not time for Wednesday football until Conference USA says so.

The Watch Grid: Hey, this feels more like an opening weekend

College football’s Week 1 is always pretty strange, what with its five-day schedule distorting all sense of time and reason, plus half the teams facing nobody in particular. This year, time got even weirder, thanks to weather delays (and Big Ten officials), while the only truly brave team turned out to be Rutgers, which dared to face UMass.

Week 2 should be better all around, or at least less dysfunctional. Lots of fans will tune in to the sport for the first time this season, drawn by the commotion in Saturday night’s headliner.

Time for a screenshot of an unattractive spreadsheet I’ve been updating since 2016:

And here’s one-ish note on a game in each time slot:

Weeknight: Well, Kansas launched Week 2 by posting a painting of abolitionist John Brown, whose deeds included raiding Missouri in 1858 to liberate enslaved people. The full story on a football rivalry that began just 26 years after the Civil War. (Feels beside the point to note this game has a Vegas spread, but it’s Mizzou -5.5. Both teams are 1-0.)

Early Saturday: Days after Michigan fans stormed the field to celebrate beating a MAC team, expect them to boo as the Wolverines trail Oklahoma (-5.5) all game, says Manny Navarro as part of this weekend’s big predictions.

Middle Saturday: After Memphis beat Mountain West favorite UNLV and Boise State took No. 2 Oregon to the final minutes, this weekend’s winner will be in strong Playoff shape.

Primetime Saturday: The season’s first legitimately huge event arrives, as Georgia State battles Kennesaw State for the rights to Cumberland Mall’s Cheesecake Factory. Three links on another game happening at the same time:

Late-night Saturday: Quite a bit going on, though I’m most interested in North Dakota State (-2.5) at Air Force. Bison aiming for 3-0 while on the road for the first time as an FBS team. (Also wanna note FCS champ Montana State is a 3.5-point favorite at Nevada, which blew out WKU last week.)

More Week 2: 

One (mostly non-Arch) overreaction on every Power 4 team after Week 1, including Florida’s Playoff path, a heroic Bobby Petrino … and Iowa having wide receivers??
ICYMI, new AP Top 25 dropped Tuesday afternoon. Oregon down four spots to No. 6, and I can see it both ways; they accepted a challenge, unlike their peers, but almost lost at home to a huge underdog. It’ll work out.
“The Audible” includes upset picks during each weekend preview episode. My favorite this time: Rutgers +3.5 at Boston College by Ralph Russo. Bleak and revolting, and I will have it on.
Full Week 2 odds, including Miami by a slim 57.5 against Florida A&M tonight. (The largest spread ever appears to still be 2012 FSU -70.5 against Savannah State. Tigers covered 💪 by two touchdowns.)
The Canes’ Darian Mensah is the new Heisman favorite, and likely getting to lob a few touchdowns during tonight’s only college game (opposite 49ers-Rams) shouldn’t hurt his chances.
Quick Snaps

⏰ The 12 rosters likeliest to dominate the NFL Draft seven months from now. Notre Dame leads, while Clemson’s in danger of squandering talent for the second year in a row. More below on that situation.

❓ Kyle Whittingham has enough problems at Michigan, and his Utah exit remains a whole mess. “Fans on social media have accused Whittingham of being more of a detriment to the success of Utah than a driver of it.” OK, whoever’s been saying that needs to settle down.

🔌 Monday night’s SMU-FSU blackout was pretty great TV. So much behind-the-scenes improv. Imagine having to use Yahoo alerts to learn how much time remains in the game people are actively listening to you talk about.

📰 News:

Condolences to the family and friends of the late Derek Phillips, an Iowa band member who suffered a heart attack during Saturday’s game.
The MAC changed course on the Western Michigan-Michigan ending, alleging Big Ten error and asking the Playoff committee to treat WMU as the winner.
Relatedly, “the Big Ten will expand its live instant replay look-in to all conference home games officiated by Big Ten referees.”
“Playoff leaders voted Tuesday to trigger a 30-day exclusive negotiating window with ESPN to discuss an expanded format and how much a 24-team field could be worth.”
“A visibly gaunt Jerry Sandusky made his first public appearance since 2019 on Tuesday, appearing via Zoom. … The 82-year-old is in custody at a state correctional facility.”
Playbook: Quick to back down

Hey, remember this timeline from a few months ago?

June 15: The Big 12 sued Texas Tech, seeking to clear any legal hurdles toward sanctioning the Red Raiders, if they were to play Brendan Sorsby. People at some Big 12 schools were mad enough to discuss a scheduling boycott, and it wasn’t hard to imagine the conference’s finances staying solid if it were to replace Tech with someone else.
About 12 hours later: Texas Tech folded as Sorsby moved on.

Kinda weird for that to happen twice in one year. This week’s version:

Tuesday around 11 a.m. ET: “SEC files amended complaint to lawsuit, seeking authority to expel LSU from league.” Financially absurd (even if LSU needs the conference more than vice versa), but a fun thought experiment. Who might the hypothetically blackballed Tigers play? Before the Big Ten could monologue about how absorbing LSU’s money would be morally valorous, the ACC would complete its nautical encirclement of the country, swiping the Gulf Coast.
About 12 hours later: LSU folded, rostering zero former NFL practice-squadders. Lane Kiffin instead re-added two Louisiana natives who’d been on the team since they signed there out of high school. Was that a, uh, weird limbo for those guys?

What a mini-trend this has been. Who’ll be the next renegade to brandish a local judge’s permission slip, then wilt as soon as the regional authority’s Death Star arrives?

(Weekly reminder that this entire thing is the NCAA’s fault for sloppily installing five-year eligibility right after theoretical fifth-year players left. And if LSU’s gambit had been led by anyone less annoying than Lane Kiffin, maybe it would’ve worked.)

Previously in schools getting kicked out of conferences: Almost 100 years ago, the Big Ten briefly booted Iowa, and in 2001, the Big East ditched Temple over attendance issues. (Now look at Temple, hosting Penn State! Last time, that brought 69,176 people into the Philadelphia Eagles’ stadium for a 2015 Owls win.)

Mandel’s Mailbag

Over to Stewart Mandel for a portion of his new mailbag:

Would Dabo retire? Seems like Clemson will never fire him, and I get that he took them to the mountaintop (twice!), but man that was just awful. — Max F.

As Dabo said Tuesday (while refusing to answer a perfectly reasonable question about his roster construction), you get 12 games. Given the state of the ACC (1-4 vs. P4 foes), I’m not ruling out the possibility Clemson turns it around and goes 8-4. And I’ll believe it when I see it that Clemson would pay $57 million to fire its two-time national championship coach for an ostensibly decent season.

But the team we saw get annihilated by LSU did not look remotely capable of winning eight games. Clemson was entirely noncompetitive, even more so than its 34-3 loss to Georgia in the 2024 opener.

Clemson needs to start bracing for the possibility this will be more of a 4-8 type season, in which case this becomes a much different discussion than “Dabo doesn’t contend for championships anymore,” and instead it’s “Dabo has run his program into the ground, and we see no evidence he’s capable of repairing it.”

Say the Tigers beat Georgia Southern this week, but lose to North Carolina and in a short-week game at Cal, falling to 1-3. Would you believe they then host Week 1’s most dominant team (besides LSU), Miami? And then they’re off! Suppose they lose that game in a similar fashion to last week’s, drop to 1-4 and then have to sulk in that for two weeks. That’s when I’d truly believe Dabo is toast.

At this point, I should mention that Dabo is only 56. But I have an easier time seeing him getting fired (which I would not have said prior to Saturday) than I do picturing him on a sideline next year wearing a Baylor or Maryland hat. The day he’s done at Clemson, I assume he’ll either start popping up next to Jimbo Fisher on ACC Network or coaching a high school team in Alabama. And if that’s the case, perhaps the two sides could negotiate some sort of exit deal where he takes less than $57 million but gets to say it was his choice.

More mailbag by Stew here, including: “Just an all-out dumpster fire. And it’s only Week 1.” College football is so back.

See you Sunday. As always, email me (Jason) at untilsaturday@theathletic.com about whatever.

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