The Blackshirts

Prediction

Week Zero: Eight of Twelve Teams Are Starting a Quarterback They've Never Started

A picks board listing six Week 0 games with projected scores, three of them marked TOSS-UP.
Graphic by The Blackshirts

College football comes back Saturday. Nebraska doesn’t.

Husker Nation, we’ve got one more week to wait — and six games to argue about in the meantime. Here’s the whole opening slate, picked.

The thing tying this slate together

Nobody knows what they’re getting at quarterback.

  • 8 of the 12 teams return less than 25% of last season’s passing production
  • 3 of 6 games project inside 55% — genuine coin flips
  • Portal damage: Florida State −69, North Carolina −39, USC −37, while Virginia is +30

Opening weekend is always a guess. This one is more of a guess than usual.

Before the picks, the honest part

The model behind these numbers has been backtested on 2022 through 2025. It picks the straight-up winner 70.4% of the time.

The scores are the softer claim, and here is exactly how soft:

  • Half of all team scores land within 7 points, 81% within 14
  • The average miss is 9, pulled up by the 5% of games that blow apart

Now the number that puts it in perspective. Across 2,997 games where a closing spread and total both existed, the scoreline Vegas implies missed each team by 8.71 points. Ours missed by 9.09.

Four-tenths of a point behind the sharpest priced number in sports. Nobody predicts exact football scores well — a team that should score 24 lands anywhere between 10 and 38 on two turnovers and a red-zone stop.

So read the scorelines as expectations, not forecasts. The winner and the win probability are what this thing is good at. The score is color.

It still does not beat the closing spread, and nobody here is telling you to bet. Every pick is built entirely on preseason information, because no games have been played yet.

North Carolina vs. TCU — 11:00 a.m., neutral site

TCU 28–17. The one game where we’re more confident than the market.

TCU’s edge is last season’s SP+ rating and a Carolina team that lost 39 net stars in the portal. Working against it: TCU is listed as the home team, but this is a kickoff-classic game at a neutral site. There is no home field to have. The model docks 2.8 points for it.

Both are welcoming a quarterback who has never taken a snap for them — roughly 10% of last year’s passing returns on each side. That does not make either man unproven. Only unproven here.

San José State at USC — 2:00 p.m.

USC 42–10. Comfortable, and still less comfortable than Vegas thinks.

USC returns 91% of its passing production, far and away the highest on this slate, against a San José State side returning none.

The catch: the market has USC by 38.5. We have 32. If you like the underdog covering, we’re on your side.

NC State at Virginia — 2:30 p.m.

Virginia 24–23. Toss-up. 52.9%.

A one-point margin, and we’re not dressing it up as a read.

Virginia gained 30 net stars in the portal and has its quarterback room back. NC State counters with better recruiting and more returning workload. Genuinely too close.

New Mexico State at Florida State — 6:00 p.m.

Florida State 38–14. The safest pick on the board at 92.7%.

Recruiting and SP+ do the work. But note the number that should worry Seminole fans all year: −69 net stars in the portal, worst on the slate. Talent walked out of Tallahassee.

Hawai’i at Stanford — 6:00 p.m.

Stanford 24–23. Toss-up, and the shakiest pick we’ve got.

The model likes Stanford on recruiting pedigree and the travel Hawai’i has to do. Last season’s ratings say the opposite — SP+ has Hawai’i better by more than eight points.

When pedigree and last year disagree that loudly, believe neither.

Memphis at UNLV — 9:00 p.m.

UNLV 28–27. Toss-up, 51.0%, and the closest game on the slate.

Both are welcoming a quarterback new to them, and both return almost nothing throwing the ball. UNLV gets home field; Memphis has the better recruiting.

A 0.4-point margin means we have no idea. Nobody does.

What we’re actually saying

  • Two picks we like: TCU and Florida State
  • Three we’d stay away from: Virginia, Stanford, UNLV
  • One where we disagree with the market: San José State +38.5

Husker Nation, Saturday is the appetizer. Ours starts September 5 against Ohio, 11:00 a.m. on FS1.

Nine days.

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