Watchability rankings for every single football game on college football’s opening Saturday

Hey guess what? After many, many weekends without football on your television, this weekend WILL have football on your television!

After so many weeks of not watching football, you might be confused by the dizzying array of football-watching options you have in front of you during college football’s miniature version of an opening weekend (the big stuff starts in Labor Day weekend).

Don’t worry. I’m here to help provide you with some Serious Professional Service Journalism. Here’s every single football game you can watch this Saturday, ranked in order of increasing watchability. (All times ET.)

UMass was bad last year and is 94th in the preseason S&P+ rankings. Duquesne is an FCS team that finished 7-4 last season. This game isn’t on any channels you actually have, and it’s probably not worth looking for, but it is the first televised NCAA game of the year.

Rice is projected 128th in S&P+, making them one of the very worst teams in all of FBS. Prairie View went 6-5 in FCS last year. Might be worth checking in just to see if an FBS team from Houston loses to an FCS team from pretty much Houston, but that’s it.

Who wouldn’t want to watch a replay of a 5-7 team storming back to beat Purdue? Tanner Lee threw for over 400 yards and no interceptions in this game. So that’s pretty neat.

Wyoming doesn’t have Josh Allen anymore and isn’t expected to compete for a division title in the Mountain West. New Mexico State was one of the biggest feel-good stories in college football but will have to battle just to crack .500 again. Check it out if you’re already up, but you got to pace yourself.

Did you miss this game last year? You probably did, it was right after the holidays. There was probably a lot of family stuff going on. If you missed your chance to watch Justin Jackson rush for a bunch of yards to knock off Kentucky, well friend, you’re in luck!

Hey, it’s a conference game featuring two teams you’ve actually heard of! There are only two Week 0 games featuring two FBS opponents, and this is the one featuring slightly better teams, even though the best, Colorado State, only sits 86th in S&P+.

Hey man, Calgary is 7-1 right now! They’re undefeated at home! Winnipeg is third, and needs this to make up ground in the Western Conference! Winnipeg’s got the league’s leading rusher! Both teams are starting QBs from Eastern Washington, so that’s neat! Is it on TV? Sure, in Canada. But you can watch it on ESPN+ here as well.

Two of the best high school programs in the country going head to head. At least half the dudes on the field be playing Division I football in the near future, so if you’re a hardcore recruitnik, this is the game to watch.

Technically, soccer games are also football games. People forget that.

The SEC Network is showing a few other games, but only one thing comes close from the most batshit insane college football season ever.

Are they FBS teams? No. But if you want to watch two good college football teams play a competitive, live game that could impact postseason chances, watch this one. Jacksonville State is 10th in the preseason FCS Top 25, and NC A&T is 21st. Both teams could send players to the NFL.

Most of the game? Eh, it was fine. But the ending?

C’mon. You knew it was gonna be on.