After seven months without college football, most of us would happily watch whatever we get in Week 0. We’ll even do the math to calculate what time it is for a game in Hawaii. Football is football, and we’re typically grateful for any form of it that we get.
But this year, we’ll kick off the college football season with an absolute treat: No. 17 Kansas State vs. No. 22 Iowa State, in Dublin, Ireland. Kickoff is scheduled for noon E.T.
Not only will we get ranked-on-ranked action, we’ll also have a Big 12 game that will impact the standings in the most wide-open of the Power 4 conferences. Chris Klieman’s Wildcats are certainly in the mix, as are Matt Campbell’s Cyclones. Both coaches are among the best in the nation, and both boast two experienced quarterbacks that understand the high stakes of Saturday’s matchup.
“Usually you’re going against a team to get the rust off,” Iowa State quarterback Rocco Becht said earlier this week. “K-State, you’ve got to be ready, prepared. And you have to be really good at the little things, the details, come that game.”
The Cyclones enter the matchup on a two-game win streak against the Wildcats; Iowa State beat Kansas State, 29-21, to close out the 2024 regular season and secure a 10-win season for the first time in program history. Klieman said that the key to the Wildcats reversing the trend is avoiding turnovers and self-inflicted mistakes. Iowa State, so prepared and sure of its identity, rarely encounters those pitfalls, and that’s been evident in the last couple of matchups between the two teams.
So has the play of Becht, who enters his third year as the Iowa State starting quarterback after accounting for 18 wins over the past two years. Campbell said that, “in a lot of ways, he’s the reason why our football program has clawed back to where we are right now.” Last season, Becht threw for more than 3,500 yards and 25 touchdowns (to go along with nine interceptions). With Jaylin Noel and Jayden Higgins both off to the NFL — both drafted by the Houston Texans — it’ll be fascinating to see who steps up from the Cyclones’ receiving corps. Saturday will be our first look at two prime candidates in East Carolina transfer Chase Sowell (who averaged nearly 20 yards per reception last year) and UCF transfer Xavier Townsend (who had 157 all-purpose yards last season before shutting down to preserve his redshirt).
Meanwhile, Avery Johnson is coming off a season in which he broke Kansas State’s single-season passing touchdown record. There were some high highs and low lows last year — like that frustrating November loss to Houston. Johnson has a few new pass-catchers to work with himself, with Purdue transfer receiver Jaron Tibbs now in the fold and true freshman five-star tight end Linkon Cure joining the program (though Cure will miss the season-opener with a knee injury). But perhaps most importantly, running back Dylan Edwards is back, and with him the home-run threat.
Saturday’s game is Iowa State’s first season-opener against an AP Top 25 team since 2002. It is, undoubtedly, a monster matchup for both teams and a rare ranked-on-ranked Week 0 game. It’s not just a challenge for Saturday itself — but rather, the Saturday that follows. And the one after that.
In 2022, Northwestern beat Nebraska in Dublin ... and then lost its next 11 games. It’s quite the cautionary tale for both kicking off the season overseas and everything that happens afterward.
“I keep talking about it, and cautioning everybody that this is not a one-game season — it’s a 12-game season, and a really important game for the conference race,” Klieman said this week. “All of our attention is on this football game without a doubt, but when it’s over we have to be able to reset and prepare.”
For the rest of us, though, we just get to sit back, relax and enjoy a meaningful college football game for the first time in far too long.
