Week 1 in college football is at hand, and the Labor Day holiday means an extended weekend to help fans celebrate the return of the sport. It also means our panel of prognosticators is back to predict the winners of games involving the teams ranked in the preseason US LBM Coaches Poll.
As luck would have it, there’s just one contest on the opening slate pairing top-25 opponents. It’s a big one, though, as No. 13 LSU opens the Lane Kiffin era at home against No. 23 Clemson. The ACC will be involved in several other games of note, including a couple that will count in the league standings as No. 7 Miami (Fla.) heads west to take on Stanford and No. 20 SMU travels east to meet Florida State on Monday night. Louisville takes on No. 10 Mississippi in Nashville in another high-profile contest.
Elsewhere, No. 4 Notre Dame takes on Wisconsin on the not-so-frozen tundra of Lambo Field, and several members of the new-look Pac-12 look to make some early noise.
So if there are any upsets, where will they happen? Here’s what our staff experts think.