Preview: Labor Day Weekend

August 26, 2019 by Dave Congrove

Eighty-three games are on tap this Labor Day weekend. By the time the Monday holiday has passed, all 130 FBS teams will have one game in the books.

Four teams got a head start on the rest of the field with a pair of games this past Saturday. Florida edged Miami 24-20 in a game littered with 23 penalties, and Hawaii held off Arizona 45-38 in contest the Warriors might have won by 50 if they hadn't committed 6 turnovers.

All sixteen games on Thursday's lineup are evening affairs with five of those set to kick off at approximately 7 p.m. eastern time. At that time, ESPN will feature UCLA at Cincinnati in a PAC-12 vs. American Conference intersectional contest which the Group of Five member Bearcats are favored to win. Cincinnati was a26-17 winner in Pasadena in the 2018 season opener. The Bruins fell to another American conference school, Memphis, in 2017 by a 48-45 count in the Bluff City. The Congrove Computer Rankings at CollegefootballPoll.com have Luke Fickell's team favored by 2.81 over Chip Kelly's Bruins. The Bearcats are the computer's preseason favorite to wrest the American Conference title away from UCF while UCLA is picked to finish just 4-8 in the PAC-12's south division.

Thursday's slate also features the 100th Holy War rivalry game between Utah and BYU. This one will be played in Provo as the Cougars hope home-field advantage will provide the additional impetus needed to halt the Utes' 8-game winning streak in the series. Utah's run has helped the school stretch it's all-time record to 61-34-4 vs. its in-state rival. The two campuses are situated a mere 48 miles apart.

Clemson begins defense of its national championship as a 35.5-point favorite over visiting Georgia Tech, while the computer sets the number at 26.37. The Yellow Jackets will look completely different from teams of the past as Paul Johnson's flexbone offense was retired with him after the 2018 season. New head coach Geoff Collins is implementing his spread offense. Under Johnson's offense a year ago, Georgia Tech threw the ball just 128 times out of 871 plays (14.5%). Conversely, Collins' Temple Owls went to the air on 443 of 937 plays (47%).

Thursday also features the computer's first upset pick of the season (see Feature Picks) as it takes the visiting FIU Golden Panthers by 1.54 over the favored home-standing Tulane Green Wave (-3). Butch Davis' squad is poised to make a run at the CUSA East division crown while Willie Fitz is projected to guide Tulane to a 3rd-place finish in the American Conference's west division.

See the complete schedule and the computer's pick for every game (Weekly Picks).

Friday's 8-game schedule is peppered with interesting non-conference matchups as Oklahoma State heads to Oregon State, Wisconsin travels to Tampa to face USF, Utah State plays at Wake Forest, and Purdue visits Nevada. There's also the Rocky Mountain Showdown at Broncos Stadium at Mile High. The computer takes the Buffs to roll to a 5th straight win over the Rams, giving Colorado a 21.77-point predicted margin of victory compared to a 12-point Vegas spread. The computer also likes Wake and Wisconsin with ease in their games, but has the Beavers well under the line vs. the visiting Cowboys.

Saturday usually relies on the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game to be the best contest of the opening weekend, but this year's Duke-Alabama matchup is just weak. Maybe it's not as bad as the Alabama-Louisville opener in Orlando last year (Alabama won 51-14), but it might be close. The oddsmakers have Alabama as a 5-TD favorite as the perennial national title contenders face a Blue Devil program that has shared one ACC championship (1989) and captured one division title (2013) in the last 30 years. Nonetheless, the computer has Duke easily beating the spread as it only gives 'Bama a 6.80-point edge.

The best game on Saturday is Oregon and Auburn teeing it up in Arlington. Both schools are legitimate national title contenders in 2019. The Tigers are the favored team (-3.5) while the computer takes the Ducks by 1.75.

Florida State and Virginia Tech are both looking to put an off-year in the rear view mirror. Willie Taggart's first season in Tallahassee saw the school's 36-season bowl appearance streak come to an end with a 5-7 camp[aign. The Hokies inherited the lead in consecutive bowl appearances, but they barely qualified for a 26th straight bowl game with a 6-6 regular season record. A loss to Cincinnati in the Military Bowl gave the school its first losing season since 1992. The 'Noles are a surprisingly large 12.13-point pick over Boise State in Jacksonville, while the Hokies have a 7.22-point edge at Boston College. The Virginia Tech game marks the start of defensive coordinator Bud Foster's retirement tour as he announced on August 1 that we was hanging up his whistle after this season. Foster has been an assistant in Blacksburg since Frank Beamer's first season in 1987 and is the longest-tenured assistant in the nation.

Saturday's other games to watch include the following:

Northern Iowa at Iowa State - UNI head coach Mark Farley is 149-78 with the Panthers since his tenure began in 2001 and his teams have defeated Iowa State 3 times (3-8 overall vs. the Cyclones). Iowa State is the computer's projected second-place team in the Big 12.

Toledo at Kentucky - The Wildcats were 10-3 a year ago for just their third double-digit win total in the history of the program as legends Bear Bryant and Fran Curci had the others. Toledo is 1-3 all-time vs. the SEC and the lone win came against a decent Arkansas squad that finished the 2015 season with an 8-5 record. The computer likes Kentucky to destroy the 12.5-point spread.

South Carolina vs. North Carolina in Charlotte - Mack Brown returns to UNC but his Tar Heels are picked to be a laughing stock in the ACC. Somehow the Gamecocks are only a 7.5-point favorite while the computer says that number is 26.38. When these teams last played in 2015 - also in Charlotte - an eventual 3-9 South Carolina beat an eventual 11-3 North Carolina squad 17-13. UNC announced today that a true freshman, Sam Howell, will start the game at QB for the first time in the program's history.

Mississippi at Memphis - Another upset pick for the computer as it takes the Rebels by 7.20, opposite the 6-point line favoring the Tigers.

Sunday's lone game has Oklahoma heavily favored over Houston, and the weekend gets capped off on Monday by an anticipated Notre Dame romp at Louisville.

FBS vs. FCS

114 games this year pit FBS teams against FCS schools. That's two more than a season ago when FBS teams won 105 of 112 games. There will be 40 FBS vs. FCS games over the Labor Day holiday.

FBS teams are 1,324-124 (.914) vs. FCS schools since we began tracking this in 2003.

Here were all of the FCS victories over FBS teams in 2018:

August 30: UC Davis 44, San Jose State 31
September 1: Villanova 19, Temple 17
September 1: Northern Arizona 30, UTEP 10
September 1: Nicholls State 26, Kansas 23 (OT)
September 2: North Carolina A&T 28, East Carolina 23
September 8: Maine 31, Western Kentucky 28
September 22: Illinois State 35, Colorado State 19

Streaks

CLEMSON - Won 15 straight over-all (FBS longest).
NEXT: Hosts Georgia Tech on August 29.

UCF - Won 18 straight conference games including consecutive AAC titles (FBS longest). Won 22 straight regular season games (FBS longest). Had 25-game overall win streak (was FBS longest) snapped in 40-32 loss to LSU in Fiesta Bowl on January 1.
NEXT: Hosts Florida A&M on August 29.

ALABAMA - Won 26 straight home games (FBS longest). Had won 16 straight overall (FBS longest) but lost 44-16 to Clemson in the national championship game on January 7 at Santa Clara, California.
NEXT: Duke at Atlanta on August 31.

OKLAHOMA - Won 20 straight true road games (FBS longest).
NEXT: Hosts Houston on September 1.

RUTGERS - Lost 11 straight over-all (FBS longest). Also owns FBS longest conference losing streak at 12 games.
NEXT: Hosts UMass on August 30.

SAN JOSE STATE - Lost 13 straight road games (FBS longest).
NEXT: Hosts FCS member Northern Colorado on August 29.