(This column covers games featuring the classic, pre-Penn State Big Ten lineup. For the newer teams, click here.)

*: the times in this column are always Central, as God intended.

To me, this is the most intriguing matchup of Week One. That is sort of like being the best rodeo clown in Vermont, but I digress. Minnesota has become a pesky opponent, good enough to beat a pretty good team but not quite good enough to do so consistently. I suppose this means I have to admit that P.J. Fleck might not be just a monorail salesman after all.

But I don’t have to admit he’s a better coach than the man on the opposite sideline, Mack Brown, because he isn’t.

The Tar Heels roared out to a 6-0 start last season, then lost five of their last seven to finish 8-5. The Gophers, despite benefitting from an erroneous fair catch call whose wrongness was visible with the naked eye from the surface of Mars, goofed their way to a 6-7 record yet somehow (APR) managed a bid to the Quick Lane Bowl, where they edged out a MACrificial lamb (Bowling Green). I think North Carolina is the better team with the better coach yet somehow I feel like Minnesota will win this game. Do they make pills for that?

Minnesota 24, North Carolina 20

These two schools have each been playing football since the 19th Century, they are less than 60 miles apart, and this will be the third matchup between them.

For perspective, Illinois has played Coe three times. Coe! That school by the big curve on 380 in Cedar Rapids!

If you know Eastern Illinois at all, you probably don’t. Of the various directional Illinois schools, only Northeastern Illinois occupies less space in the public consciousness. But EIU has produced three legitimate NFL personalities: Sean Payton, Tony Romo, and Jimmy Garoppolo.

The announcers on BTN will probably mention that fact early, but you already know it, so now you don’t have to watch this game.

Illinois 48, Eastern Illinois 10

I hate Week One. It’s the sort of week that makes me Google whether Florida Atlantic is the school that just sold naming rights to Pitbull.

It isn’t. FAU is the school Carrot Top went to.

You know what to do, Michigan State. ¡Dale!

Michigan State 38, FAU 17

If Luke Fickell is going to make something out of Wisconsin, he needs to make games like these statement games. Letting a MAC team hang around for a half will shroud the Badgers in obscurity, even if it is the first week of the season.

Fortunately for the Badgers, Western Michigan wasn’t very good last season. I mean, the Broncos gave up 41 points to Iowa. That’s like getting beaten at tic-tac-toe by a butterscotch pudding cup. That’s a performance so bad that it can even be mocked on an Iowa site, like this one.

Wisconsin 53, Western Michigan 6

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What a tough job Curt Mallory (son of former Indiana coach Bill Mallory) has at Indiana State, trying to make anything happen in Terre Haute. The budget is pocket lint and some expired Arby’s coupons. Mallory went 1-11 last season with the only victory being over the similarly woebegone Western Illinois Leathernecks, who promptly left the conference. But a deeper dive reveals that the Sycamores hassled several very good opponents, including taking then-No. 15 North Dakota to overtime in Grand Forks. This isn’t 1980s Northwestern, it’s 2020s Nebraska.

And so is Purdue, having to turn the boat around in the very narrow strait that is the Big Ten these days. This will go how Big Ten versus FCS games are supposed to go, but I wouldn’t be shocked if the halftime score raises a couple eyebrows.

Purdue 30, Indiana State 13

Right, FIU is the Pitbull school. Also it has more students than Minnesota does. Who knew?

Former Colorado coach Mike MacIntyre is the head man at FIU and will welcome Indiana coach Curt Cignetti to the world of Big Ten football. MacIntyre has gone 4-8 in both of his seasons at FIU. He may have some helpful advice for Cignetti on how to get better without having any change in your win-loss record. This could be a competitive game, but for Cignetti’s sake, I hope IU wins.

Indiana 28, FIU 20

“Fake Miami” is how this column has always referred to Miami University, the Cincinnati-area school once known as “The Cradle of Coaches.” Back in the day “Fake Miami” used to make Miami fans so mad, loudly insisting they had existed as a university, and had been playing football, longer than the University of Miami (aka “Real Miami”) had. It was like fishing with dynamite.

Now it’s 2024 and there are no Fake Miami fans on the internet any more, because The Cradle of Coaches is now where coaching careers go to die.

They’ll make a big deal on the broadcast about Northwestern’s temporary stadium. It looks like a nice place to watch a football game, because when there’s nothing happening on the field, you can watch Lake Michigan.

Northwestern 35, Miami (Ohio) 21

Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs but to do and die:

Into the valley of Death

Rode the Akron Zips. --Tennyson, sort of

Ohio State 63, Akron 7

The Sherrone Moore era at Michigan gets started with a Fresno State team that has had considerable success against upper-division foes. Fresno State is also the school that brought new Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer to prominence. Tim Skipper takes over for former coach Jeff Tedford, who stepped down for health reasons after two fairly successful seasons in the Central Valley.

But Michigan is the reigning national champion, even if there’s a pending asterisk on it.

Look, no one expects the Wolverines to be as good as they were last year; that’s why they’re ranked ninth and not first. I wouldn’t be shocked if the Bulldogs put up more of a fight than Michigan wants. However, the Wolverines’ superior depth will eventually let them put Fresno away and move on to … Texas?

Yeah, they’ll be looking ahead. I think Fresno State has a chance here. But it won’t win.

Michigan 33, Fresno State 24

And, of course…

You’ve no doubt heard this already but this will be the first Iowa game since November 1978 not to be coached by either Hayden Fry or Kirk Ferentz.

I was in first grade in November 1978.

I now have a child with a master’s degree.

That is an insane level of continuity.

Others on this site (and elsewhere) have covered the riddle wrapped in a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped, somehow, in a Panchero’s tortilla that is the 2024 Iowa Hawkeyes. Will swapping Brian Ferentz for Tim Lester have any effect on an offense Viagra couldn’t get a rise out of last year? Does Lester have more authority than any of his predecessors? Will Phil Parker and LeVar Woods have to carry this team again? Is the Ferentz era in Iowa City coming to an end?

And how could anyone call that a fair catch?

Anyway. In these early weeks it’s not really my job to tell you how Iowa (or the other Big Ten teams) are going to perform, it’s to shed a little light on their opponents, since nobody really knows anything until like Week Four or so. (Sometimes we don’t even know then, unless you’ve forgotten Colorado last season.) Illinois State is a mid-pack team in the Missouri Valley Football Conference, which dominates the FCS more than the SEC used to dominate the FBS. That actually makes the Redbirds impossible to evaluate; what sort of record can you have if you have to go up against four Dakota schools every season?

Gurgling in the opener is an Iowa tradition, one I fully expect to see replicated here. I think Seth Wallace is up to the task of filling in for the Captain since no one would be shocked if the Iowa offense looks out of sorts if Ferentz were coaching in this game. But hey, there’s no “win, but ugly” column in the standings.

Iowa 23, Illinois State 17