With kick-off times finalized for most early season games, Collegefootballfan.com proudly presents its 2022 NCAA football schedule. Initially, we plan to attend 23 college football games this season. This year, due to higher costs for gas and other expenses, our initial plan to see as many top-ranked teams as possible reverted into a plan to see more games in close proximity to us. CFF.com still targets many ranked teams as well as traditional powers. Most game selections you will see, provide us with equally matched teams to anticipate competitive contests.
Even games we’ve scheduled between FBS and FCS competitors factor in early season starts. We take into consideration graduation rates, levels of returning experience, and impacts of dreaded NIL departures. Whoever becomes responsible for “equality” among all eventual 133 FBS programs of the future will hopefully develop guidelines to make college football more competitive to offset the dominance of so few teams. Collegefootballfan.com would prefer to see the current Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) possibly split into two separate levels.
To offset “big money” programs, we suggest to separate the Power Five from the Group of Five. Our long-term interest in college football focuses on the competitiveness among teams on the playing fields no matter what level. That’s our primary goal in selecting games for our annual schedule. That is also why we leave some schedule flexibility in place to change. If a particular game doesn’t look as enticing as we initially thought, we can find another.
Twenty-three at least…
Below, we depict highlights of our 2022 schedule as of May 27. As usual we continuously review to adapt to budgets, personal plans, or better opportunities that may become available. Twenty-three games fall into place today. For the first time because bowl dates have already been announced, we target three dates for such occasions earlier than ever. If the economy and cashflow improve during the course of the season, we will consider other possibilities to top off our 2022 schedule.
Pre-season Top 25
We plan to see some of the obvious suspects. Georgia tops several preseason lists despite losing much experience on defense. Oregon (in Atlanta with former UGA DC Dan Lanning as HC), Auburn, and Tennessee play in the Peach State. Then the Dawgs head to Kroger Field in Kentucky on November 19 to meet the Wildcats who appear in everybody’s Top 20s. We plan to attend that one. Ohio State resides in most preseason Top Fives. The Buckeyes pop up in our plans on October 29 at Penn State. There the Nittany Lions will be pumped as usual for this Big Ten East battle. What’s unusual though, no “whiteout”!
Clemson returns to the thick of CFP discussions after a slow start last season. On our slate, we see the Tigers for the first time on our 2022 schedule at home. They’ll host ACC foe Louisville on November 12. Wake Forest, ranked between 10-15, comes to Nashville on September 10. Returning QB Sam Hartman and a lot of experience come to play SEC doormat Vanderbilt. The Deacs are 11-1 in our personal history dating back to 1979. Anticipate our new WFU nickname among our Deac friends to be “12 and almost 0 Koreivo”.
Houston can challenge once again in the American Athletic this season after an 11-2 season. They come gunning once again to Annapolis where we’ve seen some exciting, high-scoring contests between the Cougars and Navy. Once again, a tailgate weekend in Annapolis followed by a road trip to State College, PA forges ahead as our new annual tradition since we’ve relocated to the Volunteer State.
Teams that will challenge for the Top 25
Aforementioned Penn State will need to challenge early and often if HC James Franklin wants to stay in State College. Before we attend the traditional showdown with the Buckeyes at Beaver Stadium, we travel twice to capture the Nittany Lions on the road. On September 1, we journey to West Lafayette, Indiana to enjoy their B1G opener at Purdue. The Boilermakers (9-4, 6-3 last season) and the Auburn Tigers (6-7) will both be formidable early season games on the road for PSU. After State’s 28-20 win over AU on our schedule last season, the Lions and Tigers battle again on September 17. All three teams will be vying for national attention. QB Aidan O’Connell returns for Purdue, and RB Tank Bigsby returns to Auburn.
Another team that deserves more attention this year after last season’s turnaround are the South Carolina Gamecocks. They finished 7-6 under second-year HC Shane Beamer. The Cocks will visit the Wildcats on October 8 in our rematch of one of only three games we on our schedule in 2020 where the Cats prevailed, 41-18. Last season in Columbia, SC, the UK margin whittled down, 16-10, despite finishing ranked No. 18 at 10-3.
Rivalries
For the second season in a row, we venture to the rivalry called “100 miles of hate”. This time Western Kentucky and Middle Tennessee will play on the Blue Raiders turf in Murfreesboro, TN. WKU dominated with QB Bailey Zappe (drafted by New England in Round 4), 48-21. MTSU HC Rick Stockstill broke in two inexperienced QBs that day replacing his injured starter. The Blue Raiders now have more depth at QB. WKU will be replacing Zappe who led the nation in passing yards and TDs.
Of course, despite our relocation, we revisit Philadelphia for the greatest college football rivalry of all despite what anybody else thinks, ArmyNavy! None means more. It’s the last of the regular season games played on the second weekend of December to end the season. For collegefootballfan.com, this will be our tenth ArmyNavy in a row (2020 doesn’t count due to Covid restrictions), and 17th overall. Our first game was in 1972. Navy leads the series in CFF.com’s presence, 11-6. Overall entering the 123rd edition of this series, the Mids lead the Cadets 62-53-7. Last season, USNA (4-8) upset West Point (9-4), 17-13. It’s a college tradition we don’t like to miss!
New Opportunities
Every season, we try to visit new venues and see new teams if possible at any level of NCAA football. We’ve seen every FBS team play at least once, but not all at their home venue. If we had done this in the past, we probably have changed jobs more than we ever wanted to and be divorced by now. However, we’ve done pretty darn good. Among 166 college football stadiums attended, 74 games played put us in FBS venues, 62 visited dwell on FCS, D-2, and D-3 campuses, and 30 other sites hosted bowl games or neutral site clashes.
Among venues we will witness gridiron battles for the first time this season will be Purdue’s Ross-Ade Stadium in West Lafayette, IN. Though we’ve been on the Middle Tennessee State campus for basketball and baseball, we’ll attend Johnny “Red” Floyd Stadium for the first time when the Blue Raiders host Conference USA foe, UT San Antonio, on September 30 under the lights. We finally get to see Clemson at home at Memorial Stadium for the first time. As mentioned, they’ll host Louisville on November 12.
Two “MACtion” weekday night games bring us to Miami’s Yager Stadium in Oxford, Ohio on November 8 and into Ball State’s Scheumann Stadium a week later in Muncie, Indiana. In both cases the hosts will take on the Ohio U. Bobcats. We’ll be able to get a pulse on the MAC this season.
Back to Birmingham
A new venue from a bowl perspective, The TicketSmarter Bowl featuring the SEC vs. the American Athletic in Birmingham, AL puts us in Protective Stadium, home of the UAB Blazers of Conference USA. We’ve ventured to past games in Birmingham way back in 1979 and 1980. However, those games featured two Iron Bowl brawls between Alabama and Auburn, back when Paul “Bear” Bryant roamed the sidelines.
As far as new teams coming on board, only Eastern Kentucky adds to our list when they visit nearby Austin Peay in a local FCS ASUN Conference game. The EKU Colonels find themselves a season removed from entering the FBS. We’ll probably see them host one of their first at that level in 2023. This contest looms as our only all-FCS game on our 2022 schedule this season, but it should be good one!
Annual traditions on our 2022 schedule
As mentioned, Army versus Navy in Philadelphia continues among our traditions. Of course, after 42 years of college football played basically on every fall Saturday, no season is complete for us without attending games in Annapolis and State College. A more recent annual trek started a few years ago with our daughter Alex now down in Austin , Texas. Her fiancé Zach works as Director of Development working with the Texas State Athletic Department in San Marcos, Texas. So once again we plan to be there late this season for the Bobcats’ clash against the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns, another rematch of a 2020 game we were able to attend.
Inter-divisional games
In the past few decades, we tried to avoid games between FBS and FCS teams. We rarely found one that presented a better opportunity than a more competitive match-up between teams within a particular division. Due to more economic considerations this year that will allow us to consume less gas and avoid hotels, we have two planned early in the season that should be competitive.
Our week “0” opener that basically allows teams going to Hawaii add a 12th game features FCS Austin Peay of nearby Clarksville, TN visiting nearby Western Kentucky in Bowling Green. APU improved last season to 6-5 under energetic third-year HC Scotty Walden. The Governors won four of their last five games in 2021. WKU lost some key players to the NFL draft last season. They will be opening their season with new players in key positions for HC Tyson Helton whose Hilltoppers finished 9-5 a year ago.
‘Dore mats
Then of course there’s Vanderbilt, a nearby safety valve if we need a game nearby to save on gas. Last season at home in HC Clark Lea’s debut, the Commodores (2-10) fell 23-3 to FCS East Tennessee State. The Buccaneers turned out to be no slouches. ETSU recorded an 11-2 slate ending its season to perennial FCS champ North Dakota State, 27-3, in the semi-final round of the FCS playoffs. This year, the Dore’s open September 3 vs. Elon of the Colonial Athletic. The Phenix have had some great teams in the past, but have struggled recently and finished 6-5 last year. A win for Vandy here will indicate some improvement in 2022. A week later we’ll be back to see them host Wake Forest.
No longer in the FCS, this game is all FBS. Effective this July, James Madison joins the Sun Belt and vies for the conference championship. On November 5, we will follow them to Louisville to see them play the Cardinals. The JMU Dukes will officially become our 131st FBS team. In the past, they’ve competed for us against Delaware, South Dakota State, and Colgate, the last two in playoff games. We look forward to their future in the Sun Belt Conference!
Weekday Games
The addition of weekday games scheduled particularly for TV money gives us some good opportunities from our Tennessee location. With retirement from the world of reality, we look for day trips that get us to night games Tuesday through Friday. Where we can, we try to tie Friday night lights into a local Saturday contest not far away. PSU at Purdue on a Thursday night, gets us back to Nashville on Saturday for the Vandy-Elon game. Couldn’t find a Friday night game of convenience. A Friday night ruckus at MTSU hosting UTSA on September 30 allows us to see Troy visit Western Kentucky the next day. Could be a good battle.
October features all Saturdays with our road trip planned to Annapolis to Penn State and back. No evening games fell in the region during that excursion. However, November comes up big with our two MAC games on consecutive Tuesdays sandwiching our trip to Clemson. As for Bowl Week between Christmas and New Year’s, Tuesday and Wednesday offer us a one-two punch. We travel to Birmingham and then Memphis to attend The TicketSmarter Bowl and The AutoZone Liberty Bowl. The TransPerfect Music City Bowl ended up conveniently at noon time the following Saturday on New Year’s Eve. It allows us to watch the CFP semi-finals somewhere nearby later that day on TV in Nashville!
Built-in schedule flexibility
With a 2:30 start on September 24 to see EKU visit Austin Peay, we await the time to be announced when Florida International faces off against WKU that day. We could conveniently stop in if an evening kick-off is announced. Then, we keep our eyes open for post season opportunities early in December. Several conference championships may be available not too far away. With several aforementioned FCS schools along with ETSU, UT Martin, UT Chattanooga, or Jacksonville State (AL) in striking distance, we pay close attention to the FCS playoff parings for some interesting match-up. D-2 playoffs and D-3 playoffs become possibilities when the best of the best may meet. We thrive on finding the most competitive college football games possible, even when in a cost-cutting mode!
Looking forward to the 2022 season, now less than 100 days away starting on August 27. Click here for the latest updates of our Tentative 2022 season schedule!
- Steve Koreivo, ed. “Author of Tales from the Tailgate: From the fan who’s seen ’em all!“ Click on the title to get your copy at Amazon.com today!