We’re previewing key games and story lines each week during the college football season. Our FCS coverage is the home of the Top 25 media poll, FCS National Awards and much more.
FCS football enjoyed a spotlight last week with three days of action, including two as the only Division I games in town.
It will keep quite a bit of the attention this week if some of the FCS teams can knock off FBS opponents. Yeah, Big Brother better be watching.
Week 1 includes the first 48 FCS-vs.-FBS matchups of a season with a record 127 overall.
Upsets? Well, FCS teams are thinking FB-yes!
FCS Football Week 1 Preview & Predictions
FCS Game of the Week: Tenn Tech at Chattanooga
These intrastate rivals – the campuses are separated by about 100 miles – will start to play each other regularly again now that Tennessee Tech has joined Chattanooga in the Southern Conference. This matchup, however, is considered nonconference and will not count in the SoCon standings.
A lot of bragging rights – and much more – are on the line in the Stats Perform FCS Game of the Week: No. 12 Tennessee Tech at Chattanooga.Kendra Sheehan previews the Week 1 showdown, which is considered nonconference for the two SoCon programs. pic.twitter.com/5Pm5usq1S8
— Opta FCS Football (@OptaAnalystFCS) September 2, 2026In their season openers, TTU handled Monmouth 38-14 in a Top 25 matchup and Chattanooga won 24-10 at a West Georgia squad that went 8-3 last year. The host Mocs lead the all-time series 30-11, although this is just the fourth meeting since 2006 (including TTU’s 45-17 rout last year).
Second-and-10
1. Which FCS teams have the best chance of knocking off FBS programs? Two of the four highest preseason predictions here are chasing wins this week and both teams are ranked in the top five of the Stats Perform FCS Top 25 Poll. Second-ranked South Dakota State, which had 10 plays of 20 or more yards in an opening blowout of Stetson, will take its shot at Northwestern, seeking to build on its program’s FBS wins over Kansas (2015) and Colorado State (2021). Meanwhile, No. 5 Tarleton State has a pair of FBS wins in this decade (New Mexico in 2020 and Army last year) and goes for a third at Bowling Green, which begins its second season under Eddie George.
2. UTRGV coach Travis Bush remembers the Alamodome. He was an assistant during UTSA’s inaugural season in 2011 (on the FCS level) and now leads the second-year Vaqueros into their first-ever FBS matchup against those same Roadrunners. UTRGV’s co-offensive coach Jeff Bowen also was an assistant and director of football operations John Simmons a player on UTSA’s first team.
3. Fordham has an FBS win as recently as 2023 (Buffalo), but it faces one of the week’s more daunting assignments – at North Dakota State, the 10-time FCS national champion that last week won its first game as an FBS program (33-7 over Jacksonville State) to improve to 206-30 (.873) all-time inside the Fargodome. NDSU has another FCS opponent on next year’s schedule, and it doesn’t get much bigger than facing Montana State on Sept. 3, 2026 in Las Vegas.
*-Total includes the United Athletic Conference and its previous ASUN-WAC names.4. The first-time matchup between No. 17 William & Mary and Delaware State has unexpectedly grown in stature after their opening victories. W&M’s last-minute rally past Villanova – from down 32-22 to up 35-32 on Max Lipinski’s walk-off field goal – helped a Week 0 story line in the FCS: 30 different teams won games after trailing, including seven of 10+ points and led by UC Davis and Northern Arizona coming back from 21-point deficits. Delaware State’s offense was perfectly balanced in its 41-34 win over Stony Brook, gaining 259 yards both on the ground and through the air. From a MEAC that went a combined 5-1 in openers, the Hornets are seeking their first 2-0 start since 2011.
5. First-game win as an FCS program? Check. Over a nationally ranked opponent? Check. Gained a Top 25 ranking? Check. West Florida rolled a lot into its 34-31 win over Southern Illinois, and now it’s on to the first United Athletic Conference game, but the Argonauts would have to paint a win across The Stripes given they’re traveling to Central Arkansas. The Bears posted a surprising Top 25 win as well, 36-24 at UT Martin behind quarterback Donovyn Omolo (361 total yards, three touchdown passes).
6. Campbell’s Kamden Sixkiller had the fifth-most yards of total offense (438 – 343 passing, 95 rushing) among FCS quarterbacks in Week 0 and Lex Thomas made his Western Carolina debut with the eighth-most (389 – 320 passing, 69 rushing). They’ll match up on Saturday (a day the host Camels always believe is Hump Day) as the CAA squad faces a second consecutive Southern Conference opponent (first ETSU, now the 24th-ranked Catamounts).
7. The Pioneer Football League is about to do something that rarely happens – even in the powerful Missouri Valley’s conference schedule. The non-scholarship league has four teams facing Top 10 opponents: Butler visits No. 1 Montana State, Drake is at No. 3 Montana, San Diego opens its season by hosting No. 7 UC Davis and St. Thomas has a trip to No. 8 North Dakota. Also, Presbyterian returns to No. 18 Mercer, where last year the Blue Hose pulled an upset for the PFL’s first ranked win since 2018.
8. Teams playing their first game don’t have it easy. In addition to San Diego hosting UC Davis, Bethune-Cookman (UCF) and Duquesne (Air Force) have FBS opponents, while Sacred Heart debuts in CAA Football at Monmouth and its high-scoring offense (notably, Sacred Heart only lost to playoff-bound teams in an 8-4 season last year), and UNI heads to the red turf to take on an Eastern Washington squad that let a potential win at Northern Arizona slip away.
9. HBCU football continues to have a national spotlight on Sunday. At noon ET on ESPN2, Prairie View A&M hosts Texas Southern in one of the bigger SWAC West Division games of the season. PVAMU won last year’s Labor Day Classic with a walk-off score for the second time in three seasons, and the 22-21 thriller served as a springboard toward a conference title in coach Tremaine Jackson’s first season. At 3 p.m. on ESPN, No. 21 South Carolina State seeks to end a four-game losing streak to Florida A&M in the Orange Blossom Classic at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium. That includes a 22-18 defeat last year in a season when SCSU went on to win the HBCU national title under coach Chennis Berry.
10. Interim head coach Pete Bennett will work to keep Gardner-Webb’s season from spinning out of control even more. The Big South school, which plays in the Ohio Valley Conference, fired head coach Kris McCullough after one game and following an athletic department suspension and investigation that Football Scoop said centered around off-field allegations made against him. GWU (0-1) next travels to Wofford as part of a difficult nonconference schedule.
FCS Football Week 1 – Top 25 Schedule
All games EST; Predicted winner in boldface
Last Week’s Record: 16-6 (.727)
No. 1 Montana State (1-0, 1-0 Big Sky) vs. Butler (1-0), 8:30 p.m. Saturday (ESPN+)
No. 2 South Dakota State (1-0) at Northwestern (0-0), 8 p.m. Saturday (Big Ten Network)
No. 3 Montana (1-0, 1-0 Big Sky) vs. Drake (0-1), 3 p.m. Saturday (ESPN+/MTN)
No. 4 Illinois State (1-0) at Western Illinois (0-1), 7 p.m. Saturday (ESPN+)
No. 5 Tarleton State (1-0) at Bowling Green (0-0), noon Saturday (ESPN+)
No. 6 Rhode Island (1-0) at Temple (0-0), 2 p.m. Saturday (ESPN+)
No. 7 UC Davis (1-0, 1-0 Big Sky) at San Diego (0-0), 10 p.m. Saturday (ESPN+)
No. 8 North Dakota (1-0) vs. St. Thomas (1-0), 4 p.m. Saturday (Midco/ESPN+)
No. 9 Youngstown State (1-0) at Kentucky (0-0), 1 p.m. Saturday (SECN+)
No. 10 Lehigh (1-0, 1-0 Patriot) at Georgetown (0-0, 0-0), 12:30 p.m. Saturday (ESPN+)
No. 11 South Dakota (1-0) at Northern Colorado (0-1), 8 p.m. Saturday (ESPN+)
No. 12 Tennessee Tech (1-0) at Chattanooga (1-0), 6 p.m. Saturday (Nexstar/ESPN+)
No. 13 Stephen F. Austin (1-0, 1-0 Southland) vs. East Texas A&M (0-1, 0-0), 8 p.m. Saturday (ESPN+)
No. 14 Lamar (1-0) at Louisiana (0-0), 8 p.m. Saturday (ESPN+)
No. 15 Austin Peay (1-0) at Vanderbilt (0-0), 7 p.m. Saturday (SECN+)
No. 16 Yale (0-0): No game
No. 17 William & Mary (1-0, 1-0 Patriot) vs. Delaware State (1-0), 6 p.m. Saturday (ESPN+)
No. 18 Villanova (0-1, 0-1 Patriot) at Bucknell (0-1, 0-1), 6 p.m. Saturday (ESPN+)
No. 19 Mercer (1-0) vs. Presbyterian (0-1), 6 p.m. (Saturday (ESPN+)
No. 20 Abilene Christian (0-1) at Texas Tech (0-0), 7 p.m. Saturday (FS1)
No. 21 South Carolina State (1-0) vs. Florida A&M (0-1) in Miami Gardens, Florida, 3 p.m. Sunday (ESPN)
No. 22 Northern Arizona (1-0, 1-0 Big Sky) at Arizona (0-0), 9:30 p.m. Saturday (ESPN+)
No. 23 Idaho State (1-0) at Utah State (0-0), 7 p.m. Saturday (CBSSN)
No. 24 Western Carolina (1-0) at Campbell (1-0), 3:30 p.m. Saturday (FloSports)
No. 25 West Florida (1-0, 0-0 UAC) at Central Arkansas (1-0, 0-0), 7 p.m. Saturday (ESPN+)
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FCS Football Week 1 Preview & Predictions: Record Number of FBS Matchups Kick Off Opta Analyst.
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