How did you spend your summer vacation?

Oregon quarterback Dante Moore watched Breaking Bad and Ted Lasso. Texas wide receiver Cam Coleman chowed down on Cajun food. Ohio State wide receiver Chris Henry Jr. just rested. Players sued conferences and the NCAA. Indiana fans celebrated, LSU and Ole Miss fans traded recriminations and a dozen Group of 6 fan bases adjusted to new homes.

Well, speak, memory of the cunning heroes—college football is back. On Saturday, America’s most colorful game celebrated its final soft opening, as next year Week Zero will be Week 1. It featured everything that makes college football compelling: the expected and the unexpected, fair play and the proliferation of agendas, stadiums full and empty.

Here’s hoping your team enjoyed rest actual or, if it played, metaphorical in the form of an easy win on this hot summer day across the United States. Welcome to Week Zero’s winners and losers.

Winner: Virginia

Back on Aug. 17, Sports Illustrated’s Dan Lyons suggested that AP poll voters were underrating a Cavaliers team that won 11 games, and Virginia rewarded him Saturday by suggesting he was right. The Cavaliers demolished NC State, 34–8, in front of an eager home crowd, outgaining the Wolfpack 413 to 168 (and outrushing them 258 to 76). Quarterback Beau Pribula—a “numbers guy” at neither Penn State nor Missouri—leaped off the box score page with two touchdowns through the air to go with 15 carries for 110 yards on the ground. A 6–0 start and top-15 ranking at the season’s midpoint isn’t remotely out of the question.

Loser: TCU sans quarterback Josh Hoover

Horned Frogs coach Sonny Dykes watched Hoover walk out the door to defending national champion Indiana, dissed him, and started 2026 by losing 15–10 to a Bill Belichick–coached North Carolina team that (seemingly) hasn’t made an on-field headline in years. New TCU quarterback Jaden Craig’s transition from Harvard to the Power 4 ranks wasn’t exactly Chamblissian: 20 for 32 for a hard-earned 175 yards. If only that were the least of the Horned Frogs’ problems: TCU incurred 11 penalties for 89 yards as opposed to the Tar Heels’ three for 20. The miracle of 2022 should give Dykes a long leash with the Horned Frogs, but that performance can’t be repeated in Big 12 play.

Winner: Bill Belichick

On the opposing sideline in Dublin: the greatest coach in the history of football, in dire need of a win, any win. North Carolina wasn’t particularly inspiring Saturday—it took its last lead on a bungled TCU punt, and converted just 3 of 11 third downs—but a win’s a win, especially with a difficult schedule looming. Belichick needed stability in two areas to start this season: quarterback and public relations. Billy Edwards Jr. is enough of a veteran to deliver the former; the onus is on Belichick’s shop to deliver the latter.

Loser: Sacramento State

“Anybody who talks about California hedonism has never spent a Christmas in Sacramento,” author Joan Didion said in the epigraph that leads off Lady Bird, and her meaning couldn’t have been clearer: that Sacramento was, for better or worse, the Golden State’s answer to MAC wholesomeness. Taking this to a literal extreme, Sacramento State joined the MAC in football this offseason, bringing promises of California cash that no doubt appealed to a league that has seen its competitors lap it financially since the COVID-19 pandemic. It is not completely absurd to imagine the Hornets succeeding, but they’re going to need to do better than Saturday’s 28–17 loss to Eastern Michigan. Lucky for coach Alonzo Carter that he misses the MAC’s two presumptive contenders (Miami [Ohio] and Western Michigan) in Year 1.

Winner: Davis Warren

Maligned at Michigan as an avatar of the program’s rudderless 2024 season, Warren returned to action for Stanford on Saturday and thrived. He completed 22 of his 34 pass attempts against Hawai’i—a clip similar to Craig, but he threw for 310 yards, averaging 9.1 per attempt. The Cardinal nearly gagged a 23–7 lead, but Warren calmly steered a go-ahead drive, and linebacker/Hawai’i native Tevarua Tafiti housed a late Rainbow Warriors fumble to seal a 37–27 win. Tough week for Stanford: Miami comes to the Bay Area in six days for a nationally televised Friday night clash.

Loser: Florida State, in a relatively dominant victory

No Seminoles fan who watched their team beat New Mexico State, 34–17, on Saturday should feel over the moon about their team, which repeatedly struggled to put away a feisty Aggies squad. Quarterback Ashton Daniels was spotty (17 for 27 for 202 yards, a touchdown and an interception), Florida State went penalty-for-penalty with the Aggies, and coach Tony Sanchez’s team passed at will (for 272 of its 319 yards). New Mexico State was supposed to be a warm-up lap for the Seminoles, who host No. 19 SMU on Labor Day in a spiritual have-to-have-it game. After a bye, Florida State is rewarded for its troubles with a Sept. 19 trip to Alabama.

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