College Football Week Zero Upset Candidates: Five Games to Watch Closely

College football’s Week Zero — the appetizer before Labor Day weekend’s full feast — arrives on August 22 with a slate of five games that includes one of the most unusual season openers in recent memory. Week Zero has a history of producing chaos: Nebraska lost to Northwestern in Ireland in 2022, Vanderbilt stunned Virginia Tech last season, and every year, at least one heavily favored team gets a scare. Here are the five games on the Week Zero schedule — and which underdogs could make things interesting.

Nebraska vs. USC — Aer Lingus College Football Classic (Dublin, Ireland)

The marquee matchup of Week Zero is also the most unpredictable. Nebraska and USC will open the 2026 season at Aviva Stadium in Dublin, and the setting introduces variables that defy conventional analysis. International travel, a five-hour time difference, a neutral-site environment, and the unpredictability of a first game with no prior tape all narrow the talent gap between these programs. The line will likely favor USC based on roster talent — Lincoln Riley’s Trojans have more blue-chip recruits — but Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule has built his program on physicality, discipline, and the kind of ball-control offense that travels well. The Cornhuskers’ quarterback — Dylan Raiola, entering his second season as the starter — is the most talented signal-caller Nebraska has had in a generation. If Raiola plays a clean game and Nebraska’s defense generates a couple of early stops against USC’s portal-rebuilt offense, the Cornhuskers are a live underdog. This is the game most likely to produce a Week Zero upset — and it would be a seismic one for a Nebraska program trying to reestablish itself as a Big Ten contender.

Navy vs. Notre Dame — Dublin Doubleheader (August 23)

The second game of the Dublin doubleheader features Navy against Notre Dame, and while the Fighting Irish will be heavy favorites, the Midshipmen’s triple-option offense is a notoriously difficult scheme to prepare for on a shortened camp timeline. Notre Dame enters 2026 with playoff expectations — the Irish were ranked fourth in the preseason Coaches Poll — but option football has a way of compressing games and limiting possessions. If Navy can sustain a couple of long drives that eat eight or nine minutes of clock and keep Notre Dame’s offense on the sideline, the Midshipmen can hang around into the fourth quarter. An outright Navy win is unlikely — Notre Dame’s defensive front is one of the best in the country — but a closer-than-expected game that tests Irish fans’ nerves is well within the range of outcomes. Week Zero has produced stranger results.

Colgate at Syracuse

The FCS-over-FBS upset is a college football tradition, and Colgate’s visit to the Carrier Dome has the profile of a game that could get uncomfortable for the Orange. Syracuse is in a transitional year under head coach Fran Brown — the program has made progress but remains in the middle tier of the ACC — and FCS opponents with nothing to lose have a habit of playing their best football in these circumstances. Colgate is not a pushover at the FCS level, and Syracuse’s offense has been inconsistent enough in recent seasons to keep opposing teams in games. An outright upset would be a shock, but a competitive game into the second half is a reasonable expectation — and that alone qualifies as Week Zero chaos. The line will be large because Syracuse is an ACC team and Colgate is an FCS team; the game itself may be closer than the line suggests.

UTEP at New Mexico State

The Battle of I-10 is the only Week Zero game featuring two FBS opponents on American soil, and it is the most likely candidate to produce an outcome the casual fan does not see coming. Both programs are in rebuilding phases, both have new coordinators on at least one side of the ball, and both enter the season with low external expectations — but Conference USA rivalries have a way of producing unpredictable results. New Mexico State’s home-field advantage in Las Cruces is underrated, and UTEP’s inconsistency on the road under head coach Scotty Walden makes this a coin-flip game regardless of which team enters as the favorite. An “upset” here would be a mild one by national standards, but for fans scanning the Week Zero scoreboard, UTEP at New Mexico State is the game most likely to deliver a result that contradicts the betting line.

Sources

1. CBS Sports — 2026 college football schedule: Week Zero games, dates, matchups (July 2026)
2. ESPN — College football Week Zero preview: What to watch (August 2026)
3. CBS Sports — Coaches Poll top 25: Ohio State, Georgia, Oregon lead preseason rankings (August 2026)