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College football’s current conference of champions is on the clock again.
The 2026 season has arrived, with Week 0 firmly in the books and the madness from Week 1 still being bantered about. All 18 Big Ten teams were in action during the long and glorious Labor Day weekend of college football that was spread out over 5 days.
It was a Week 1 pigskin marathon to binge on, with every matchup involving a Big Ten team being of the nonconference variety. There were things to watch for in every single game, but here are the 5 best things that went down as that 4-peat national title pursuit began in earnest:
1. The champs were back, and Josh Hoover got to lead them
The heavy draw of Indiana‘s season opener had everything to do with the Hoosiers and who was playing quarterback for them and nothing to do with the opponent or the actual matchup. North Texas walked into Memorial Stadium as a 40-point underdog and walked out with a 52-16 loss, so last Saturday’s matchup between the Mean Green and defending national champions was a blowout, as expected. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have watched.
Because everything else about Week 1 in Bloomington was attractive. Like it being the first ever game Indiana played as a national champion, after its historic 16-0 season ended with confetti falling to the turf in Miami in January. The Hoosiers have officially arrived as a college football powerhouse, and though they were “only” ranked 6th in the AP Preseason Poll, they’re an “it” program with arguably the best head coach in the sport.
And as much as fans wanted to see Curt Cignetti operate for the first time since Indiana’s national title win over Miami, he’s a known commodity now. Everyone knows he can coach at the highest level and back up his bold words. But someone who’s not a full-blown known commodity (yet) is Hoover, the TCU transfer who threw for a ton of yards but also threw a ton of interceptions during his years as a Horned Frog.
That’s what makes Hoover so intriguing as a quarterback, and that’s what made his debut last Saturday so attractive. Cignetti and IU offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan had an entire offseason to coach up Hoover and try like heck to coach those interceptions out of him. But we won’t know if that’s happened until this season plays out fully, and the first installment of all that came in his IU debut, when he went 13-of-16 for 231 yards with 4 touchdowns and … 0 interceptions.
So far, so good on the INTs front, with 11 more regular-season games to go.
Hoover tossed a combined 33 interceptions in 3 seasons at TCU, and everyone knows that has to change this fall if Indiana is going to have a shot to repeat. Fernando Mendoza is long gone. This is Hoover’s time and Hoover’s shot, and that made the opponent irrelevant last Saturday in Bloomington. It was all about IU, and Hoover passed his first test with flying colors.
2. The first insane night of Kyle Whittingham’s new life
Whittingham’s head coaching life had only known 1 address before this season started, and that was in Salt Lake City as the head man at Utah. For the past 2 decades, Whittingham was synonymous with that program, rolling up an impressive 177-88 record. There were multiple conference championships and coach of the year awards sprinkled into that legendary run, but that was officially all in the past last Saturday night when his then-16th-ranked Michigan team kicked off the 2026 season against Western Michigan.
The game itself wasn’t supposed to be that close, but as everyone on the planet now knows, for better or worse, it was as close, as scintillating and as memorable as anyone could script. Because Michigan needed that controversial Hail Mary pass to turn away a MAC team at home, Whittingham couldn’t have impressed his new fan base all that much under the lights in Ann Arbor. The Wolverines were about a 4-touchdown favorite, but it was an NBC game and an iconic game, controversy and all, so a national TV audience found out quickly about Bryce Underwood’s offseason development under new offensive coordinator Jason Beck.
While the Broncos didn’t present the speed and overall talent that Big Ten defenses will throw at Underwood, it’s all Michigan fans have to go on, for now. Like in Year 1, Underwood was mostly uneven on Saturday night, throwing for only 170 yards on 12-of-22 passing with 1 interception. But he ran for 47 yards and a touchdown and, of course, there was that 1 TD pass at the bitter end. This game was already must-see TV for the Underwood Factor alone and because of Whittingham, whose hire in the wake of the Sherrone Moore scandal created a ton of buzz and a lot of expectations for 2026.
Those lofty expectations failed to be met in Week 1, miracle escape aside, and now many questions will linger as Michigan heads into a titanic Week 2 home matchup against Oklahoma. Whittingham and Underwood had exactly 1 game to act as a tuneup for the Sooners, and it was a shaky dress rehearsal to say the least. Whittingham ran smack into his new world, far away from the innocence of Salt Lake City, and nobody who watched the chaos will soon forget it.
3. The Bob Chesney era at UCLA began in hostile territory
UCLA was the only Big Ten team that played a true road game in Week 1. Everybody else in the conference was either in the friendly confines of their home stadium — USC already played its 2nd home game after starting its season in Week 0 — and then you had Wisconsin facing Notre Dame on a neutral field. So, UCLA was on an island of sorts, stepping out on the road and into an old, familiar place as it faced California.
The Bruins and Golden Bears used to know each other quite well, as Pac-12 rivals, but realignment ripped them apart, with UCLA heading to the Big Ten and Cal landing in the ACC. Last Saturday night, the programs had a reunion of sorts in a 10:30 p.m. ET kickoff on ESPN, so Chesney had the national TV stage (albeit a late one on the East Coast) to kick-start a new era of UCLA football. There was surely some late-night viewership emanating from the greater Knoxville area, as curious Tennessee fans got their first glimpse of 2026 Nico Iamaleava.
UCLA was only a slight favorite, and ESPN’s FPI only gave the Bruins a 42.1% chance to be 1-0. Berkeley was buzzing for this one, as Cal had the chance to spoil Chesney’s much-anticipated UCLA debut. The Bruins might not be a Pac-12 rival anymore, but this was still an in-state matchup when you stripped away the new conference affiliations. These programs first met way back in 1933, and UCLA led the all-time series 57-35-1 going in, so there is great history there and there was a lot of pressure on Chesney to get things started on the right foot.
Mission accomplished on that, with the Bruins turning a 24-24 tie after the 3rd quarter into a 45-24 victory. It was UCLA’s running game that came to the forefront in that dominant 4th quarter, with the Bruins scoring all 3 of their touchdowns on runs. Iamaleava added a rushing TD earlier in the game, and he ran for 29 yards to go with 184 yards through the air. He didn’t throw a touchdown pass and had 1 interception, but it was a win and a road win, and nobody back in Westwood should have been complaining.
This was the first of 4 matchups in the next 4 seasons between the old rivals, with Cal hosting this year and in 2028 while UCLA gets the game at the Rose Bowl in 2027 and 2029. There were eyeballs in all time zones late Saturday night, as college football fans stayed up late to see if Chesney’s James Madison Effect had any immediate effect on his roster and particularly on Iamaleava after his uneven play last season.
4. The Chip Kelly Show was officially back in the Big Ten
After a 1-season stopover in the NFL with the Las Vegas Raiders, Kelly landed back in the Big Ten as the offensive coordinator at Northwestern. Kelly is a character with a wry sense of humor who’s full of soundbites. But he’s also full of football knowledge, as the folks at Ohio State can attest to after Kelly’s 2024 tour de force with the Buckeyes helped produce a national championship.
Kelly’s bravado will bring eyeballs wherever he’s coaching at, whether it’s in college or the NFL. His presence alone made Northwestern football matter again starting last Saturday night against South Dakota State. The primetime kickoff on Big Ten Network was the first trial by fire that Kelly experienced in trying to revive the Wildcats into being a factor in conference title discussions.
Can Kelly really make that happen when he’s not even the head coach? He’s got Michigan State transfer Aidan Chiles at quarterback now, and their level of success or lack thereof will serve as must-see football all fall. That made a Week 1 matchup that wouldn’t normally hit hard against an FCS team from the Missouri Valley Conference hit really hard, and the returns were pretty solid, as Chiles threw for 273 yards with a 1 touchdown and 0 interceptions.
Chiles added a rushing TD, and that Kelly-run offense piled up 497 yards of total offense. Sure, it was against FCS competition, but South Dakota State is a really good program and Kelly’s much-anticipated debut earned a big check mark, with a lot of proving grounds ahead this fall.
The Kelly Show has officially landed at Northwestern. Kelly surely had the 1-liners ready, and his new fan base was watching last Saturday night to see if the points came with the quips. They mostly did, and that should excite.
5. Wisconsin hung with ND at Lambeau, for a while at least
We end, appropriately, with the 18th and final Big Ten team to play its 2026 season opener. But the wait for Wisconsin-Notre Dame was well worth it. As expected, the game wasn’t close by the 4th quarter, although everybody gets up to play the Fighting Irish, especially when Notre Dame is ranked in the top 5 with national championship aspirations.
Throw in the fact that it was a season opener for both teams, it had the Labor Day weekend Sunday night primetime slot on NBC, then add the magical mix of a backdrop at historic Lambeau Field. This matchup had all of it, and we hadn’t even mentioned that it was Luke Fickell on the sidelines, the embattled Fickell, who had a golden opportunity to show off his revamped $25 million roster against one of the best teams in the country.
All eyes were on this one because it had the Sunday night stand-alone stage — yes, the Louisville-Ole Miss showdown of ranked teams in Nashville was over on ABC in the exact same time slot, but the draw of Wisconsin-Notre Dame at Lambeau was enormous. Back to Fickell, who could either establish a different narrative for the Badgers and for himself if Wisconsin managed to hang with the Irish (which it did for a half), or he could sink himself right back into the depths of despair with those haters who love to roar “Fire Fickell” and might have just been doing it again from down the road in Madison as Notre Dame dominated the 2nd half.
Whatever happened with Wisconsin, from awful to passable to memorable, it was guaranteed to be absolute must-see TV to cap off Week 1 in a Big Ten Conference that gave its fans their first taste in a journey that might not end until late January.
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