College football Week 0 schedule 2022: 3 under-the-radar games to watch

3. Vanderbilt Commodores at Hawaii Rainbow Warriors

Vandy has a lot to prove in Clark Lea’s second year as head coach of the ‘Dores. They look to clear themselves of embarassent after losing to East Tennessee State by 20 points in the 2021 season opener and losing by 62 to Georgia later in the season.

All eyes should be on Vanderbilt and whether or not this SEC team can avoid embarssment and hold off Hawaii on the road. With a lot of roster churn, there’s a decent chance a motivated Hawaii will be more than ready to accept the challenge to protect their home turf.

On Hawaii’s side of things, former all-time great Warrior Timmy Chang, who you might remember was a superb quarterback for Hawaii back in the early aughts, has taken over as head coach. It’s his first season as a head coach and he’s doing it at his alma mater, which makes for a great story. But, this was most certainly not given to him, he had to work his way up from the ranks with various teams before earning his first head coaching nod.

Expect Chang to implement an offense similar to what he used back when he was playing for June Jones and setting records as one of the best college football gunslingers of all-time.

He’s keeping things close to the chest in terms of starting quarterback for this game, so we won’t know until game time. The smart money says the starting nod should go to Brayden Schager, who was 2-1 as a starter for Hawaii last season.

Vanderbilt travels to the island of Oahu to take on the Hawaii Warriors on Aug. 27 at 9:30 p.m. ET on CBSSN.