College Football is back and it starts tomorrow with a solid slate of games, but the biggest game of the week is on Saturday. The first ever college football game in Mercedes-Benz Stadium will be on Saturday with two premier college football programs. The Florida State Seminoles and Alabama Crimson Tide play in prime time for a match up that should live up to the hype. This game will set a tone for the season as Alabama is ranked number one in the country and FSU is ranked number three. These two teams need to be locked in as this game will tell who is the real contender in college football.

    The Crimson Tide are going into this game with something to prove. They are coming off a great year until the championship game, where they lost to the Clemson Tigers. They lost some key pieces on defense with Jonathan Allen, Reuben Foster, and Marlon Humphrey. They also lost pieces on offense starting with O.J. Howard. They do have a good amount of their players returning starting with QB Jalen Hurts. He will be a sophomore this season and with a year of experience he should be much better than he was last year. He also has his big running back Bo Scarbrough coming back after having a great championship game, despite being injured during that game. Obviously, they will have to retool the defense, but that should be no problem with Head Coach Nick Saban leading the way.

    Florida State hopes to take a new step and return to the college football playoff like they did three years ago with Jameis Winston. They want their QB Deondre Francois to make the leap to an elite college QB with the ranks of Mason Rudolph, Sam Darnold, and Baker Mayfield. He was not awful last year with 3350 yards passing, but a 59% completion percentage could be concerning long term. The big concern will be whether or not they can find a new running back to replace the great Dalvin Cook, who got drafted to the Minnesota Vikings. Another question is ‘Will the defense be able to stop Jalen Hurts and that high powered offense?’ The Seminoles are ranked high and that means they have high expectations. They hope meet these expectations by beating the beast of Alabama.

    In the end, my key to the game is whoever can get the last stop will win. Both defenses will have a lot of pressure since there are many new and upcoming players. The game will either be competitive with both teams or it will be a blow out by Alabama. My prediction is that the game will be close until halftime and then Alabama will bust out of their shell in the third quarter and they will steamroll the Seminoles. This week will not be a big one as many teams are playing FCS schools, but this game should be the highlight of the week.