The time has come. The college football season is officially here. There is no better feeling than waking up on a Saturday morning, sitting down to watch your pregame show of choice, and placing your bets for the day.

Week 0 is our training camp. It’s our dress rehearsal. It’s the day we use to make sure that our gameday setup runs smoothly. It’s when we make sure that our TV, laptop, tablet, and multi-screen devices are ready to go for the official start of the season next week.

If the Week 1, five-day stretch of games from Thursday to Monday of Labor Day weekend is the “grand opening” of the season, then Week 0 is more like a “soft opening”, a soft launch, if you will.

While Week 0 may not have the pomp and circumstance that Week 1 has, given the much more limited slate of games, that doesn’t mean we can’t sink our teeth into the Week 0 games made available to us.

All odds are provided by Tipico Sportsbook, our current official partner here at Gators Wire.

I’d like to give a special shoutout to my good friend Steven McAvoy for helping me out with The Napkin graphic. You can send him a DM on Twitter @StevenMcAvoy_ for all your design needs.

Without further ado, The Napkin for Week 0.

1 Nebraska vs Northwestern: Under 51.5 (-110)

Dylan Widger-USA TODAY Sports

I don’t want to say that I won’t ever bet on a middle-of-the-pack Big Ten West matchup, but given the limited slate and the high-profile coverage of the game (12:30 p.m. EDT kick-off on FOX from Dublin, Ireland), I feel like I have to bet on this game.

Look, I hear you. “Betting the under is boring”. I actually agree with you. Who wants to watch a football game and root for punts? Not I. But in a Week 0 matchup between teams that will be out of the Big Ten West division race by mid-October? That both want to run the football? With the game taking place in Ireland?

I feel like I have to at least throw something on this, strictly out of principle.

Northwestern is expected to be bad and I actually think this year will be the one Scott Frost takes the Cornhuskers bowling. If Nebraska loses this game, I’m not so sure it’ll be a warm reception when the team returns to Lincoln.

Give me Nebraska vs Northwestern Under 51.5 points.

2 UTEP (+1.5) vs North Texas

El Paso Times

This Conference USA matchup is sold out.

You read that correctly. Every ticket for the UTEP vs North Texas matchup has been sold. The game will kick off at 9 p.m. EDT on CBS Sports Network and, while it won’t be the Florida vs Utah that most of the country will see next Saturday on ESPN, it’s going to be a fun environment for the two Group of Five schools from Texas.

This game could go either way. Both teams are fairly even going into the season, with Vegas giving the Mean Green a slight advantage. I went with UTEP (+1.5) because, in my introduction to The Napkin post which you can read by clicking here, I outlined the importance of home underdogs. Given the uncertainty of what these teams will look like, I’ll take the home team plus the point purely out of principle.

Give me UTEP (+1.5) over North Texas at home.

3 Vanderbilt (-9.5) vs Hawaii

The Tennessean

This might be the only time this season you see me betting on Vanderbilt to cover the spread. It’s even weirder when you realize that they’re close to a 10-point favorite! That’s absurd, but also understandable.

Hawaii is a program in shambles. They’re playing in a different stadium because Aloha Stadium was literally condemned and deemed unsafe to inhabit and their last coach was so bad that his own son transferred to another program.

It’s a fresh start for the Rainbow Warriors though, as they hired former record-setting quarterback Timmy Chang as their new head coach and they even sold out the close to 10,000 tickets available for their home opener.

Unfortunately, they just don’t have the players or infrastructure to be able to compete with a visiting SEC team, even though it is Vanderbilt.

I expect Clark Lea to lead the Commodores to at least 4 wins this season, a massive step in the right direction, and it starts with taking care of business on the islands.

Give me Vanderbilt (-9.5) against Hawaii.

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