Week Two NATIONAL College Football Previews:
#1 Ohio State Visits #4 Texas In Must-See-TV Game,
Plus ACC Matchups Against Big Ten, SEC Opponents
(DG’s Weekly CFB YouTube Show = Below)
By David Glenn
North Carolina Sports Network
(last updated Sept. 11, 2026)
The 2026 college football campaign continues Thursday through Saturday with a compelling Week Two schedule, highlighted by this season’s first matchup between top-five teams in the national polls.
The most prominent games nationally — each previewed below — include #1 Ohio State (1-0) visiting #4 Texas (1-0) in the first must-see-TV matchup of the season (Sat., 7:30 p.m., ABC), plus #18 Tennessee (1-0) visiting Georgia Tech (0-1) in a contest (Sat., 7 p.m., ESPN) highlighting Volunteers true freshman quarterback Faizon Brandon, who was North Carolina’s high school player of the year last season at Grimsley High in Greensboro.
Meanwhile, all seven Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) teams are in action in the state of North Carolina’s loaded lineup this week, and 1-0 Duke’s trip to 1-0 Illinois (Sat., 3:30 p.m., FS1) — included among our “national” previews below — matches last year’s Atlantic Coast Conference champion against a Big Ten program that has finished in the Top 25 nationally in each of the past two seasons.
Here are more details on our “Three To See” selections from this week’s national schedule:
National “Three To See,” Game One
Duke (1-0) at Illinois (1-0), Sat., 3:30 p.m. (FS1)
Duke coach Manny Diaz and Illinois coach Bret Bielema have a lot in common. They’re both in their 50s, they first made a name for themselves as defensive coordinators, and they’ve represented multiple Power Four institutions as head coaches.
Bielema had a very successful seven-year run at Wisconsin, which led to a mediocre five-year tenure at Arkansas, and now he’s in his sixth season at Illinois and coming off back-to-back Top 25 campaigns. Diaz, of course, was fired after only three seasons at Miami, but he’s been incredibly successful at Duke, posting back-to-back nine-win campaigns and — just last year — leading the Blue Devils to their first ACC title since 1989.
When Illinois and Duke played in Durham last year, the game had the feel of a closely matched contest, but the Devils turned the ball over five times, leading to a lopsided 45-19 final margin for Illinois on the Wallace Wade Stadium scoreboard.
Illinois is the home team this time, and while there have been massive personnel changes for both teams, it’s not difficult to see the #1 key to this game.
Duke’s sophomore running back, Nate Sheppard, may be emerging as a superstar. He was a Freshman All-American and an All-ACC player last year, and he began this season by carrying the ball a whopping 35 times for an incredible 227 yards (fifth-most in program history) in Duke’s 17-7 victory over Tulane last week. Sheppard forced more missed tackles (21) by Green Wave defenders than any player has forced in any FBS game so far this season.
Obviously, Bielema is going to game-plan with a focus on Sheppard, although it’s not clear that Illinois has the personnel this season to execute that sort of plan. Although the Illini defeated UAB 42-23 in their season opener, they allowed the Blazers to accumulate more than 41 minutes of possession time and almost 200 rushing yards.
Where Illinois believes it does have the advantage in this game is at the quarterback position.
Katin Houser, who was the starter at East Carolina over these past two seasons, is now the starter for the Illini, and he had an extremely efficient debut in the win over UAB. Duke, of course, lost star QB Darian Mensah to Miami in the transfer portal, and the Blue Devils’ new guy — sixth-year San Jose State transfer Walker Eget — had a really rough debut in the Devils’ low-scoring victory over Tulane.
It’s only a very small 2026 sample size for both players, of course, but Houser is currently #1 nationally in the QBR category, after completing 13 of 17 passes for 182 yards and three touchdowns against UAB and running for 29 yards and another score. Eget, meanwhile, is not a running threat, and he completed just 13 of 26 passing attempts for 131 yards against Tulane, missing a bunch of open receivers and repeatedly failing to take advantage of a Green Wave defense that eventually put all of its focus on Sheppard and the Blue Devils’ running game.
Thanks to the presence of Sheppard, Eget likely will have plenty of open receivers again this week, but he’ll have to hit them much more often if Duke (a six-point underdog) is to get this win in Big Ten country.
National “Three To See,” Game Two
#18 Tennessee (1-0) at Georgia Tech (0-1), Sat., 7 p.m. (ESPN)
If you have followed high school football — or even college football recruiting — in North Carolina for any extended period of time, you’ve probably realized that, while there are certainly many exceptions to this rule, it has become extremely common to see the Bold North State’s most highly ranked prep stars end up playing for bigger-name programs in the Big Ten or the SEC.
This prime-time Saturday night game on ESPN is going to showcase a player who personifies that out-of-state trend, because Tennessee’s extremely talented true freshman quarterback, Faizon Brandon, was considered the #1 high school senior in North Carolina last fall, when he was completing his sensational career as a three-year starter for Grimsley High in Greensboro.
In the summer of 2024, before his junior year at Grimsley, Brandon listed his college favorites as Alabama, LSU, NC State and Tennessee, and by the end of that summer he had committed to coach Josh Heupel and the Volunteers.
Although it has become rare, in an era filled with fifth- and sixth-year seniors and nonstop action in the transfer portal, for a true freshman to become an immediate college starter, especially at the quarterback position, that’s exactly what Brandon has done in Knoxville.
Brandon just turned 18 years old this summer, and yet last week he was sensational as the Volunteers’ QB1 in their season-opening 56-9 thrashing of Furman. Brandon displayed his dual-threat reputation against the overmatched Paladins, an FCS program, completing 13 of 17 passes for 226 yards and three touchdowns and rushing 10 times for 68 yards and two more scores.
Now Brandon will get what certainly will be a much more difficult test — on the road in Atlanta, under the lights, in a prime-time national TV window, against a well-coached fellow Power Four team.
Georgia Tech (a 12-point underdog against UT) lost its opener to Colorado, but it wasn’t because of the Yellow Jackets’ defense, which limited the Buffaloes to just over 300 yards in Tech’s 14-13 home defeat. Fifth-year linebacker Kyle Efford had a team-high 13 tackles for Tech.
The Jackets actually got a solid performance from their new quarterback, Indiana transfer Alberto Mendoza (younger brother of Fernando), but they had great difficulty running the ball against Colorado, despite the presence of talented tailbacks Justice Haynes and Malachi Hosley.
How things go in the trenches and with each team’s running game will matter a lot in this game, too. If that category becomes a stalemate, of course, it will be up to the dual-threat Brandon or the pocket passer Mendoza to put his team over the top.
National “Three To See,” Game Three
#1 Ohio State (1-0) at #4 Texas (1-0), Sat., 7:30 p.m. (ABC)
Here’s a “Believe It Or Not” right out of the gate with this one: Ohio State and Texas — two of the biggest brand names in college football history — have played each other only five times, and all five matchups have come within the past 22 years, with the Buckeyes holding a 3-2 head-to-head advantage.
The easiest matchups to remember are probably the most recent two. At the end of the 2024 season, coach Ryan Day and Ohio State posted a 28-14 victory over coach Steve Sarkisian and Texas in the College Football Playoff semifinals, as the Buckeyes were on their way to winning the national championship. Then, in a late August game to open last season, OSU edged the Longhorns again, 14-7 in Columbus.
This rematch is in Austin, and while the Buckeyes are the ones carrying the #1 national ranking, it feels as if the pressure is much more on Sarkisian and the #4 Longhorns.
Why? First, Texas is at home; Ohio State protected its turf in Columbus in a hard-hitting battle last year, and now it’s up to the Longhorns to return the favor. Second, Sarkisian is 0-2 head-to-head against Day, and in both cases it was clear that the Buckeyes were the better team, regardless of the final margin. Third, whereas Day already has his 2024 national championship, his two Big Ten titles and his seven-for-seven streak of top-10 national finishes (meaning every year he’s been the head coach of the Buckeyes), Sarkisian has nothing of a similar nature on his résumé.
During his first five seasons in charge, Sarkisian did lead the Longhorns to one conference championship, but that was in the Big 12, before Texas jumped to the much more competitive SEC. Sarkisian has built a super-strong program in Austin — the Longhorns have averaged almost 12 wins over the past three seasons, and they’ve been to two of the past three CFP semifinals — but the expectations remain sky-high at a program whose last national title came under coach Mack Brown in 2005.
There will be NFL-caliber talent all over the field in this one, in virtually every position group.
For Ohio State, the list begins with quarterback Julian Sayin, running back Bo Jackson, wide receiver Jeremiah Smith, several offensive linemen and a couple of defensive linemen. For Texas, the list starts with quarterback Arch Manning, wide receiver Cam Coleman, all-purpose player Ryan Niblett, defensive end Colin Simmons and a couple of ACC transfers — former NC State running back Hollywood Smothers and former Pitt linebacker Rasheem Biles.
Both Ohio State and Texas absolutely annihilated their Week One opponents, as you might have expected, and the oh-so-narrow betting line (at last glance, the Longhorns were a one-point favorite) in this one suggests an extremely even matchup where turnovers and big plays are very likely to make the difference.
NOTE: For the in-state edition of our Week Two college football preview, including analysis on the highest-profile games, plus schedules and TV/streaming options for all 32 teams (FBS, FCS, Division Two, Division Three) in the Bold North State, please click HERE.
