Quote Originally Posted by sancho View Post
Coming out fired up is great, but our first game issues are traditionally about rust and execution more than anything else. This is why you schedule an FCS team first (that, and it gives you an easy game to get offseason suspensions out of the way).
We haven't lost a season-opening game against a P5 team at home since Arizona in 2000, and have gone 4-0 since. Our first-game issues deal more with not taking the opponent seriously and not putting too much physical investment into the game. Generally, we take FBS opponents very seriously if they happen to be in our first game.