College Football Week Zero Winners and Losers: Iowa State Gives an Irish Goodbye

Among college football's most fascinating lists—and that's saying something—is its register of games played outside the United States. Take a gander at this Wikipedia page and behold the time Villanova beat Rhode Island in Milan, or the trio of small-school games played in Bermuda, or the one-off exhibition Drake won in Tanzania.

Dublin is a more familiar locale to college football fans; this is the 11th regular-season game staged there. However, weird things happen when you give two large groups of American 18-to-21-year-olds mutually exclusive tasks in a foreign country. Ask Florida State last year. Ask Nebraska in 2022.

In this internationalist spirit, here are your winners and losers from Week Zero of college football's 156th season.

Winner: Matt Campbell

The venerable Iowa State boss is now a 100-game winner—the 187th in the history of major college football—after his No. 22 Cyclones topped No. 17 Kansas State 24–21 Saturday. Iowa State has spent parts of seven of the last nine seasons in the Top 25, and yet it's still worth marveling at how much Campbell has raised the Cyclones' floor.

Consider that the most recent of the three Iowa State coaches to eclipse Campbell's .557 winning percentage—Charles Mayser—finished his career in 1919. Or, as ESPN's broadcast pointed out at one point, that Campbell has half of the Cyclones' six bowl wins. He may not be the hot name he was in the 2010s, but there's no denying the excellence of a true program-changer.

Loser: Kansas State's CFP hopes, at least temporarily

No one has truly been able to figure out the post-Oklahoma and Texas Big 12 on the gridiron, and that made the Wildcats a trendy preseason choice to make this year's edition of the College Football Playoff. Now, Kansas State will have work to do. Quarterback Avery Johnson sharpened as the day went on and the Wildcats outgained Iowa State by 70 yards, but a lack of execution in the clutch left the Little Apple seething.

There is a glimmer of hope, however, for coach Chris Klieman's squad. Kansas State's schedule is set to slacken significantly, with a non-conference slate of North Dakota, Army and conference-rival-masquerading-as-non-conference-foe Arizona providing a golden opportunity to get back in the national conversation. Expect the Sunflower Showdown on Oct. 25 against Kansas to carry significant implications for December and January.

Winner: College football's international profile, at least temporarily

The Aer Lingus Classic remains a genius concept, particularly since the game became an annual Week Zero tradition beginning in 2022—host a sport beloved by moneyed American tourists in a country where many Americans have ancestral roots. Ireland's long footballing history—in soccer, rugby and Gaelic football—is merely the cherry on top of a weekend of good craic.

The Cyclones and Wildcats lack the name recognition of, say, Notre Dame or Florida State, so it was worth asking whether the stands would be full for this year's game. No matter: 47,221 souls turned up. With the NFL on a global rampage, Michigan mulling a game in Germany, and parts of Europe growing increasingly hostile to overtourism, this is a complex storyline to watch in the coming years.

Loser: UNLV's hopes of an insta-rebuild

Back stateside, UNLV opened 2025 with what should have been a good-vibes game. Even though the Rebels lost coach Barry Odom to Purdue and a slew of talent in the offseason, they could still bask in the memories of a program-best 2024 season—and the team's new coach, Dan Mullen, is no schmuck.

Fast forward three quarters of game time, and UNLV found itself in a dogfight with an Idaho State team that has not made the FCS playoffs since 1983. The Rebels held on for a 38–31 win, but their 21 AP Poll votes appear likely to go the way of an amateur blackjack's player's wages on the Strip. Mullen's two-quarterback attack of Anthony Colandrea and Alex Orji needs some fine-tuning before UCLA comes to town on Sept. 6.

Winner: Kansas's 2020s renaissance

Coach Lance Leipold has had only one winning season in five years with the Jayhawks. He's 22-28 there, compared to his 37-33 record at Buffalo (and his daffy 109-6 mark at Wisconsin-Whitewater). And yet Leipold has so thoroughly destroyed and rebuilt Kansas's self-image that few fans are likely to know these facts, and even fewer are likely to care.

Those who followed college football in the 2010s, when the Jayhawks were routinely the worst major-conference program in America, could only gape Saturday as Kansas played to a sellout crowd in the first game at newly renovated David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium. The Jayhawks were exiles in '24, dividing a 5-7 season between two Kansas City venues, but returned home in emphatic fashion by beating Fresno State 31-7 on Saturday night. With ageless quarterback Jalon Daniels finally healthy, look out. Leipold's outfit visits Missouri in two weeks.

Loser: You, if you ignored FCS this light week

Just five FBS games were contested this Week Zero, and that may have been enough for some fans. True sickos, however, combed the FCS ranks for further developments—and were rewarded handsomely with a seismic upset in the Southland Conference.

Incarnate Word, 10-game winners in three of the last four seasons, began its 2025 campaign by travelling to play Nicholls in Thibodaux, La. (the Colonels went 4-8 last year). Surprising small-school onlookers, Nicholls gashed the Cardinals 20–6. Stats Perform's FCS poll had Incarnate Word ranked No. 5 in the country. Not anymore! Nine years after their memorable near-upset of Georgia, the Colonels faithful can celebrate finishing the job.