The 2019 season begins on Thursday night with four games, followed by a solo Friday night contest, and all day action on Saturday.

On Thursday, Charlotte, UAB and WKU will each open at home against FCS opponents, while FIU travels to Tulane. Rice opens its season on Friday night with a nationally-televised contest at Army.
 
The other nine schools begin play on Saturday, with three matchups at preseason top 10 opponents on the docket. Florida Atlantic plays at No. 5 Ohio State, East Division titleist Middle Tennessee visits No. 7 Michigan and Louisiana Tech takes on No. 10 Texas.
 
The other six teams playing on Saturday will open their season at home. Marshall welcomes VMI, North Texas hosts Abilene Christian, Old Dominion opens its new stadium facing Norfolk State, Southern Miss welcomes Alcorn State, UTSA matches up with crosstown rival Incarnate Word for the first time and UTEP plays Houston Baptist at the Sun Bowl.
 
Nine Conference USA teams will open the season at home and five are on the road. The entire opening week schedule is below with boradcast and veiwing locations.

 
THURSDAY, AUGUST 29
Gardner-Webb at Charlotte (ESPN+)         7:30 pm
Central Arkansas at WKU (ESPN+)            7:30 pm
FIU at Tulane (ESPN3)                             8 pm
Alabama State at UAB (ESPN+)                8 pm
 
FRIDAY, AUGUST 30
Rice at Army (CBSSN)                             6 pm
 
SATURDAY, AUGUST 31
Florida Atlantic at (5) Ohio State (FOX)     12 pm
Incarnate Word at UTSA (ESPN3)              6 pm
VMI at Marshall (Stadium)                        6:30 pm
Norfolk State at Old Dominion (ESPN3)      7 pm
Alcorn State at Southern Miss (ESPN+)      7 pm
Middle Tennessee at (7) Michigan (BTN)     7:30 pm
Abilene Christian at North Texas (ESPN+)   7:30 pm
Louisiana Tech at (10) Texas (LHN)            8 pm
Houston Baptist at UTEP (ESPN+)              8 pm

Somebody needs to talk to the guys at FAU, MTSU, and La Tech about easing into the season 😀

FINAL:

Gardner-Webb 28 Charlotte 49

FINAL:

Central Arkansas 35  WKU 28

What-just-happened.

FINAL:

FIU 14  Tulane 42

             

FINAL:

Alabama State 19  UAB 24

A little too close for comfort for the Blazers.

CUSA did not look very good last night.

Man, this is so true. The aac looks way ahead of cusa

Agree - being from N.C., I can tell you Gardner Webb is not (and has not been) a very good football team. Charlotte giving up 28 points to them tells me they either lost a whole bunch of players or that Glenn Spencer was that important.  I am hoping (and expecting) it was the latter.  Scoring 49 is good for UNCC, but I still feel like they are probably disappointed with the showing.

Given three CUSA teams play top-10 opponents, it is not looking good for the conference in week #1.  If the rest of the games go to the favored teams, CUSA is looking at probably a 7-7 record with a loss to an FCS opponent, at least 1 really ugly win, and probably at least 5 beatdowns (FIU, the three top-10 games, and I expect Army to put it on Rice tonight).

Marshal and UNT might be the only teams that cruise - they should both win relatively big.  Charlotte won by 20+, but honestly I don’t think that is a very good showing given the competition.  I am sure WKU would beg to differ!

This issue with C-USA right now is we have 2-3 really bad bottom 5 teams.
The conference has a lot of depth at the top, but when you have no clear top thing you end up with a bunch 7-5 and 8-4.

As for FIU; If you anyone listens to the mix podcast I do with them, I have been pounding how over hyped they are.

If you go look at their wins last year, it was against many bad teams.  They were awful at stopping the run and I just didn’t see how that was going to improve this offseason.