Are you ready for some football? Good, because on Saturday, we have a Week 0 big-network tripleheader.

Noon ET on ESPN: No. 17 Kansas State vs. No. 22 Iowa State in Ireland

6:30 ET on Fox: Fresno State at Kansas

7:30 ET on CBS: Stanford at Hawaii

But first, let’s put a bow on the whole Michigan-NCAA thing.

(Note: Some questions have been lightly edited for length and clarity.)

With Michigan’s light-tap-on-the-wrist “penalty,” why don’t more major programs just cheat and dare the NCAA to do anything about it? — Mia-Do’ A

Call me crazy, but I don’t consider a $30 million-plus fine to be a tap on the wrist. In fact, if you gave Michigan AD Warde Manuel truth serum, he’d probably tell you he’d rather be banned from the Citrus Bowl this year than add that considerable expense to an athletic department already projecting a $15 million deficit in the first year of revenue sharing.

But I get it. If you’re someone who wanted blood over the sign-stealing scandal, you’ve been conditioned for decades to expect postseason bans and vacated wins when a school gets in trouble. Personally, I’m glad the membership has finally realized that the people most affected by postseason bans are athletes who weren’t even on the team at that time and had nothing to do with the infractions. Some of the players on the 2010 and ’11 USC teams who got banned over Reggie Bush’s extra benefits were in junior high when Bush played there.

Which is why USC fans — and Ohio State fans, and Miami fans, and any other fan base that suffered through a postseason ban — may be furious Michigan didn’t get one.

However, even though I think an eight-figure fine is plenty punitive, it’s not exactly a deterrent. That money is not coming out of Jim Harbaugh’s, Sherrone Moore’s or Connor Stalions’ pockets. And generally speaking, it’s not “programs” that cheat, it’s individuals.

I wonder how differently this would all feel if Harbaugh weren’t already long gone to the NFL. The guy is effectively banned from college coaching for 14 years. That’s unheard of. In this case, it doesn’t matter because the guy wasn’t coming back to college regardless. But if this were a college-only guy (Dabo Swinney, Kalen DeBoer, Josh Heupel) or someone still early in their career (Dan Lanning, Marcus Freeman, Kenny Dillingham), it would be devastating for them.

As for Stalions himself, if you read that report, he is the clumsiest saboteur since the “Home Alone” burglars. I can’t say his eight-year show cause will be a deterrent to fellow GAs and analysts as much as it will be comical reading material around their offices.

Stewart, why can’t Michigan’s fans understand why we all think they have no integrity left anymore? They all claim to be so much better than every other team when they obviously aren’t. Signed, your friends in SEC country. — Bob D.

No idea what you’re talking about, Bob. Haven’t most Michigan fans accepted the punishment and expressed ample disappointment in the stain this story brought on their university?

Do you and The Athletic refer to the Michigan “situation” as the sign-stealing scandal to sensationalize and draw engagement, or because it is easy (and a bit lazy)? — Todd D.

Oh, I see.

Several prominent coaches have the “can’t win the big game” label, like James Franklin. However, it would seem that if you keep getting close consistently, you eventually break through (e.g. Ryan Day last year). Tom Osborne couldn’t win the big game … until he did. Now we only remember the dominance and the titles. Are there any coaches who have consistently had winning top-10 programs yet never broken through? — Cullen 

The first guy that comes to mind in my time covering the sport was Georgia’s Mark Richt.

For most of his 15 seasons (2001-15), you could count on the Dawgs to field a top-10 team and compete for SEC titles. However, they never climbed that last rung to the national title game and suffered some pretty bad luck along the way. The 2002 team went 13-1, but it just so happened Miami and Ohio State were undefeated. In 2007, they were No. 4 heading into championship Saturday. No. 1 and No. 2 both lost, but they got passed by LSU when the Tigers won the SEC title game. And in the 2012 SEC championship game, they were four yards and six seconds short against Alabama from advancing to the BCS title game and playing overmatched Notre Dame.

Most of all, his bad luck was that only two teams reached the “playoff” back then.

Contrast that with successor Kirby Smart, who began his tenure with a “can’t win the big one” run, specifically with Nick Saban and Alabama. There was a second-and-26 in the 2017 national title game, the infamous Justin Fields fake punt in the next year’s SEC title game, a blowout loss in 2020 and the inexplicable 2021 SEC title game meltdown. Then the Dawgs won the rematch, and all anyone mentions about Smart now is the back-to-back championships. (And lots and lots of player arrests.)

I do believe the “getting close consistently” theory is correct. Franklin is a particularly extreme case, though, as his big-game record is truly atrocious (1-15 against top-five teams), and even with five top-10 finishes in 11 seasons, even after reaching the CFP semifinals last year, it doesn’t feel like he’s come close to the top yet. The Nittany Lions have been consistent, but not dominant.

However, in most, if not all, of those top-10 losses, he did not have the better team. Simple as that. This year, he may well have the best team in the country.

How does a Farmageddon loss this weekend shape either Iowa State’s or Kansas State’s season outlook? — Jon S.

It’d be bad!

We’re only one season in the expanded CFP era, but I think you can assume for now that anyone other than the Big 12 champ is going to face tall odds to be a CFP participant. The loser of this game will not have the same margin for error as the losers of Texas-Ohio State or LSU-Clemson. An 8-1 Big 12 record likely gets you to Arlington, but it’s asking a lot to win eight straight in a conference with more parity than any of the other P4 leagues.

However, you could also have a situation like last year, where everyone goes 7-2 and it’s tiebreakers galore.

I’ve noticed over the years that these big Week 0 games tend to foreshadow the rest of the teams’ seasons. Nebraska’s season-opening loss to Illinois in 2021 was the moment you began to realize, this isn’t getting better, is it? And the 2022 loss to Northwestern, coupled with a Week 2 loss to Georgia Southern, led to Scott Frost’s firing. (That was also Pat Fitzgerald’s last Big Ten win at Northwestern before he, too, was fired the following offseason amid a hazing scandal.)

In 2023, Sam Hartman threw it all over Navy in his Notre Dame debut. The Irish went 10-3, the Midshipmen 5-7. And Georgia Tech running all over Florida State last year was the most telling Week 0 precursor yet.

The loser of Kansas State and Iowa State in Week 0 will have an uphill battle to make the CFP. (Nirmalendu Majumdar / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)

Doubtful either Matt Campbell or Chris Klieman will lose their job anytime soon, but they need this win. And whoever loses might become a bit nervous about the rest of the season.

The coverage of Michigan’s sign-stealing scandal has been bad journalism all around. Michigan has been the victim of at least two known instances where their previous week’s opponent deciphered all of their signals by game’s end and then handed that information over to the next opponent. On a scale of 1 to 10 in the cheating department, this is a 10, and what Michigan did is a 3. — Adam L.

Oh, those poor victims. Will no one think of the innocent children whose signs were stolen?

Which do you think is the most likely reason for the Big Ten/Tony Petitti pivoting to their new proposed 28-team Playoff? A. They think it’s the best way to maximize revenue. B. It’s a ploy to make the original 16-team proposal seem better or C. Spite for everyone making fun of him for his last proposal. — Tyler S.

At this point, I’m beginning to think it’s D: Petitti is making his own elaborate Borat-style troll documentary and we’re all unwitting subjects in it.

Behind the scenes, folks are insistent this latest version is just an “idea,” not a formal proposal. However, many important people around the sport are still ticked about it, given that they found out through the media and the entire operation looks buffoonish by association.

“We sound like immature children throwing garbage against the wall,” a CFP executive told CBS Sports.

Somehow, the lesson Petitti took from the 4-4-2-2-1 backlash wasn’t “people hate the idea of predetermined Playoff berths”; it’s “maybe they’d accept it if we just gave out more of them.” Rather than “Jeez, people aren’t as fired up about play-in games as I thought they’d be,” it’s “OK then, what if we just did more of them?”

Whatever his motives, it’s clear Petitti views college football not as a fixer-upper but a full-on teardown project. Where most of us see a wonderfully unique and charming home with room for improvement, Petitti sees an archaic structure in desperate need of a refresh. The same guy who put the final nail in the Pac-12’s coffin would apparently be fine doing the same to the 120-plus-year tradition of bowl games.

Bye-bye, college football. Hello, NFL Junior.

To be clear, he’s not on a total island. There are pockets of ADs and coaches around the country, including in the SEC, that quietly love the idea of their 8-4/7-5-type programs becoming annual CFP contenders. They likely assume there’s a golden pot of TV revenue waiting for them as well. (In reality, TV doesn’t want this, either.)

Fortunately, there are far more people in important positions who don’t want any part of this tomfoolery. Because they happen to think college football is pretty great as it is.

Will you refund my subscription money? The Athletic CFB coverage is becoming an outrage click farm. Ironic that you are lambasting Michigan about lacking integrity. Surely it isn’t lost on you. — Ian S.

@Ian S.: Because the trending questions are all Michigan-related. Michigan has a huge fan base because it’s a great school *and* the all-time winningest program, so anything Michigan-related gets eyeballs and anti-UM outrage provokes engagement. Stew’s strategy is Internet Trolling 101. —Steve S.

Stew’s strategy is to write about the topics readers care about most. And the readers have universally told me, “It’s not the sloppy espionage and the cover-ups that interest me about this Michigan story; it’s their academic reputation and all their wins from 1902.”

In the last 40 years, no coach has gone more than six years between two national titles (Barry Switzer is the last coach to do so, winning his third title in 1985 after winning his second a decade earlier). Dabo Swinney last won a title in 2018. Has his window closed? — Brian 

I think so. But many, many people disagree.

It feels like the entire narrative around Clemson’s program has shifted over the past eight months, starting with, strangely, a two-touchdown loss to Texas in the CFP first round. The Tigers head into this season with the sixth-best odds to win the national championship, and they got the second-most votes in The Athletic’s staff survey predictions behind only Texas.

While that wasn’t my vote (I cast one of the three Penn State ballots), I did have Clemson No. 3 in my post-spring Top 25. That was because Dabo has more high-level players returning than at any time since the last Trevor Lawrence-Travis Etienne team in 2020. Quarterback Cade Klubnik, receiver Antonio Williams, defensive linemen T.J. Parker and Peter Woods and cornerback Avieon Terrell are all projected first-round picks. And new defensive coordinator Tom Allen should be a big upgrade from Wes Goodwin.

But once it came time to make “official” picks, I backed off a little. I picked the Tigers to win the ACC, but with an 11-2 record, including a home loss to LSU in the opener. Which would put them more like the low top 10. The main reason: What evidence has Clemson given us recently to suggest it can still compete at the highest level?

Clemson got drilled by Georgia 34-3 to open last season. The Tigers went on to lose to two more SEC foes, South Carolina (17-14) and Texas (38-24). To their credit, the Tigers beat CFP team SMU in the ACC title game, but no one thought SMU could win the national championship. Over the past four seasons, Clemson has had one “big” non-conference win: at home against Notre Dame in 2023.

And as those struggles mounted, many others and I criticized Dabo for stubbornly steering clear of the transfer portal. He relented a little this offseason, landing a couple of possible key contributors, but his lineup will still be comprised almost entirely of homegrown guys. It’d be a heck of a told-you-so to win a national title in 2025. However, my concern is depth. While the “X career starts” guys get the most attention in the portal, teams also use it to build and maintain their depth.

That being said, I hope Dabo proves me wrong. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with leaning on the portal, it’d be cool to find out the other way still works, too.

Mandel has pushed several overwhelmingly negative op-eds on the 2023 national champions. I’d bet Michigan hurt him. — Ian S.

@Ian S. Or maybe Stew is just a college football fan like the rest of us and feels like the rest of the country about all this. — Bob D.

@Bob D. If Stew were just a college football fan, he wouldn’t be deceptive and engage in sleight of hand. Wake up. — Steve S.

Yep, that’s right. I’m now doing magic on the side. Email stewart@theathletic.com if you’re looking for a Bar or Bat Mitzvah entertainer.

Hey Stew: As the season kicks off this weekend, are there any new rules or procedure changes to be aware of? Whether that’s actual rules to the game of college football or procedures for TV timeouts/commercial breaks? — Andy J.

Yes. The big one is faking injuries. If a player goes down after the ball is spotted, his team is charged a timeout (or delay of game if no timeouts remain) and the player must sit out a play. Let’s see if it works.

Also, when officials announce a replay decision, they will no longer distinguish between a call that’s “confirmed” versus a call that “stands.” Everything will either be “upheld” or “overturned.”

In overtime, teams still get one timeout for both the first and second periods, but once it goes to the third frame, it’s one timeout the rest of the way.

Finally, there were several unsportsmanlike penalties last year against players who celebrated a play by pretending to fire a gun. Now you can also get one for pretending to brandish a sword. For real.

There are several more technical rule changes as well if you’re interested.

The Athletic has been churning out op-eds about Michigan. It’s not because of the impermissible scouting. It’s because they are desperate for engagement and clicks. Mandel, likely suffering from childhood trauma in the state of Michigan, is using his shrinking platform to highlight a polarizing topic so he can keep his job. — Ian S.

OK, Ian, on the third try, you got me.

In elementary school, my school took us on an overnight trip to Dearborn, Mich., to visit the Henry Ford Museum. The place we were staying had a pool, but we had to take a swimming test to use it, and I wasn’t a good swimmer yet. Needless to say, I flunked. It was humiliating.

I turned to a friend and said, “Just you wait. About 40 years from now, the University of Michigan is going to have an embarrassing football scandal involving an ex-Marine who collected film on his opponents, then threw his phone into a pond when he got caught. And when that happens, I’m going to absolutely destroy them and get revenge on this entire state.”

My friend looked back at me in wonder.

“That’s amazing,” he said. “But how do you throw a phone in a pond when they’re attached to our walls?”

Then we went back to talking about G.I. Joes.

(Top photo: Junfu Han / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)