Time to get the college football season under way Down Under

Australian and American sporting cultures crashed head-on on Saturday as Sydney hosted the opening game of the NCAA College Football Championship.

Saturday’s crowd, which will feast on foot-long hot dogs and other menu favorites from the US, will see experienced quarterbacks start the game.

Hawaii was without three key players for unspecified disciplinary reasons. A win on Friday would get the team off to a good start on the 2016 season.

According to oddsmakers from online sports book BetDSI, the Golden Bears are 19.5-point favorites versus the Rainbow Warriors after the number opened at Cal -22.

Sonny Dykes, an architect of high-powered passing offenses, opens his fourth season as Bears coach. (Kickoff is Saturday at noon in Sydney.). Having said that, I think that my opinions on football are always right and the rest of you have no business discussing with me.

Rolovich might also go down as a good promoter of the sport Down Under.

With the Rainbow Warriors surrounded by questions on both ends of the ball, Hawaii presents Cal’s offense with a chance to show its ship is not sunk without Jared Goff. Rolovich said, smiling. “But seriously, I hope it sends a message that we are going to play aggressively and won’t back down”.

Webb, who battled injuries and was an off-and-on starter over three years at Texas Tech, inherits an offense with three returning running backs to help him in Khalfani Muhammad, Vice Enwere and Tre Watson.

This will be the seventh straight season Hawaii has played a Pac 12 opponent to start the season. It definitely helps to have the same core group as last year but don’t expect Hawaii to be a contender in the Mountain West this year. Neither squad is likely to contend for any major college football titles, but it should be a fun start to the year for two teams breaking in entirely new teams.

If there is a game to be played in Australia, it makes sense to send Hawaii down to play in said game. Faced with more hard matchups with San Diego State, Texas and Utah in the coming weeks, Cal must take advantage of playing a relative cupcake in Hawaii.

The Rainbow Warriors are 2-5 ATS in their last 7 non-conference games and 1-10 ATS in their last 11 games overall.

Cal posted the first scoring play of the game with 2:32 left in the first quarter. Long travel for Hawaii is expected even in scheduled league games and going to Sydney is an exciting experience but then going to MI and Arizona in consecutive weeks will take a toll on this team, and possibly the fan base as it is expected the Warriors will not win any of those games.