College Football Kicks Off On Aug. 29. It’s A Meaningful Date In Heisman History.

College football is back in under 48 hours, kicking off on Aug. 29. This is not a drill.

We don’t have to go back very far to find the last Heisman winner to begin his season on that date. Just two years, in fact, when Travis Hunter helped Colorado defeat North Dakota State on a packed Thursday, 31-26.

Hunter caught TD passes of 41, 13 and 3 yards from Shedeur Sanders — the last providing a necessary two-score cushion. Hunter posted seven receptions for 132 yards and off to the Heisman races he went.

It’s now routine to see college football start in August. That wasn’t the case the only other time a Heisman player opened on Aug. 29.

You have to go back 43 years to find the first Heisman winner who began his trophy-winning campaign on that date, when 1983’s Mike Rozier helped No. 1 Nebraska topple defending national champion and No. 4 Penn State, 44-6.

Not only was it the beginning of Rozier’s Heisman season but it marked the first major college football game played in August.

Rozier — who grew up in in Camden, N.J. — opened his senior season near friends and family in the inaugural Kickoff Classic held in Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.

A year earlier, Rozier registered one of the best seasons in Nebraska history, rushing for nearly 1,700 yards as a junior, but it was only good enough for a tie for 10th place in the 1982 Heisman voting.

Fortuitously, Rozier was only returning player among the top 11 1982 Heisman vote-getters and was an obvious preseason Heisman favorite.

He and the top-ranked Huskers had the nation’s eyes to themselves when they took on the defending national champion Nittany Lions to open the 1983 season.

In 1982, No. 8 Penn State team rallied late to defeat No. 2 Nebraska, 27-24, in the third game of the season. The loss tattooed the Huskers with an early season blemish that prevented a Nebraska national title.

Revenge was clearly on the minds of the preseason No. 1 Huskers when they got a re-match in the biggest college football clash August had ever season.

Both sides of the ball were in sync as Nebraska romped. Rozier rushed for 71 yards on 16 carries and also caught a pass for 11 yards in a 44-6 blowout win. The Huskers out-gained Penn State by almost 200 yards.

It was a modest game for Rozier, as his 1983 went. The contest was the only game in which he failed to break 100 yards — resting late in the game during Penn State’s worst loss in 17 years likely had something to do with that —and it was one of only two regular-season contests in which he didn’t reach the end zone.

That didn’t make it any less sweet for Rozier, who said after the game: “This really helps to make up for last year, winning by this much. We wanted this game real bad. We were really well-prepared to show them we were the better team.”

There will be only eight games played on Saturday, Aug., 29, and No. 14 USC is the only ranked team on the docket. The schedule resumes in earnest on Thursday, Sept. 3, with a full schedule of games running through Monday, Sept. 7.

Somewhere in there, almost certainly, a future Heisman winner will have kicked off an historical season.