2026 Week 0 Preview: New Mexico State Aggies @ Florida State Seminoles
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Game notes
- Time and date: Saturday, August 29 at 7:00 p.m. ET
- Network: The CW Network
- Location: Doak Campbell Stadium — Tallahassee, FL
- Spread: Florida State (-30.5)
- Over/under: 53.5
- All-time series: Florida State leads, 1-0
- Last meeting: Florida State 36, New Mexico State 0 — October 3, 1964
- Current streak: Florida State, 1 (1964)
Setting the scene
Fire up the tailgates. Get your multiview screens ready. College football is back.
The sport triumphantly returns Saturday with an eight-game Week 0 slate featuring 16 FBS teams from seven different conferences. One primetime matchup on the docket features a meeting between ACC and Conference USA opponents that haven’t squared off in 62 years. New Mexico State takes the cross-country trek to Tallahassee, hoping to stage a disruptive upset in front of a raucous Florida State crowd.
Believe it or not, the Aggies and Seminoles have followed somewhat similar 2020s trajectories. A losing season in 2021 was followed by a resurgent 2022 capped with a bowl win. Both teams produced their best season of the decade in 2023 and qualified for their conference championships. But the two years that followed were disappointing, sub-.500 finishes.
This Week 0 opener could provide a glimmer of hope to one of those programs. Florida State enters as a massive favorite over the Aggies, but the Seminole openers tend to feature the unexpected. They lost as double-digit favorites to a Georgia Tech in 2024 and stunned Alabama as double-digit underdogs in 2025.
New Mexico State Aggies outlook
New Mexico State struck gold three years ago with the head coach-quarterback combination of Jerry Kill and Diego Pavia, who guided the Aggies to a conference championship appearance in their first year in the CUSA. But since the duo departed for Vanderbilt in 2024, the Aggies have fallen back to Earth, producing a 7-17 overall record and 4-12 conference mark.
Head coach Tony Sanchez enters year three, and there’s reason for optimism. The Aggies had minimal production returning in 2025, but thanks to greater financial investment, the program retained significantly more contributors for 2026. Three offensive starters and six defensive starters return, giving New Mexico State its strongest starting foundation of the Sanchez era.
Offensively, wide receiver TK King is the superstar to monitor. King missed the first month of the 2025 campaign, but upon returning in October, he proved his value to the team. He posted 132 yards in a Weekday CUSA win over Sam Houston and capped the year with 10 receptions, 178 yards, and two touchdowns against Middle Tennessee. The 5’9”, 180 pound receiver is lethal with the ball in his hands, as evidenced by his days as a First Team All-Mountain West kick returner at Wyoming, and he’ll serve as Florida State’s tougher cover on Saturday.
King’s new facilitator is Trey Hedden, who arrives from the FCS ranks after two seasons as Furman’s starting quarterback. Hedden was 33 yards short of a 3,000-yard season in 2025, connecting on 68.5 percent of attempts with a 17-to-13 touchdown-to-interception ratio, which he aims to improve in Las Cruces. However, his production at Furman was limited to the pocket, finishing with negative rushing yards due to sacks. Outside of King, Hedden will target Stanford receiver Myles Libman and 6’4” senior AJ Williams III, who missed all of last fall due to injury.
New Mexico State will heavily lean on the passing game, as the Aggies fielded the nation’s worst rushing offense a year ago, averaging 77.3 yards per game and 2.6 yards per attempt. Allowing 2.8 sacks per game played a role in that ranking, but the Aggies need significantly better line play to thrive in 2026. Four out of five starters are transfers, and the lone incumbent is 6’7”, 315 pound left tackle Ma’Kyi Lee, who started the 2025 opener before missing the remainder of the season to injury.
Defensively, the Aggies retained a starting defensive end in Gabe Peterson, both starting linebackers in Tory Gethers and Sone Aupiu, and two defensive backs in Josiah Charles and Nick Session. It was supposed to be three starting defensive backs, but strong safety Bernock Iya (53 tackles) is out indefinitely with a lacerated liver. That will thrust senior Lorenzo Smith into a starting role, where he’ll be tasked with filling one of the greater vacancies on the unit.
Overall, it’s a veteran unit. Every starter save for nickel Jakobe Campbell is classified as a senior or graduate. In 2025, the Aggies’ strength was turnover creation, tying for 14th in the FBS with 24 takeaways. Gethers and Aupiu both forced multiple fumbles from the linebacker position, and they’ll need all the opportune takeaways they can get as more than four-touchdown underdogs in Tallahassee.
Florida State Seminoles outlook
Florida State’s 2025 season was full of twists and turns. The Seminoles shocked the country with a Week 1 upset over Alabama, where the 31-17 result on the scoreboard didn’t quite express how dominant Mike Norvell’s team was in Tuscaloosa. Florida State climbed as high as No. 7 in the AP Poll after a 3-0 start, but everything came crashing down in a Friday night double-overtime loss at Virginia. That incited a four-game skid, and the Seminoles ultimately missed bowl eligibility for the second-straight season and suffered their sixth losing season in eight years.
Norvell’s seventh year will be highly-scrutinized in Tallahassee. One objective is to improve upon an 0-4 record in one-score games, but if all goes according to plan, Florida State can avoid that scenario against New Mexico State. The Seminioles will have a fourth-different Week 1 starting quarterback in four years, bringing in former Stanford starter Ashton Daniels, who made a brief pitstop at Auburn in 2025. Daniels arrives with 4,783 career passing yards on a 60.2 completion rate, delivering 24 touchdowns to 22 interceptions. Like many Norvell era quarterbacks, he’s a capable runner, posting a career-best 669 rushing yards at Stanford in 2024.
Daniels’ mobility will be a focal point of the offense, but Florida State eyes more running back involvement in 2026 after nobody at the position attained 500 rushing yards last year. Still, it was the 11th-ranked rushing attack in the country. Ousmane Kromah (408 rushing yards on 5.7 average) and Samuel Singleton Jr. (360 rushing yards on 7.1 average) should remain effective pieces in the room, and they’ll receive additional depth in the form of Tre Wisner, a former 1,000-yard rusher at Texas who should be among the team’s top pass-catchers.
Wide receiver is Florida State’s strongest position group on offense, with reigning First Team All-ACC selection Duce Robinson back to lead the unit. Robinson produced 1,081 receiving yards and six touchdowns last season, threatening defenses downfield with an explosive 19.3 yards per catch. The explosiveness extends to Micahi Danzy, who totaled 571 yards on an even-higher 21.1 average. That duo will be difficult to contain, even for a veteran New Mexico State secondary. Another target could emerge as an effective third option for Daniels. Candidates include sophomore Jayvan Thomas, true freshman Jasen Lopez, and East Carolina transfer tight end Desirrio Riles.
The offensive line gets a complete reset. Zero starters return, and the Seminoles restocked primarily through the portal, bringing in established starters such as Auburn left tackle Xavier Chaplin (6’8”, 346), Purdue center Bradyn Welch-Joiner (6’2”, 327), and Bowling Green guard/tackle Nate Pabst (6’3”, 315). There should be a significant size advantage against a New Mexico State defensive line which features one player north of 280 pounds on the two-deep (295-pound defensive tackle Kaian Roberts-Day).
Florida State’s defense was serviceable in 2025, ranking 28th in fewest yards allowed. It held teams to 3.6 yards per rush and 191 passing yards per game, categories which, coincidentally, it also ranked 28th in the FBS. When Florida State held its opponent below 18 points, it went 5-0. When surrendering more, the Seminoles went 0-7, leaving this unit to be the primary determinant in the record.
Four primary starters are back, and the return of cornerback Ja’Bril Rawls — who briefly entered the portal in the offseason — is massive. Rawls started seven contests last year before suffering a season-ending injury, and he contributed 40 tackles and an interception in roughly half a season. The team’s second-leading tackler Ashtyn Barker (48 tackles, 3.5 sacks) also returns to a secondary which added experienced transfers Nehemiah Chandler (South Alabama) and Ma’Khi Jones (Duke). Meanwhile, key names to watch along the defensive front include returning defensive end Kevin Lyons and Southern Miss transfer linebacker Chris Jones, who finished seventh in the FBS with 135 tackles.
Prediction
Florida State is renowned for challenging starts. The Seminoles’ last decade includes openers against 2016 Ole Miss (win), 2017 Alabama (loss), 2018 Virginia Tech (loss), 2019 Boise State (loss), 2020 Georgia Tech (loss), 2021 Notre Dame (loss), 2022 LSU (win), 2023 LSU (win), 2024 Georgia Tech (loss), and 2025 Alabama (win) — a 4-6 overall record.
In terms of the point-spread, this is by far the Seminoles’ most favorable opener over that timeframe. Florida State enters this matchup not only with homefield advantage, but a significant edge in the trenches, possessing all the tools to run exceptionally well on the Aggies. New Mexico State has veteran talent in its linebacking corps and secondary, but the Duce Robinson and Micahi Danzy combo should still produce several explosive plays on the CUSA squad.
New Mexico State is a longshot in Tallahassee, but the Aggies can learn a lot about themselves — and new quarterback Trey Hedden — by how they handle this challenging environment.
Prediction: Florida State 48, New Mexico State 10
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