College football season opens Thursday

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NASHVILLE, Aug. 29 (UPI) -- The 2012 college football season opens Thursday with 24 of the nation's Top 25 ranked teams scheduled to compete on the first weekend of the campaign.

Schools from the Southeastern Conference have won the national championship each of the last six years and teams from that league will take part in the feature attraction on the first night of the new season.

No. 9 South Carolina will visit Vanderbilt Thursday with the Gamecocks being the only nationally ranked team in action on opening night.

Texas A&M's debut as a SEC team was delayed when its Thursday game at Louisiana Tech was postponed due to the affects of Hurricane Isaac.

UCLA will visit Rice, Washington State will be at Brigham Young and Minnesota will travel to Nevada-Las Vegas in other Thursday games.

There will be three matchups of ranked teams this weekend with one of those taking place on Friday when No. 13 Michigan State hosts No. 22 Boise State.

On Saturday defending champion and second-ranked Alabama will face No. 8 Michigan at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas and No. 25 Auburn will meet No. 14 Clemson in Atlanta's Georgia Dome.

Top-ranked LSU will open its season at home against North Texas on Saturday, No. 3 USC will host Hawaii and No. 4 Oklahoma will visit Texas-El Paso.

The only ranked team not playing during the opening weekend will be No. 17 Texas Christian, which begins its first year in the Big 12 Conference.