Some quick thoughts after the 1st week of the
college football season.
Michigan is improved, but Harbaugh still has a lot of work
to do. Last year the Wolverines lost at
home to Utah 26-10, with the Utes scoring the final 16 points for the win. Michigan lost this year, but put up a fight
the whole way. Losing 24-17 on the road
and were a recovered onside kick away from making the game REAL interesting.
Utah could be really good if they found some more play
makers on the offensive side of the ball.
Devontae Booker is the only threat the Utes have and he is a good one,
but they need more. Booker carried the
ball 22 times and scored on the ground.
He also was their leading receiver with 7 catches in week 1 vs Michigan.
TCU got a road win versus a Power 5 team, but they didn’t
look very impressive in doing so. It is
just one game, but the Horned Frogs couldn’t finish drives and had to settle
for field goals on too many drives. They
certainly didn’t look like what you would expect from the 2nd best
team in the country.
Duke and David Cutcliffe have found their quarterback. Cutcliffe has been a quarterback guru
everywhere he has coached but has yet to find one at Duke, until now. Thomas Sirk made his debut with the Blue
Devils Thursday night against Tulane and the junior QB was 27-40 for 289 and 2
scores. He also ran the ball 15 times
for 68 yards.
New Baylor QB Seth Russell throws a really nice ball; he has
great touch on the deep ball. It is only
a 1 game sample, but it looks like the Baylor offense won’t miss much with
Russell stepping in for Bryce Petty.
Russell actually adds a little more athleticism to the quarterback
position for the Bears.
Hawaii and Colorado was a perfect example of why a preseason
game in college football is not a terrible idea. The two quarterbacks combined to go 42-78 and
just 360 yard. It also had 18 punts, 14
penalties and five turnovers and was utterly unwatchable.
Stop FCS games! Yes
every year you get teams like Washington State and Kansas that lose to the FCS,
but you also get games like Georgia Tech beating Alcorn State 69-6 with GT
running for 476 yards and Ole Miss beating Tennessee-Martin 76-3 which included
a 55-0 lead and Mississippi THROWING a touchdown pass in the 4th
quarter. Those games need to stop.
Continue playing on the road against Group of 5 teams if you
are a Power 5 team. It creates the chance
of upsets and it immediately gives these lower level FBS teams a showcase home
game that the players and fans can look forward to. In the opening week only we saw teams like
Temple beat Penn State at home. Western
Michigan playing with in-state foe Michigan State into the 4th
quarter and Central Michigan leading Oklahoma State in the 2nd half
before falling short. Those games are
great for the little guys and a real challenge for the big boys. A win-win for everybody.
Malik Zaire is fun to watch run Brian Kelly’s offense at
Notre Dame. It seems to be pretty clear
why Everett Golson transferred out of Notre Dame, because he was good, but
Zaire has the potential to do some special things for the Irish this
season. Zaire went 19-22 for 313 and 3
scores in the opener against Texas.
Notre Dame is either really good or Texas is absolutely
awful. It reality it is probably
somewhere in between. Charlie Strong is in
year 2 of a huge rebuild at Texas, so nobody expected a CFB Playoff bid, but I
would imagine that the fan-base didn’t expect the worst loss to open the season
since 1988 (@BYU 47-6).
I loved watching the aggressive play and play-calling of the
Temple defense against Penn State.
Temple is a team that is full of players that didn’t get recruited by
Penn State and despite being overmatched at almost every position that didn’t
change their style of play and it paid off, limiting Penn State to just 54
yards in their final 12 drives of the game.
The Penn State offensive line is awful. I really like Christian Hackenberg and I
would love to see what he could do if his O-Line could keep him clean, but that
doesn’t look like it will happen in his time at Penn State. Hackenberg was sacked 10 times by Temple on
Saturday. Some are thinking that
Hackenberg could be the top QB selected in next year’s NFL draft. That will only happen if he survives this
season.
Oregon lost the Heisman Trophy winner and 2nd
overall pick in quarterback Marcus Mariotta, yet the Ducks didn’t miss a beat
in their 61-42 win over Eastern Washington.
Oregon racked up 731 yards and 34 first downs on offense. That includes running for 485 and 6
touchdowns. They also didn’t lose their quick
score attach either. All of the Ducks
scoring drives were under 3 minutes except their final score in the 4th
quarter, that one lasted 3:20.
Tons of stars lost for the season already in just one
week. Quarterbacks Taysom Hill (BYU) and
Terrel Hunt (Syracuse), running backs Tarean Folston (Notre Dame) and James
Conner (Pitt) and defensive lineman Eddie Vanderdoes (UCLA) are all highly
regarded players that are done for the season already due to injuries. We also have All-American linebacker Scooby
Wright from Arizona, safety Mike Caputo from Wisconsin, wide receiver Mike
Williams from Clemson and Virginia Tech quarterback Michael Brewer out for a
considerable amount of time with lesser injuries.
Will Muschamp joining the coaching staff at Auburn is a very
good thing. We all know that Gus Malzahn
knows offense and can put up some points, but now he has a defense behind
it. Muschamp, the former Florida head
coach has always been a great defensive mind and now he able to focus on just
that. In the opener versus Louisville,
Auburn scored 1 defensive touchdown on an 82 yard fumble return in the 1st
half and set up another one with a 35 yard interception return in the 2nd
half. Auburn jumped out to a 24-0 3rd
quarter lead before Louisville final got on the scoreboard.
Alabama’s running game is crazy good. The Tide have had guys like Eddie Lacy and
Mark Ingram in recent years, but Derrick Henry might be the best of the
bunch. Henry ran for 147 on 13 carries
and 3 scores against Wisconsin on Saturday.
His back up Kenyan Drake ran 10 times for 77 yards and a score. He also had 2 catches for 48 yards. This 1-2 punch from Alabama is as good as we
have seen from the Crimson Tide.
High Octane is illegal in Houston, TX. Arizona State and the Fighting Todd Graham’s
had only 291 yards of offense (3.55 ypp) and two turnovers against Texas
A&M Saturday. Of the Fighting Todd
Graham’s 1st 12 drives, they punted 9 times, fumbled twice and
scored just one touchdown.
I still love watching Todd Graham lose. I don’t think that will change any time soon
either.
I love watching Penn State lose. I know that won’t change any time soon.
Hail Mary conversions are fun.
West Coast teams should never be forced to play noon EST. Stanford played Northwestern at Noon. The players woke up at 4:30 to try to make up
for the time difference and prepare for the game, it didn’t help. The Cardinal looked sluggish from the get
go. They finished the game with just 2
field goals and only 240 yards of total offense. They also turned the ball over twice.
Baker Mayfield showed why he was named the starter for the
Oklahoma Sooners after camp. Mayfield
threw for 388 yards and 3 scores in his collegiate debut. He also ran for another touchdown. He unseated Trevor Knight who was the
returning starter, who accounted for over 3,100 yards and 30 touchdowns in his
1st 2 years at OU.
Josh Rosen looks to be the real thing at UCLA. The #1 rated quarterback out of high school
last year won the starting job at UCLA in fall camp and impressed in his
debut. Rosen threw for 351 and 3
touchdowns, going 28 of 35 in a 34-16 win over Virginia.
Ohio State looked pretty impressive in their opener. After the Buckeyes got things going they
looked unstoppable, and remember they were playing without 4 starters that were
suspended. I still am not sure that
Cardale Jones is the best option for the Urban Meyer offense, but he also isn’t
a bad option to have. With their
toughest game out of the way, if Ohio State loses at any point in the season it
would be a huge upset.
