It was a great weekend of
college football with what should be a fantastic conclusion tonight as Virginia
Tech travels to Florida State for a pivotal early season ACC clash. I’ll be
here every week recapping the biggest stories from each week of the college
football season.
Tennessee
got blasted by West Virginia
As I wrote on Saturday night, Jeremy Pruitt’s Vol debut was
virtually absent of bright spots and confirmed many of my worst fears about
this team, mainly the continued issues on the offensive line and a defense that
has no playmakers or impact guys. I predicted 6-6 for them before the season,
and that might’ve been generous.
As for West Virginia,
Will Grier may be the best QB in the country, and with their relatively easy
schedule, it’s conceivable that they could be 8-0 heading into the month of
November. If they can survive a road test at Texas on November 3rd, they’ll
finish the season with a home game against TCU, a visit to Oklahoma State, and
a game in Morgantown against Oklahoma. That’s a tough last month, but if Grier
plays like he did Saturday, they’ll at least be able to stay in every game with
their ability to put up points.
Tua
Tagovailoa and Alabama destroyed Louisville and look like the best team in the
country…. again
As dominant as Nick Saban
has been the last decade at ‘Bama, it’s incredible that he’s done it without having
a superstar QB. Tua looks like that guy, and, barring injury, I can’t see a
scenario in where Jalen Hurts should take the field the rest of the season. To
be fair, I don’t think Louisville is even a good team (they lost five games
last year and that was with 2016 Heisman winner Lamar Jackson), but this game
was never in doubt from the opening kick.
The biggest question for
the Tide coming into the season, outside of the Tua/Jalen controversy, would be
how their defense would play due to their multiple losses to the NFL draft. I
don’t think Louisville’s Jawon Pass (great name!) was up to the challenge in
his first career start, but the schedule will present a few potential challenges
the next month and a half, including a road test in two weeks against an Ole Miss
team that put up 47 points on Texas Tech on Saturday, and a home game
against Missouri and Drew Lock, probably the best QB on their schedule, on October
13th. The Tide have been, on rare occasions, torched during the
Saban era, and that Ole Miss game feels like one where it could happen. Then again, if Tua plays every game like he has the
last six quarters, there are few teams in the country who could even play them
to within 10 points.
LSU
dominated Miami and Ed Orgeron’s hot seat cools down… for now
The Tigers walloped the ‘Canes
by 16 points despite being worse on 3rd down (3-16 compared to 6-16)
and gaining less yards (342 to 296). Plus, QB Joe Burrow was fairly pedestrian
in his debut (11-24, 140 passing yards). The difference was the dominant LSU
defense, which annihilated Miami’s Malik Rosier (15-35 passing, 2 picks), and the
offense’s ability to hold onto the football. I think we have pretty good
evidence now that this Hurricane team is only good if they’re capturing the
momentum by forcing turnovers and throwing on that Chain. In their first ten
games last season (all wins), Miami forced 30 turnovers. In their last four
games (all losses), they’ve only forced one. And Malik Rosier has absolutely
fallen off the cliff his last 4 games, with a completion percentage in the mid
40s. I picked the ‘Canes simply because I think Ed Orgeron is a really poor
football coach, but I didn’t factor in that Miami is below average if they aren’t
getting takeaways, and that Malik Rosier might just be completely cooked as a
college QB. LSU still has a tough schedule, and their visit to Auburn in two
weeks should be an absolute low scoring slug fest. If Orgeron wins that one
then I might stop making jokes about him being a Cajun Hodor.
Washington
was the better team against Auburn but they shot themselves in the foot
The Huskies had back to
back possessions in the red zone in the second half and ended them with a
missed field goal and a Jake Browning fumble. The ending of the first drive was
particularly bad because they had a TD called back by an offensive pass interference
penalty, which forced them backwards and set them up with a chance from 40
yards with their shaky kicker. If they’d come away with only field goals on
those two drives, they win 22-21 and head back to Seattle with a virtual road
win and become heavy favorites to make the playoff with their relatively easy
schedule. Instead, they screw up both those possessions and make their road to anything
beyond a Pac 12 championship significantly more difficult. Would a 12-1 conference champion Washington team make the playoff? Probably, but they have a razor
thin margin for error now.
As for Auburn, the LSU
game looms large in two weeks. Win that one and they’ll still have road games
at Mississippi State, Georgia, and Alabama. They’ll need Jarrett Stidham to be
a Heisman contender if they want to win all three of those.
Shea
Patterson didn’t look like the savior at QB that Jim Harbaugh and Michigan
needed against Notre Dame
Patterson led the
Wolverines to only three points all night, and the offense put together their
most impressive drive of the game when Patterson had to leave the field due to injury. His replacement, Dylan McCaffrey, looked poised and led them to their lone
offensive TD. Patterson appeared flustered all night and turned the ball over
twice. This is obviously a massive year for Harbaugh, and if Patterson
continues to take a dump on the field like he did on Saturday, then I don’t see
how you can’t at least throw McCaffrey in there and see what he’s got.
Harbaugh, for all the
swagger and talk, is now 9-9 in his last 18 games. As a point of reference,
Butch Jones was 8-10 in his last 18 games at Tennessee, and he got fired while
quite possibly being the worst coach in the SEC during that stretch. Harbaugh
has played 7 ranked teams the last 18 games; Butch played 6 in his final 18.
Everyone thought this Harbaugh thing was going to be a slam dunk the second it
happened, but at the end of the day he’s a pretty mediocre 28-12 in his first
40 games at Michigan. Previous coach Brady Hoke, who ended up being a disaster,
was only one game worse at 27-13. Harbaugh
is supposedly a QB whisperer and a great coach, but he only started winning big
at Stanford when he got Andrew Luck. And when he stepped into the NFL with the
Niners, he inherited a phenomenal defense in Year 1 and apex Colin Kaepernick
in Year 2. Funny how Kaepernick got worse each season under Harbaugh. And now att
Michigan, he hasn’t been able to figure out the QB position through 40 games. Harbaugh is
paid like Nick Saban, but as of yet, he’s not even remotely close to him. The
bad news is that the schedule is only going to get more difficult (at Ohio
State, at Michigan State, at Northwestern, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Penn State, and
Maryland, who beat Texas!). There is no good news.
This looks like a typical
Notre Dame Brian Kelly squad. They were the more physical team from the opening kick
and they didn’t appear affected by their offensive line losses. The Irish won’t
be tested again until September 29th when they host Stanford. If
they win that one, they’ll likely be 5-0 and in the playoff conversation.
Maryland
knocked off Texas for the second straight year and Tom Herman’s Longhorns are
far from a challenger in the Big 12
I don’t know if Tom
Herman kept the entire Texas defense out at the strip club way too late the
night before the game, but I can’t think of a better explanation for why they
sucked so much other than that. The Horns have significantly better athletes
than Maryland, a program that was completely in flux due to the Jordan McNair
situation, and yet, the Terrapins looked like the faster, quicker, more
athletic and physical team. And it’s not like the teams Texas will play the next month-plus will be worse athletically. From September 15th to October
6, they’ll play three games against ranked teams: USC, TCU, and Oklahoma.
All three of those feel like losses at this point even though the Southern Cal
and TCU games are at home.
Chip
Kelly lost his UCLA debut at home against Cincinnati
I picked the Bruins to
win the Pac 12 South, basically because I don’t think there are really any
good teams in that division, but I wouldn’t expect that to happen now with how
Saturday turned out. I’m not worried about Kelly at UCLA long term because he’s
a fantastic coach that happens to not have the right QB to run the offense he
wants to implement. It was pretty telling that they started Wilton Speight
there, a guy who is a worse athlete than I am. UCLA plays Oklahoma on Saturday,
a game they’ll probably lose to start the Kelly era off at 0-2. It looks like
it may end up being a tough year in Los Angeles, but Kelly is a sleeping giant
and will be heard from eventually.
Oklahoma,
Clemson, Georgia, Wisconsin, all rolled this weekend against vastly inferior
competition
Clemson and Georgia face
tough road games this weekend at Texas A&M and South Carolina, respectively,
while the Sooners host UCLA. Wisconsin won’t play a Power 5 team until
September 22 at Iowa. We’ll have a better idea about these four preseason
playoff contenders by the time we get to October.
Michigan
State and Penn State both almost lost to non-Power 5 teams
Utah State scored with 5:05 to go against Michigan State and led 31-30, while Appalachian State punched in a late touchdown to take a 38-31 lead on Penn
State with 1:47 to go in the game. Both the Spartans and the Nittany Lions were able to rally for a
touchdown drive of their own, and James Franklin's team was able to hold on to win in overtime,
but I wouldn’t feel good of I was either of those teams, particularly about my
defense. Throw in Ohio State, who won 77-31 against Oregon State, but still gave up 196 rushing yards, and it was a lackluster week for the Big Ten East.
Somehow, Maryland had the best week
of all the teams in that division.
-
It’s going to be a
fantastic season. Enjoy your Labor Day and Va Tech-FSU tonight!
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