Week 1 CFB Review
As the first official weekend of college football is just about in the books, here are some key takeaways and thoughts I had from what I saw out on the field:
Beyond the SEC giants, the rest of the conference is incredibly mediocre to below average.
Now, this was probably one of the biggest storylines to takeaway from week 1 of the CFB season. We saw Tennessee get taken down by FCS school Georgia State at home, and to be honest, it was never even a close game. We know that Tennessee has been a highly dysfunctional football program for a while now, but getting embarrassed by a team that went just 2–10 in the FCS a year before? This might be a new low for the Volunteers.
That being said, we saw the ever so popular Missouri Tigers get stunned at Wyoming last night. I understand that Missouri had the NCAA sanctions against them leading to a postseason ban, but this result truly came in as a stunner. The Cowboys had the lead for the majority of the game and ended up knocking off Mizzou 37–31. Ban or not, this is not the start that head coach Barry Odom and new transfer quarterback Kelly Bryant had in mind. Bryant himself had a very productive game, passing for over 400 yards, and throwing 2 touchdowns, but did not get very much help from the rest of his offense, or defense that is. The defense gave us several huge touchdown runs as the secondary was getting shredded. Overall, the play by Missouri was incredibly sloppy and Wyoming capitalized on their mistakes and ultimately came out victorious.
These were the two major shockers in the SEC this weekend, but we did see some more unpromising results as well. We saw the Tar Heels of North Carolina knock off South Carolina after a marvelous comeback from Sam Howell and UNC in a game that most believed that the SEC east stronghold Gamecocks should have been able to win. On top of that, Ole Miss dropped a low-scoring game to G5 foe Memphis, 15–10, after a flat performance on Saturday. Mississippi State only beat low-level FBS Louisiana Lafayette by 10 points, 38–28. Even Arkansas struggled mightily, defeating FCS’ Portland State by only one possession, 20–13.
We saw SEC powerhouses Alabama, LSU, Auburn, and Florida all win big to start off the season. But it is the middle of the pack that is going to raise questions about the depth of the most relevant football conference in America.
The Auburn-Oregon game was electric!
As most of us expected, this was going to be the best game of the weekend. Two ranked opponents that we obviously know have some history with each other, dating back to the national championship featuring Auburn’s Cam Newton. To quote the famous viral video, “they had us in the first half, not gonna lie”, is essentially the theme of this game. Oregon controlled the first half with ease and honestly should have pulled away even more if it wasn’t for a few blunders and other failures to finish off drives. Oregon QB Justin Herbert had a great performance, but we saw he just did not have enough weapons around him to maintain the lead in the second half. Auburn was able to remain patient, and not go into panic mode when down by multiple scores. They were able to string together a few successful scoring drives on offense and big defensive stops on defense to climb right back into the game. Down by just 1 point towards the end of the 4th quarter is when true freshman Auburn QB Bo Nix entered the bright lights. Showing his inexperience and flaws throughout most of the game, he was able to step up to the task when it truly mattered. They drove down the field successfully, making big throws and managing their time accordingly, and capped it off with a beautiful 26-yard game-winning touchdown to lead the Tigers to the huge win over a fellow ranked opponent.
After Auburn mounted their incredible comeback, we now question the relevancy of the Pac-12. Oregon, arguably the most talented team in the conference, lost another important game to help the conference stay relevant, and in the most deliberating fashion too. We will see what happens as we go along through the rest of the season, but it certainly is not looking like any Pac-12 teams will be in playoff conversations any time soon.
Another year of the QB?
Along with Auburn’s Bo Nix, we saw some other stellar performances from quarterbacks around college football. Washington’s Jacob Eason inserted himself right into the very early Heisman conversation after throwing for 349 yards and 4 TD’s in the win for the Huskies. The Georgia transfer looked extremely poised and ready to reclaim the throne in the Pac-12. As well, LSU’s Joe Burrow looked like a well-oiled machine for the Tigers after throwing for 5 touchdowns in an easy win over Georgia Southern. The biggest quarterback surprise of the weekend was undoubtedly Boise State’s freshman QB Hank Bachmeier threw for over 400 yards in a fairly stunning win over Florida State. These will certainly be all big names to watch over the course of the entire season.
The college football season has only just begun, and there are already so many storylines to follow. We will see how the week progresses, and can only hope we get an even more fun 2nd weekend of the season!
Brandon Zapotoski (@bzapthrone)
Founder of Sports Throne
