College FB Plus: Let the chaos begin
For an opening weekend, it was more than sufficient with drama, a bit of controversy, some surprises, but mostly entertainment,from noon to midnight (or earlier for you West Coast CFB junkies).
After a spring and summer of speculation about the direction and structure of the sport, college football gave us Week 1 (with more to come on this Labor Day weekend).
And as usual, it didn't disappoint.
It started on Thursday with the renewal of the Backyard Brawl between Pitt and West Virginia (they have to make this happen every year) with Pitt holding on in a wild and well played 38-31 showdown.
That was a set-up which gave us the Prime-time spotlight of Notre Dame showing some grit before being worn down by Ohio State, 21-10, which makes new coach Marcus Freeman 0-2 in his short career in South Bend (just had to throw that tidbit in wake up the echoes of the always hungry ND fans.
And it showed once again that few non-SEC teams come out of encounters with the Florida Gators in The Swamp alive, although Utah went down to the final seconds.
Florida now has won 33 consecutive victories in its season opener, the longest winning streak in the country
Or anywhere in SEC territory as Georgia's 49-3 rout of Oregon in Atlanta also proved.
Let's begin.
Who's Hot
Vanderbilt
We can say this now. Vandy is now 2-0, taking its opening game romp over Hawaii and improved on that with a 42-31 win over Elon on Saturday. The Vegas O/U on Vandy wins for the season was 2.5, so one more win will do it.
There are a few more chances. Next week brings a less than completely healthy Wake Forest team to Nashville, which was followed by a trip to Northern Illinois, which won its opener against Eastern Illinois on Saturday.
Party is over after that with a trip to Alabama.
The SEC
No surprise, really, but with non-conference openers of Oregon-Georiga, Utah vs. Florida, Arkansas-Cincinnati , and LSU vs. Florida State. the conference swept through Saturday's games without a blemish, with LSU coach Brian Kelly favored to make his Tiger debut on Sunday night against the Seminoles a successful one.
The rest of the SEC won it's games, so the slate is clean.
The PAC 12 (Big Ten)
Ohio State and Michigan flexed their muscles as did Michigan State and Wisconsin, but the newly minted members of the Big Ten-UCLA and USC as expected rolled to easy opening victories.
USC started the Lincoln Riley era with a bang posting a 66-14 win over Rice, which was expected, but the Trojans returned to the days when they were squashing instead of struggling against lesser opponents
.With nearly two dozen transfers, the Trojans did not fooling around with Rice
""We understand in this city, we've got to go prove who we are as a team,'' said Riley, who took the money and headed west from Oklahoma to revive USC football.
It took UCLA and Coach Chip Kelly a little longer to put on their game face in a 45-17 victory over Bowling Green.
Slow start (trailing 17-7) blow out finish.
As I told our guys, I hope our goal is that this will be the worst game we play,'' said Kelly.
Who's Not
The Pac-12, the states of Utah and Colorado
Utah was a narrow favorite over Florida--remarkable in its own right--but the Utes were driving towards the Gators end zone for what would have been a game-winning TD when Amari Burney intercepted a Cameron Rising pass in the end zone to preserve a 29-26 "upset.''
That coupled with Utah's State expected loss to Alabama as well as Colordao's romp over TCU and Michigan crushing Colorado State gave those Rocky Mountain States an 0-for on opening weekend.
Utah and Oregon, both regarded as among the "elite' Pac-12 programs, took body blows for their CFP playoff hopes.
Boston College
What can you say. The Eagles' were seven point favorites against a Rutgers team which really didn't have a QB and still squandered a second half lead into a 22-21 loss.
So it's 0-1, instead of 1-0 and now the Eagles must travel to Virginia Tech team to face a Hokie squad that lost to ODU in its opener.
That's not good since Tech will be dealing with a home crowd that will be ini no mood to see its teams start 0-2 with losses to ODU and BC.
Danger lurks for the Eagles, who should win but...
Navy, Army
Losses to Delaware and Coastal Carolina is not the way to start the season, although both winning programs are solid.
Say What
Strange Match Ups
Stanford 41, Colgate 10
North Carolina 63, Appalachian State 61
Iowa 7, South Dakota State 3
Baylor 69 Albany (NY) 10
Houston 37, UTSA 35 (3 OT)
Play it Forward
(Games of note next weekend)
Alabama at Texas
Tennessee at Pitt
Kentucky at Florida
Iowa State at Iowa
Top 10
1. Alabama
2. Georgia
3. Ohio State
4. Clemson
5. Michigan
6. USC
7. Oklaholma
8. Baylor
9. Texas A&M
10, OIe Miss.