What a start to the season. I didn't think it could possibly live up to the expectations, but it most certainly did. And there's a lot of talking points that have come about from the weekend and it's time to go through them. I will preface this post by saying, these are far from stone cold facts, I think if you go back to years past, you'll find that making snap judgments after week one turned out to be a bad idea, but it's still important to recap.
The Preseason Polls Got Obliterated
Week one proved that preseason polls should never be relied upon. There are so many reasons why they're so unreliable but I won't say that they should be outlawed because they're a good starting point to the college football season. Could you imagine if college football made everyone unranked and waited until after week one to come out with their first top 25? It would be very hard for the television networks to promote their matchups without those preseason rankings.
All in all, there were 16 matchups between ranked teams vs unranked teams, and only six of those were between power 5 schools. Of those six matchups, three of those matchups went to the unranked team. To make matters even worse for the preseason rankings, all three of the teams that went down were top 10 teams. Even in the matchups between ranked teams and non-power 5 teams, many ranked teams looked quite underwhelming in their victories.
The SEC Besides Alabama/Georgia Doesn't Look Very Good, But Neither Does Anyone Else
You'd think that the SEC was the only conference that looked bad this past weekend. In truth, no conference looked all that good. While the SEC's Mississippi State began the post-Dak Prescott era with a loss to the Sun Belt's South Alabama, the Big Ten's Northwestern lost to the MAC's Western Michigan. And sure, preseason darling, Tennessee eeked out a win against Appalachian State, but Michigan State also eeked out a win to an FCS school, Furman and the Big Ten powerhouses (Ohio State, Michigan) had glorified bye weeks.
Heading out west, the Pac-12 South looks like a high school athletic league with how bad they played. UCLA was lucky to have gone to OT with Texas A&M, once again proving how overrated they are. While the other LA school, USC looked like an FCS school against Alabama as Lane Kiffin got his revenge for the tarmac firing. Then in the desert, BYU stooged Rich Rod's Arizona Wildcats, completing the terrible weekend for the Pac-12 South. Sure, UCLA can easily bounce back and make this division look respectable, but I'm not sure it's going to matter in the end. And even the Pac-12 North couldn't escape a lousy result as Washington State was upset by Eastern Washington.
Looking over the SEC, I do think the reigns need to be pulled back just a bit. There is one hyped team that I will write off and that teams is the LSU Tigers who once again have proven that they're allergic to the forward pass and Les Miles continues to commit coaching malpractice on an extremely talented team that will undoubtedly take the NFL by storm as they always do. I'm not ready to write off Ole Miss, I don't think losing to Florida State is anything to be ashamed of. I think Ole Miss can jump back into the picture with a win over Alabama in two weeks, but only just. After the first half of the Ole Miss/FSU game, I was ready to conclude that Alabama/Ole Miss was going to be a really tough game for the Tide since Ole Miss looked like they had the formula to give Alabama fits, but then an anemic hurry up offense and turnovers gave FSU the ingredients of a great comeback so the first half narrative got buried. And I think Texas A&M is a sleeper in the SEC West, their tremendous pass rush gave UCLA's Josh Rosen a nightmare but A&M will have to beat Alabama on the road in Tuscaloosa if they have any chance of making it to Atlanta.
Heading to the SEC East, Florida looks unimpressive and so does Tennessee. I'm quite bullish on the Gators until proven otherwise, but Tennesee can easily change their narrative next week against Virginia Tech but they might have to do so with a quarterback change as that appears to be what is holding back a very talented Vols squad. In three weeks, Tennessee will play Florida on Rocky Top and I still expect Tennessee to dominate the Gators, the week after that they'll play against Kirby Smart's Georgia in Athens which now appears to be the game of the year in the SEC East.
All in all, the SEC doesn't look good at all, but no conference out there looks all that strong either. The SEC did not face any FCS schools in week one, and with how crazy week one can be at times, that can often lead to some bad results, the jury is out on all the conferences and that may not change for several weeks.
Houston Looks Like A Playoff Contender, But Are They Really?
Nobody made a better statement in week one than the Houston Cougars as they upset the number 4 ranked, Oklahoma Sooners. And the voters responded by slingshotting the Cougars into the 6th spot in the rankings. The early response is that Houston will give the committee a huge discussion come December when the playoff is decided, but I'm still not convinced that this win is going to give them a fair shake, they're going to have to hope that Oklahoma bounces back and that Louisville stays strong in the ACC, or else the committee will probably make Houston the victim of the question that his plagued a lot of non-AQ teams, "What have you done for me lately?" Who knows, maybe Louisville will upset either Clemson/FSU or both and that game will act as a de facto national quarterfinal, we'll just have to keep a close eye on these factors as the weeks go on.
Texas Looks Like They're Back
I hate when pundits make proclamations like this about traditional powerhouses who just got one big win. Is Texas back? NO. They won't be back until they win the Big 12 and are in the College Football Playoff year in and year out. With that said, didn't they look impressive? That Tyrone Swoopes run in double OT is one of those plays I'll be replaying over and over again on youtube as the years go on, but again, I think I'm going to pump my brakes on this as well. Over the years, no team has been more overhyped and ballyhooed by the preseason polls than Notre Dame, if the Irish can pull off some wins as the year goes on, this win will still look impressive for Texas but if not, this will look like an epic overreaction by the national media.
As for Texas, we'll learn just how good they are in the coming weeks. I think they're going to blow out Cal in Berkeley because there's no way Cal's going to have any chance of tackling that 18 wheeler, Tyrone Swoopes and Cal already had trouble with Hawaii's offense so that says it all. Then on October 8th, the Red River Rivalry will commence again and we'll see if Oklahoma can salvage their season by beating their rivals and spurning the burnt orange momentum.
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What a week it was. I love college football and this past weekend has made me so excited for what the rest of the season has in store. I'll be coming up with the television guide for week two on Wednesday, we'll see if week two has any chance of measuring up to the amazing week one in college football.
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