College Football Week 1 Recap

Dude…

As week 1 wrapped up in college football, there were some MAJOR takeaways from the week. With a stacked schedule of intriguing matchups this weekend, and no NFL Football to compete with, college football truly felt fully back. People tailgating, students forgetting to do their homework for gameday, or adults finally getting to enjoy their weekend with a beer and football. No matter which category you fell in, FOOTBALL IS BACK!! No more going out with the wife to shop, no more unplanned dinner parties, or late-night conversations. Just FOOTBALL. Here are a few key takeaways from the Dudes and Sports, who enjoyed football being back just like your average sports fan.

PC’s takeaways

Colorado is Legit

We didn’t know what to expect from Deion Sanders in his first year as the head coach in Boulder. With lots of transfers coming in, no one expected the buffs to be able to compete with the NCAA Championship runner-up TCU Horned Frogs. We were wrong. Shedeur Sanders showed out. He went 38-47, 510 yards, and 5 TOUCHDOWNS! He didn’t throw any picks and certainly had his coming out moment as a legit college QB and Heisman Trophy candidate. He could not miss. He had one or two throws that missed Travis Hunter on a deep ball but that’s it. Speaking of Travis Hunter, when was the last time you saw someone play both sides of the ball for that many snaps?? I couldn’t tell you. However, I can tell you not to throw the ball his way if he’s on defense. He had some truly spectacular defensive plays, including a pick where he flew like Superman! I’ve never seen such an underneath route get picked off like that. I mean, it looked like a wide-open receiver, when at the very last second Travis Hunter snagged the ball out of mid-air. If I’m Nebraska coming into Boulder this week, I’m telling my quarterback to avoid that side of the field entirely!!! To round out this dynamic offense is their running back Dylan Edwards. Let me be clear, this kid is 5’10 and scored three touchdown passes and also had a rushing touchdown!! Edwards has been on Deion’s radar since he was 4 years old. Edwards came in as a big question mark. He’s not that anymore. This kid is fast. Like really fast. He scored a 46-yard touchdown in the 4th quarter from a throw into the flat to put the Buffs up 45-42. He outran the entire defense. The TCU safety took a bad angle and Edwards flew past him. The Buffs would make one key stop on defense to beat the Horned Frogs 45-42. Colorado is incredible but they still have work to do. Allowing a struggling TCU offense to drop 42 points on you won’t work against teams like USC or Oregon. They also need to establish their run game more to allow guys like Hunter to get more one-on-one opportunities. Even with these minor tweaks they need to adjust, they put the whole country on notice. Sander’s keeps receipts, and you won’t ever catch me betting against the Buffs again.

The Last Year of the Pac 12 Will be the Best Ever

If you haven’t heard yet, after this season, the Pac-12 doesn’t exist anymore. USC, UCLA, Oregon, and Washington are going to the Big 10. Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and Arizona are going to the Big 12. Stanford and California are going to the ACC. Leaving Oregon State and Washington State without a conference. The rumor is they will be joining the Mountain West, but nothing is official. With a dissolving league, you think their sports would be bad. That’s been the opposite of this conference this year. Last year’s Heisman Trophy winner, Caleb Williams, and the USC Trojans were supposed to be the front-runners. In two weeks, they’ve dominated in both games, and Caleb looks better than ever. Oregon and Bo Nix were supposed to be good as well. They put up 81 POINTS IN THEIR OPENER!!! Bo Nix looks awesome and the team looks to continue to put themselves into the Pac-12 championship picture. As mentioned above, Colorado came out and demonstrated the Deion Era is here and here to stay (at least til next year). Washington was a top-15 team and blew out Boise State behind Micheal Penix Jr.’s 5 touchdowns. Oregon State has transfer DJ Uiagalelei showing why he was one of the best QB transfers in the portal. He put up 239 yards and 3 touchdowns against San Jose State in their win. Utah took care of Florida pretty easily on Thursday night with a collective win. Arizona, Arizona State, and UCLA, all won pretty easily. Even the teams at the bottom of the division in Stanford, Cal, Washington State, and Stanford won as well. The Pac 12 went UNDEFEATED!!!! This may be the conference to watch this year.

Do you give up on the Big 12?

Some of the worst losses came from the Big 12 this week. First, Baylor lost to Texas State. Now, that sounds bad but let me make it worse. They lost by 11 and were NEVER IN THE GAME??! I mean come on. A Sun Belt conference team with mostly new transfers DISMANTLED this Big 12 Team. The Bears defense just looked bad. They had no confidence and no leaders to help them stop the Texas State offense. Baylor is going to have a LONG week in practice after an ass-whipping like that. The other terrible loss in the Big 12 was Texas Tech. They lost to the Cowboys from Laramie 35-33. It went to double overtime and the Red Raiders couldn’t get a stop on the 2-point conversion. The team looked ok, but again, you LOST TO WYOMING FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!! Wyoming wasn’t even picked to win the Mountain West. BY A LOT!!! The only good Big 12 Texas team this year is leaving for the SEC next year. They need to figure it out. Props to Wyoming though, it was a hell of a game. So, lots of upsets in week one and a few blowouts. Kansas had a close battle through the first half with Missouri State. Houston beat UTSA by 7. West Virginia stood no chance against Penn State. From week one, the Big 12 looks soft. However, you shouldn’t be worried about the Big 12. The Kansas State Wildcats lost their opener against Tulane last year and came back and won the conference. Yes, these are some disappointing losses, but you shouldn’t throw in the towel for a team from the Big 12 making the College Football Playoffs. Shoutout to Wyoming again, what a win!

How6rd’s Takeaways

Jordan Travis started off strong in pursuit of the Heisman

LSU didn’t look like the team we saw a year ago lead by Brian Kelly to start the year, but especially in the second half of the Seminoles opener Jordan Travis looks in better form than last season. Giving the Tigers’ defense more than they were able to mentally handle FSU’s offense and defense looks very explosive to make some huge noise this season which is always fun for football (outside of Florida, Miami, and other ACC fans). Mike Norvell struggled mightily in his first season, but since then he has completely flipped this program and now returned it back to the Jimbo Fisher glory days. The Seminoles showed off the rip that they’re able to compete with anyone this year. The receiving core and running back in Trey Benson are very lethal weapons paired with a QB that can make a huge play out of thin air. After seeing what went down Monday night the door is WIDE open for Travis and Florida State to reclaim the ACC throne and potentially an intense Heisman race against Caleb Williams.

Duke is good, Clemson is,,,not?

When Duke had the ball in their season opener they didn’t look bad at all as the offensive line that was highly talked about looked solid with Riley Leonard doing equal work with his arm and his legs. The defense looked pretty deep and solid also (excluding some major mistakes that we’ll get to in a second) and head coach Mike Elko has made this team very strong as they didn’t get scared after either of their mistakes in the first half. Now talking about mistakes…Clemson had those all game and looked like they just started practicing last week. Cade Klubnik is way more raw than people thought he was going to be and has a ways to go before truly being able to lead Dabo Swinney’s offense and the team as a whole just looks…off? I’m not making excuses for Clemson, but with the amount of mistakes they had in this game I feel like we gotta see more before considering this team as garbage because they shot themselves in the foot more than they got outworked. The top-10 AP ranking was by far a huge overestimate as there’s just not enough on the team this season as in the past to make any conversation for a playoff appearance, but it’ll be interesting after a couple of weeks of (what should be) easy games until the FSU powerhouse rolls through Memorial Stadium.

Penn State FINALLY Has an Elite Quarterback

Now I know Christian Hackenberg Trace McSorely weren’t awful, but after the atrocity in how inconsistent Sean Clifford was last year true sophomore Drew Allar already is a huge breath of fresh air. The Nittany Lions looked very fluent as an offense and the run game didn’t even have to carry the workload for it to be that way although Nicholas Singleton looked solid as well. Allar showed both his short pass accuracy and rocket of an arm in game one and did more than enough to put the game out of reach of West Virginia in the second half. The second year college quarterback looks to be the first of his position taken off the board at the moment and clearly the best quarterback in the Big 10 (even though the bar is not high). The competition needs to be better before we can give any further praise to Penn State as a whole, but with how shaky Ohio State looks the Michigan Wolverines could be the only team in their conference standing in the way. The playcalling needs to be a bit more consistent and less conservative, but if Allar continues to look like he did in the first week we could be looking at a star in the making at quarterback for once playing in Happy Valley.

K Stelts Game recaps

No. 2 Michigan 30, East Carolina 3 – Recap

The Pirates had a lot to go up against when facing the reigning two-time Big 10 champions. The wolverines were doing all they could to honor their head coach, who was suspended by their own school, for buying a player a cheeseburger. Other than that the Wolverines need to pass more to win big games, and I assume they will since they didn’t want to give away their entire playbook on a power 5 school

No. 12 Tennessee 49, Virginia 13 – Recap

Virginia needs a lot of help in their backside defense. The Vols basically threw air raids all over the field on them. But other than that Vols did not have a lot of good looks when facing a poor defense. This is the first week but the Vols QB Joe Milton has some questions on the throwing side, Yes he had two TDs in the air but when they're facing good SEC teams will he be able to change the game?

Colorado 45, No. 17 TCU 42 -- Takeaways, recap

Wow, what a game. And I don’t think this is a recap saying that TCU sucks, the Colorado Buffs are good and they are full of talent that would put other teams in a great ranking for the season. Travis Hunter is a dawg, and Dylan Edwards is an athlete and pure RB. And the Sanders Kid can ball out. He’s a little undeveloped but with more playing time and a great coach/dad, he will grow his performance.

No. 20 Oklahoma 73, Arkansas State 0 – Recap

Other than Ark ST. coach crying the Sooners did their Job, they are good and their coaching still scares me. But in reality, their only big scare will be Texas which hopefully they can beat in the Red River Bowl.

No. 15 Oregon 81, Portland State 7 Recap

Bo Nix did his job and is too old, 81 is ridiculous but that’s what happens when you play Portland State who’s more worried about their pronouns than their football program. Love the Pac-12 teams rn though

No. 10 Washington 56, Boise State 19 Recap

Wanted to see if this game would be competitive but I forgot Washington is very good and Penix is a Heisman Candidate. Boise has nothing to beat good teams like this and their blue field is still the worst in college football.

No. 3 Ohio State 23, Indiana 3 -- Takeaways, recap

We knew Indiana wasn’t going to perform offensively, and the Ohio State defense would be good, but the problem with this game is where the Ohio State offense is going to go this season. Indiana is a big-time school but this game should’ve been a shellacking.

No. 11 Texas 37, Rice 10 – Recap

The matchup between these two Texas schools was boring, to say the least, or just a look to see if Texas will be back, again. Rice did all they could to make it close, but Texas did their thing and ran some very interesting play designs on offense.

No. 13 Notre Dame 56, Tennessee State 3 – Recap

Again this is another game of “get paid a lot of money to get beat”. Notre Dame, who is in the ACC now, needs to do a lot of showing-n-telling to show the poll voters they are worthy of being in the playoff contention at the end of the year. Their wide receiver room is stacked and their QB is experienced and a gamer. Not much competition in the ACC other than Wake Forest and North Carolina.

No. 1 Georgia 48, UT Martin 7 – Recap

The Bulldogs gave up a touchdown to a bad team, which means they’re not going back-to-back-to-back. But their new QB, who is the rizz god himself, is fast and scrappy and can put balls in the right spot… Don’t hold back on this team, but they have a lot to do to become a dynasty in the SEC with all the fantastic teams.

No. 6 USC 66, Nevada 14 – Recap

Although Nevada put up some impressive plays, the Trojans are a powerhouse on offense, The only thing they need to worry about is their defense, it's explosive but they’re young and in a bad defensive conference. Caleb Williams is a magician but will he be able to carry the team in clutch moments? We will have to see.

No. 23 Texas A&M 52, New Mexico 10 Recap

The Aggies did their job against a bad school in this first week of play. Nothing special in any terms but the real test will be in next week’s matchup vs Miami. They should have their ranking coming into week 3 but they may be exposed sooner than later due to suspensions and interesting play calling.

No. 4 Alabama 56, Middle Tennessee 7 – Recap

Well, Alabama did their Job, their QB has a lot of work to do against good teams in the SEC and looks a little skittish for an Alabama QB. The game against Texas will be a big one. If you aren’t watching it this next Saturday, then what the heck are you doing, sports fans?

Wyoming 35, Texas Tech 33 -- Recap

Is this a story about how Wyoming is good again or Texas Tech being overrated? In my opinion, it’s about Wyoming proving to the college world they are a good football team. Tech had a lot of media attention in the Big 12 this preseason but I think that happens a lot since they are known as giant killers late in the season. It could be another year of them sucking in the first half of the season and becoming a scary team during the latter half of the season. Other than that if Wyoming continues to win they could maybe get an AP Poll vote and get a big bowl game at the end of the year. Great game altogether.

No. 7 Penn State 38, West Virginia 15 -- Takeaways, recap

Penn State is in good hands, and WVU needs some help. Their culture changed once KU came in last year and beat them in OT. After that, they fired their coach and have never been the same. But Penn State is in a new era for their team and they deserve a playoff spot if they continue to play with this intensity.

No. 21 North Carolina 31, South Carolina 17 – Recap

Although this game didn’t look close it was in a weird way. The Gamecocks have a poor planning process against UNC, and UNC has a better QB and a better defense than people said they had. They’ve always played hard and deserve to show that they are a big-time public school powerhouse in the ACC. They have a shot to show the ACC they can ball. Hopefully, they are undefeated when playing Duke because two good Football teams in basketball schools are exactly what college football needs.

UCLA 27, Coastal Carolina 13 – Recap

Coastal Carolina isn’t a bad program, they have good players, but UCLA has too much depth. The end of the game was pretty forthcoming for the Bruins. Moore looks to be the starter for the Bruins and Kelly needs to plan for this season under his new QB toy he's got. They have a good offense but it takes a lot to show how good they really want to be.

Missouri 35, South Dakota 10 – Recap

Mizzou did their job against a decent FCS team, their offense showed promise when the team was curious about if their QB was going to perform at the level an SEC QB should compete at. The defense is stacked and returning for blood. But their offense will have the test to see if they can compete for some championship blood.

Minnesota 13, Nebraska 10 – Recap

I didn’t even know what to think about this game, the Cornhuskers, and in a deep, dark hole and it seems like nothing can bring them out of it. The lack of offense was foreseen but the football world has been waiting for Nebraska to become a good team again, their donors are getting frustrated too as well. This team has a state-of-the-art facility but can’t figure out how to win games. Good job Gophers. I don’t know what to think of them, they lost a lot of good players and their games are always going to be cold.

Utah 24, Florida 11 – Recap

Utah still has a serious offense in regards to this game but Florida altogether stinks badly. Their defense may get better, but when you lose players every year to the draft and can’t recruit well, it’ll be hard to win each year. Utah still has that ability to shut down teams on defense, hopefully, that can get carried into the Big 12 when they arrive.

UCF 56, Kent State 6 – Recap

Although UCF looked very dominant in this game, if their QB doesn’t run, he’s a little sketch. Other than that I think UCF just beat up on a bad team this week. They have a lot more to go through when they play teams like K-State, Oklahoma, and Kansas. They will need a lot more to beat these teams than what they showed on Thursday

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Wake Forest 37, Elon 17 – Recap

Griffis is a dawg, a big-time passer to a lovely offensive scheme. The problem I have is the Wake Forest defense. They allowed a lot of points for this type of offensive team. Offensively they can make it a shootout every game. They can make a point to show up in the conference championship game

Kansas 48, Missouri State 17 – Recap

Other than a couple of silly penalties from KU the offensive side of the ball looks pretty solid. Holding back their Big 12 offensive player of the year in game 1 due to back tightness, the offense did well. The one thing KU is for sure going to become a run power team. Still need to see more if this team wants to become a top 5 in the conference.