College Football: Thoughts on Saturday, Sept 3rd

By the time the Alabama game ended I was bleary eyed. It had been a long, long day of college football. A spectacular day full of upsets, blowouts, close games and 3 OT thrillers. And while I admit that I didn't stay up for the last one, Wyoming beat NIU in 3OT's somewhere around 3:30 AM CST, I did watch quite a lot of it.  Here are my thoughts on the same:

1. Alabama is good, Nick Saban is evil.  The win over USC proved some things that I thought would be true. Clay Helton, son of Love Coach, is not going to be the head coach to get the Trojans back to the top of the mountain. Alabama is going to be incredibly good, Lane Kiffin is a good OC, and is going to get a HC job again, and promptly run another program into the ground.

2.The SEC is NOT good  this year. Outside of Alabama who looked good? LSU and Auburn have no offense and lost because of it. Florida might have a good team, but they're weak at the skill positions. (Del Rio is overrated as a QB IMO). Miss State has a coach who wants out so badly he can't hardly stand it (and they have no QB). Georgia and Texas aTm looked pretty good, but do you think either can beat Bama?

3. The Big XII had an awful first Saturday, with OU losing and TCU struggling. Only Baylor won big, against lesser competition. They desperately need Texas to look good against Notre Dame today. Otherwise they might want to invite Houston to join this year, if they want a place in the CFP that is. Oh, and Kansas won a game for the first time in almost two years.

4. Houston is good. The biggest surprise to me is not that UH won, it's that they looked to be a physical match for the Sooners. Houston had just as many, if not more athletes on the field as the Sooners, and they appeared to be better, stronger, faster throughout the lineup. Want to see something scary? Go find the video of the Houston LB knocking OU running back Perine out of the game in the 1st half. Usually you see Perine giving those hits, not taking them.  Herman has a monster on his hands.

5. Good day for the B1G. Ohio State, Michigan and Wisconsin all looked good. And yes, there are questions about Michigan State (who struggled) and we know that there are bad teams in this conference (Hi Rutgers!) but the big guns looked like big guns and if things continue then "The Game" this year could be spectacular.

6. The ACC is not going to be very good.  The UNC loss hurt, and the Clemson win was not spectacular. In fact, outside of Clemson it's hard to look at the ACC and say that they have any other team that's belonging in the Top 10.Miami looked good, but against lesser competition. The ACC is looking to Florida State...and hoping.

7. The PAC 12 had an awful day.  And I'm not just talking about USC. Washington State lost to an FCS opponent for the 2nd straight year, Arizona lost to BYU. Oregon and Arizona State looked average.  And UCLA's vaunted offense struggled in College Station vs. the Aggies. At least it appears that Stanford is a real contender.

8. All of that said, it's JUST ONE DAY, and every year we're reminded that an early loss, especially in week one, is not the worst thing in the world. Nor is an early win the biggest sign of future success.

9. We need to ban preseason polls. They make no sense, are not worth anything, and they skew the conversation. Clemson did not look like the #2 team in the country, and two of the top 5 lost.  Let's skip the polls and just play the first 5 or so weeks before we worry about ranking teams.

10. Yesterday was a long, exciting, spectacular day. I can't wait for next week where the matchups are nowhere near as exciting, but still should provide a surprise or three.

11. My five this week was a shambles, as it is week one every year.  That said, in all games I did better than average. What I need to do (again) is improve my confidence rankings. I'll have a full 5 write-up later today or tomorrow.

12, Two final thoughts.....
       1. Some Kansas fans rushed the field after beating FCS Rhode Island, a team who went 1-10 last year.  While it is funny, and Kansas fans are lashing out on social media, you can kind of understand why they did this. Their last win was 34-14 over Iowa State. November 8, 2014.
      2. The best thing you're going to see from yesterday was Nebraska's missing man formation in memory of teammate Sam Foltz, who was tragically killed in a car accident in the off season.  Well done Huskers.