College Football Roundup Week 2

Now that was a wild weekend of College Football wasn’t it? That was a lot of fun.

American:

This was a solid weekend for The American, but it was so close to being a statement weekend for the conference.

Tulane was so close, just so close to taking down Kansas State. Very heartbreaking. The Green Wave led most of game and out-gained the Wildcats by a decent margin but 2 turnovers and a controversial ending led to their demise. It could have been a huge resume builder but at least they gained some respect.

South Florida was also impressive, against an Alabama team that looked like it would be a wagon this year the Bulls went toe to toe with them into the 4th quarter before a late collapse allowed the Tide to ServPro the game.

Memphis handled Troy in a 38-17 win to set their sights on FSU next week, but it wasn’t all good in the American. UTSA was destroyed from start to finish in a blowout loss to Texas State. The Roadrunners pass defense is a concern and they didn’t run the ball well either.

If you look at the standings it’s Army and Navy on top. Army jumped on FAU early and just dominated the Owls for a tone setting win. Army is going to contend for this conference in year 1. Navy boatraced Temple on the way to a 2-0 start.

ACC:

It appears Clemson’s demise was exaggerated? What a ridiculous performance.

Cal has the most impressive non-conference performance to date. The Golden Bears went on the road to a place where many teams don’t win, forced several turnovers and took down Auburn. The ACC really needed that one.

NC State is clearly not the team everyone expected in the preseason. They are so bad up front the offense can’t even operate and their defense has taken a step back.

This conference could beat each other up a lot. Georgia Tech’s strong opening run came crashing down against Syracuse. Kyle McCord was awesome for Fran Brown’s crew. Duke’s offense didn’t perform as expected, they want to run a no huddle but can’t get it off the ground, yet still came out with a road win over Northwestern. Virginia and Pitt both came out with huge comeback wins.

We were in attendance to see Louisville beat Jacksonville State. It was a comfortable win for the Cards but there’s some things to glean from it. Louisville was very dominant in the trenches and runs the ball well but where the Cardinals have concerns are in the secondary where they struggled sometimes to cover Jax State receivers and Tyler Shough has some things to clean up too. Shough had some occasional struggles with accuracy and needs to work on what to do if his first read isn’t there.

Big Ten

Consider me genuinely concerned about Maryland after they lost to Michigan State. This is supposed to be the Terps month when they pick up wins, if they can’t win now when can they? Jonathan Smith’s crew does deserve a shootout for taming the seemingly untamable.

Michigan’s offense might be an issue, anyone in the conference that feels any sort of way about them might have their chance at revenge this year.

Impressive performances from Nebraska and Illinois. Nebraska just dominated from start to finish, once again a simply clean performance from the Huskers which is something we hadn’t been used to seeing. Illinois took advantage of a litany of turnovers to take down Kansas.

Big 12

It looked like the early slate could be really bad for this conference with Oklahoma State and Kansas State trailing most of the time. Instead both turned it around and picked up solid wins. Iowa State also picked up a big win with a late comeback to take down Iowa for the Cy-Hawk trophy.

So this Arizona State team might be legit. The Sun Devils jumped all over Mississippi State to an early 30-3 lead before getting a little sloppy late. Cam Skattebo is going to be a problem for defenses all season long.

Consider me concerned about Kansas. Kotelnicki was the architect of the offense they’re running and early returns are that things are clunky without him. 4 turnovers doomed the Jayhawks in an upset loss to Illinois.

Conference USA

After watching Jacksonville State against Louisville this weekend my biggest takeaway is that they really miss Zac Alley. The defense has completely capsized up front without him, they can’t get any pressure in the pass game and Louisville had a minimum of 5 yards up the middle every time if they wanted it. The offense took some steps forward, it appears Tyler Huff has taken the job and he looked pretty good in an extremely gritty effort. He can sling it if he has time to throw and when he runs he goes further than you think he should.

You don’t just waltz into Pitbull stadium and expect to come out with a victory. That was the case for Central Michigan as FIU dismantled them 52-16. It was an impressive effort that indicates FIU could at least contend for a bowl bid this year.

New Mexico State isn’t going to go away quietly it seems. After an offseason of change the Aggies still battled hard with Liberty before letting it slip away late. It was a struggle on Liberty’s side the Flames struggled to protect Salter and the receivers had a rough go of it too. Liberty might be more vulnerable to their conference mates than expected.

MAC

Raise the flag! This was a great headline day for the conference. Northern Illinois picked up the biggest win in their program’s history over Notre Dame and the biggest win the MAC as a whole has picked up in some time. This is a Notre Dame team that just dispatched A&M on the road, this is a legit win for the Huskies who now have the biggest resume piece of any G5 team. Northern Illinois is in the playoff race. Don’t let that allow you to lose sight of another MAC team that made a push. Bowling Green jumped all over Penn State early and led the entire first half into the 3rd quarter before allowing Penn State to escape. It was tough to not come out with a win but Bowling Green looks like a real contender this year too.

Ohio was a home underdog to South Alabama which was strange to me, but that’s sometimes the nature of a MAC vs Sun Belt game. The Bobcats did well to try to turn around that narrative by pulling off a nice win over the Jaguars.

Mountain West

Ideally this is a 2 team race. UNLV rolled again and their Houston win looks better after Houston nearly took down Oklahoma. Boise State meanwhile was just so close to a massive win. I don’t know how to feel about it because on one hand the Broncos had the Ducks dead to rights and made a lot of mistakes to miss out on a massive victory, on the other it was still a strong statement that puts the season in front of them. The nation is in Ashton Jeanty’s corner and if they win out no one will argue that they don’t deserve a playoff bid. That being said, for that to happen they need to get better in the passing game and when the passing game is struggling maybe don’t run an empty set on 2nd and 6 in a critical must have drive.

The rest of this conference is an absolute mess. Air Force is broken on offense, Wyoming has stopped doing the small things well. San Diego State and Utah State both didn’t look good.

Pac-12/Independents

The most impressive effort from this group came from Washington State. It was a slow start to the game but the Cougs jumped all over Texas Tech in the 2nd quarter and never looked back. John Mateer is going to be a lot of fun to watch all year.

Oregon State rode their defense to a decisive win over San Diego State. The Beavers might have a better shot in the Civil War than expected.

UMass still didn’t win but the Minutemen gave Toledo a together battle than expected which is a positive at least. UConn put up 56 in a half!!

SEC

Oklahoma might have some issues. The Sooners had some hidden issues against Temple when they only converted one 3rd down all game and it really came to light when the Sooners struggled with Houston in a 16-12 win.

I must apologize to South Carolina, I was not familiar with their game. The Gamecocks struggled with Old Dominion when the Monarchs weren’t playing well but maybe that’s ok. South Carolina dominated Kentucky to a 31-6 win.

Is Tennessee the biggest challenger to the trio of Georgia, Alabama and Texas? The Vols were dominant in all phases in a blowout of NC State. Nico Iamaleava made his first mistakes in this game but the throws he can make allows this machine to keep rolling. This could be a special year in Knoxville.

Sun Belt

The Sun Belt has taken a step back this season. South Alabama and Troy are now 0-2. I don’t even have words to describe how bad Appalachian State’s performance was, it was shocking to see them get run off the field like that.

It’s not all bad though. UL-Monroe is the story of the conference with a comfortable 2-0 start. The Warhawks need to maintain the momentum to start dreaming of a bowl bid. Arkansas State picked up another dramatic win and both Coastal Carolina/Louisiana are a dominant 2-0.

The biggest statement win was by Texas State. Anything you could ask of the Bobcats happened against UTSA. The offense looked great and their defense looks a lot better too. Texas State is now the favorite to win this conference.

FCS

The biggest shocker was Montana losing to North Dakota. The Grizzlies had an early lead but couldn’t get much going in the 2nd half to let it slip away. They’re figuring out a QB battle in real time which makes it difficult. This was a huge win for the Fighting Hawks, North Dakota was expected to be around the playoff bubble but this is a big time resume win.

Mentioning resume builders how about Saint Francis, Idaho and Southern Utah all taking down FBS foes. Saint Francis is going through this season as an independent and now this game gives them more attention which was needed. Idaho followed up a strong effort at Oregon by doing one better and taking down Wyoming in Laramie, the Vandals are definitely a top contender in the Big Sky. Southern Utah was a team I thought could be a contender in the UAC and the Thunderbirds backed that up with their performance.

If you think the FBS Top 25 will be tricky, try the FCS one. Now, I can’t go into this without first mentioning that ranking teams this early is silly in general, but I digress. First, there’s Sacramento State and Chattanooga who will both likely be Top 10/15 despite being 0-2 because they both opened with 2 FBS opponents. Then there’s been chaos elsewhere. Furman who made the FCS quarterfinals last season lost at home to Charleston Southern a team that went 4-7 last season and allowed The Citadel to end a long losing streak last week. Richmond is always a consistent playoff contender but they lost at home to Wofford, allowing the Terriers to already match last season’s win total. Parity reigns early in this FCS season and it’s going to take some time to sort out who’s the players outside of some of the obvious ones.