Football - Week 1 Recap

College football is SO back!

It's been a long wait for Week 1, but it finally arrived!  I was lucky enough to be present at the Vanderbilt overtime upset over Virginia Tech, then spent all evening watching as much football as I could all the way through until the wee hours of Sunday morning when Arizona crushed New Mexico.  Here's my weekend recap and thoughts on how the days panned out.

Thursday:

I missed a lot the games on Thursday night with a prior commitment, but what I did see was Colorado and Deion Sanders proving, once again, that the hype is unwarranted.  Minnesota completely threw away what should have been an easy win against North Carolina (and I'm not just talking about the last second missed field goal).   Jacksonville State was unable to recapture their season start from last year and NC State had a bit of a scare until late against a much weaker FCS opponent.  Kansas, Utah, and Missouri all proved they mean business this year in their big wins, though.

Friday:

Not a whole lot to talk about regarding Friday night.  TCU, Wisconsin, and Michigan State won as favorites, but maybe not by as much as expected?  Duke took care of Elon, but struggled to find a lot of points.  Meanwhile, Oklahoma showed that their offense isn't lost without Dillon Gabriel in their destruction Temple.

Saturday:

The first full Saturday of the college football season brought it all!  Despite most of the big names playing weak opposition, we got to see a lot of who the fakers are.  Starting with Clemson, they had a strong start against Georgia, but the Bulldogs took off near the end of the game and knocked Dabo's Tigers down a few pegs.  Virginia Tech was my model's preseason #6 and ACC favorite, but Vanderbilt came out with a strong run game and a defense worthy of note to all but end VT's hype train and playoff hopes.  After a slow start, Michigan picked it back up in time to stomp Fresno State.  Oregon looked a little nervy against Idaho, so expect a lot of concern in that camp over the next week.  Ohio State, Alabama, Texas, and Tennessee all won huge, but nobody won bigger than Ole Miss who dominated one of the FCS' best schools in Furman. After a weather delay, Penn State came out on top against West Virginia in one of the most highly anticipated first week games.  One of the most notable storylines, however, is Miami crushing Florida IN Gainesville!  Just as important, Notre Dame took down the Aggies of Texas A&M at Kyle Field in a thriller!  In the late late games, we saw Arizona comfortably take care of New Mexico in the second half.  Kansas State thumped UT Martin and Oklahoma State handled another FCS powerhouse South Dakota State.  The Big 12 will be a fun conference to watch.  Could they hang with the Big Ten and SEC when playoff season rolls around?  Meanwhile, the ACC has seen three preseason favorites in Clemson, Florida State and Virginia Tech all take huge knocks early.

Sunday and Monday:

LSU and USC faced off on Sunday night in a heated battle in Vegas.  After an even-matched shootout, USC won it late late in the 4th.  On Labor Day, Florida State got their opportunity to bounce back against Boston College at home.  However, it was Boston College who came out firing on all cylinders and after a disgusting performance by the Seminoles defensive line and quarterback DJ Uiagalelei, the Florida State playoff hope has come to a crashing halt early in 2024.

Final Thoughts:

It's been a long wait for football to return, but it's finally here.  The big winners after Week 1 have to be Georgia, Miami, and USC.  The big losers so far are Florida State (looking back to Week 0), Virginia Tech, Clemson, and LSU, who can't seem to find a Week 1 to save their lives.  There's plenty of teams who still have a lot of questions to answer like Oregon, but with an expansion to 12 teams in the playoff, it's hard to say that anybody is out of it just yet...except maybe Florida State.