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The first weekend of the college football season was filled with blowout wins by many of the favorites while their victims hired a Brinks’ truck to haul home their very large paychecks.
Let’s review cover some of the good, the bad, and ugly things from this Labor Day opening weekend of college football.
SEC Blowouts Galore
In the SEC, four different games played on Saturday had the winning team with a 60 point or greater margin of victory. Preseason #5 Alabama, #6 Ole Miss, #15 Tennessee and unranked Auburn all posted victories by 60 or more points to set an all-time SEC record.
What does that tell you about any of those teams? Not very much. It does mean that they desperately wanted to “impress” the football poll voters to help enhance their rankings heading into next week.
Except at Florida
The consensus is that the Florida Gators had the toughest schedule in the 134-team FBS upper division in 2024. Their home opener against in-state rival and #18-rated Miami certainly qualified as a tough start. The Hurricanes blasted the Gators – in Gainesville – by a final score of 41-17 in a game that wasn’t nearly as close as the final score indicated.
“It’s embarrassing, to be quite honest with you,” said Florida head coach Billy Napier. “That’s how I feel. That’s how our kids feel. We’ve got a decision to make. There’s no excuses. Keep our mouths shut, show up and work. We have to do better.”
It will take a miraculous improvement by the Gators in the weeks to come for Coach Napier (now in his third season) to remain in charge of this team next season.
#13 was an unlucky number for the LSU Tigers in Las Vegas
The Las Vegas Sunday night match-up between #13-ranked LSU and #23 USC was expected to be a tight game with a very high scoring total. The Vegas betting line expected at least 65 points to be scored by the two teams. It never materialized.
USC’s 27-20 win over LSU came on a surprising 13-yard touchdown run (there’s that unlucky number 13 again). The USC runner plowed over the right side of the Tigers’ defense with just eight seconds remaining to provide the winning points.
The defenses for both teams performed better than last season. However, going from a “D” grade to a “C” isn’t very impressive.
LSU’s offense failed to score any points on its 8-minute opening drive in the first quarter. After that, the Tigers never seemed to regain control of the football game.
The Tigers also committed a few self-inflicted wounds with unnecessary personal fouls which immediately hurt the team. The post-game remarks of head coach Brian Kelly revealed his disappointment.
“The thing that is most concerning for me are the personal fouls,” said Coach Kelly. They’re undisciplined penalties. That falls back on me. We take pride in running a disciplined program, but we have clearly not done a good enough job there because it impacted the game.”
USC moved to 1-0 entering its first season in the Big Ten Conference. LSU’s chances of finishing 10-2 and earning a playoff spot just took a big hit with this season-opening loss.
Introducing the 2-minute warning (oops, “timeout”) in college football???
Did you happen to notice the new two minute “2-minute” warnings during the second and fourth quarters of this weekend’s college football games?
A 60-minute college football game (due to the excessive number of commercial breaks and lengthy halftime commercial barrage) had grown to about three hours and thirty minutes prior to the 2023 fall football season. Some minor changes last season helped to shorten the college football games by nearly ten minutes in 2023 (yea!).
Until this year.
The NCAA is calling this new stoppage of play a “Two-Minute Timeout”. Whatever they want to call it, the real reason is to add a couple of minutes of commercial time per half for the television networks to recoup the costs of overpaying for the rights to college football games.
Let’s consult the NCAA rule book (Section 3, Article 5):
“The media broadcast partner will hold back at least one media timeout to coincide with the Two-Minute Timeout. If there is no media timeout partner in the game, the timeout shall be one minute plus the five-second referee notification and the 25-second play clock interval.”
Let’s do our part, too! When you see a “Two-Minute Timeout” called, leave the TV and make a final kitchen or bathroom visit. Ignore those extra commercials!
Michigan looks beatable in 2024
Coach Jim Harbaugh is gone. So is quarterback J.J. McCarthy after he became a first round draft choice by the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings.
After going unbeaten in 2023 and taking home the national title, the Michigan Wolverines may have trouble duplicating last season’s success.
Michigan’s 31-10 opening win at home over Fresno State was a bit deceiving. Fresno trailed by just 14 points in the fourth quarter. The Bulldogs were driving to tighten the game before their quarterback threw an 86-yard pick-6 interception. With the late defensive touchdown, Michigan secured a 21-point margin of victory.
The Wolverines produced less than 300 yards in total offense in a game where the team was heavily favored. The high-scoring Texas Longhorns are coming to Michigan this Saturday (11AM Central on Fox). We will quickly learn whether the Wolverines are ready to defend their national championship.
The Iowa Hawkeyes – SCORED!
Sure, the Hawkeyes were hosting a smaller division opponent (Illinois State) in their home opener on Saturday. Regardless of the opponent, Iowa’s problems on offense for the past several years have been well documented.
If only for one week, the Iowa Hawkeyes rolled up nearly 500 yards in total offense and scored (gasp) 40 points in a shutout win over the Redbirds from ISU.
The Hawkeyes will host arch-rival Iowa State on Saturday at 2:30PM Central on CBS. The early prognosticators say that the total number of points scored in this week’s game will be just 35.5. I wouldn’t touch that line with a 10-foot corn stalk!
Is Nebraska for real?
The Cornhuskers are trying to post a winning record for the first time since 2016.
After signing highly recruited quarterback Dylan Raiola, the Huskers efficiently scored points and did not turn the ball over in a 40-7 cakewalk over UTEP this weekend. It was Nebraska’s first season opening win in five years (take note, LSU!).
The high scoring Colorado Buffaloes will stampede into Lincoln this Saturday for a nationally televised game at 6:30PM on NBC. For Nebraska to post a winning record in 2024, the Huskers must take advantage of the early portion of their schedule. The final five games are at Ohio State, home for UCLA, at USC, home for Wisconsin, and at Iowa.
Is Florida State really that bad?
After losing its opening game against Georgia Tech in Dublin, Ireland a week ago, the preseason #10 Seminoles returned home for a Labor Day encounter with Boston College. BC (now coached by former Houston Texans head coach Bill O’Brien) has not posted a winning record in the ACC since 2009.
On Monday night, Boston College literally ran over Florida State in Tallahassee to easily win 28-13. The Eagles rushed for 263 yards, while Florida State’s moribund offense tallied just 21 yards on 16 carries.
Florida State coach Mike Norvell needs to ask for NIL refunds from this newly acquired transfer quarterback named D.J. U along with most of his team’s defense. The Seminoles’ coach is a proven winner, but the effort and talent level at FSU is lagging. This team is a mess.
Is Clemson’s coach Yabba Dabo Done?
Dabo Swinney has led Clemson to the national championship in 2016 and 2018. His teams finished second on two other occasions (2015 and 2019). After losing (gasp) four games in 2023, the impatient Clemson fans want to see their Tigers playing at a national championship level again.
In a difficult season opener against top-rated Georgia, Clemson’s offense put up only 200 total yards in a 34-3 loss to the Bulldogs. The orange-clad Clemson fans are unhappy that their successful coach refused to play in the NIL transfer pool casino game this season. Dabo Swinney prefers to find and develop his own talent.
The Clemson Tigers’ ACC schedule doesn’t appear overly daunting this season. The highest ranked remaining opponents (NC State and Louisville) must travel to Clemson this year.
All is not lost (yet), Clemson fans.
UL-Monroe’s quarterback has a very memorable name!
The new quarterback for the ULM Warhawks is General Booty. Actually, his full name is General Axel Booty. When he appeared at the University of Oklahoma a few years ago, he told reporters:
“Obviously my name’s an attention-grabber and people like to do headlines with it, but I like to show people with my play that I can back it up, too,” said General. “I have done that, I’m going to continue to do that as well, and give them a reason to remember my name.”
He also confided that his father (Abram Booty – a former high school standout player at Shreveport’s Evangel Christian Academy) has long been fascinated with the military and that’s why he named his son General. General Booty is the nephew of former LSU quarterback Josh Booty and USC quarterback John David Booty.
The transferring General from OU just led ULM to a season opening 30-14 win over FCS opponent Jackson State last Thursday night.
Most importantly for ULM, General Booty had a five-star night operating as the team’s field general.
He efficiently completed 10 of 14 passes for one touchdown. Most importantly, he did not throw an interception or fumble the football (a recurring problem for the Warhawks’ quarterbacks in recent years).
ULM will host UAB in a battle of the three letter universities this Saturday night with a 6PM kickoff at Malone Stadium in Monroe.