College football is SO back after a weekend filled with full stadiums, bands rocking, cheerleaders cheering, and tailgate galore. Teams looked good and others looked bad, but here are some of the top takeaways from week 1.
Georgia has the top defense, but needs some more weapons on offense.
UGA beat Clemson in the game of the weekend that featured two top five teams grit it out for four quarters before time ran out and Georgia had a 10-3 victory. The Dawgs looked insane on the defensive side of the ball. There was so much speed from everyone that Clemson had no where to go before being swarmed up. Nakobe Dean and Nolan Smith are going to be giving offensive coordinators nightmares all season, and this defensive line led by Jordan Davis is maybe the best Georgia has ever had. We've seen Georgia have good defense, but they've always struggled to get sacks. That problem might be gone after the dawgs recorded SEVEN against an offensive line that was returning four starters.
The offense on the other hand didn't have their strongest performance. Georgia was only able to get three points on that side of the ball. JT Daniels was throwing a lot of hitch's and screen pass stuff. This made sense because the defense was playing so well that there was no point in risking anything by trying to get fancy with the play-calling. The run game was effective in the second half just like it always is because UGA's running back by committee system tends to wear opponents down.
Another reason there wasn't much explosiveness from the offense is that Georgia didn't seem to have any elite playmakers on the outside. George Pickens was supposed to be the guy for that but he's out with a torn ACL, and Darnell Washington is still sidelined for now. Kearis Jackson didn't see time out in the slots as you usually is either. The heavy target freshman Brock Bowers who had a nice day, but the next few weeks the Georgia offense has to find some ways to be more explosive and create more problems for opponents.
Alabama might actually have their best quarterback yet.
It's easy to overreact after seeing just one week of football, but that may be the case here after watching Bryce Yung play in his first career start for the tide, The sophomore from California went 27/38 for 344 yards and four touchdowns. This was the best first game by a quarterback in Alabama history. It's fair to ask the question though, is it just too easy when you are Alabama? You would have a good argument, but Young looked so poised and confident that I think he could be a top-10 pick down the road.
Oklahoma does not have a good defense, despite what we heard all offseason.
This was probably one of the ones that upset me the most, because it seems like Oklahoma has been the popular pick around college football to win a national championship. One reason being because they have a really good quarterback like always and their offense is guaranteed at least 40 points a game, but the other was because they were supposed to have this new defense that was improved and ready to show dominance. That was not the case at all as Oklahoma almost absolutely blew it against Tulane in a 40-35 victory.
Oklahoma did have a commanding 37-14 lead at half, but looked gassed the entire second half. Tulane looked like a team that wanted it more and had more energy throughout the entire matchup other than the second quarter that won Oklahoma the game essentially. Spencer Ratter didn't help his team out by throwing two interceptions and only one touchdown. The good news for Oklahoma is their schedule has the strength of a miniature cupcake. This defense still sucks though so that's what you need to know.
LSU also has a bad defense.
Let's preference this one by saying that UCLA did indeed play a good game and should get some credit. They have some explosive guys on that team and it should be fun to watch them this year. Let's get real here for a second though, LSU literally REFUSED to tackle these guys all game long. I seriously tried to give this team credit coming in and assumed they would represent the SEC well. They did no such thing and were just outplayed and had their hands on their hips way too much. Giving up almost 500 yards of total offense is not good.
The Tigers also ran for only 49 yards, like what are you doing? Going against a Pac-12 defensive line and not winning at the line of scrimmage is an ultimate concern if you ask me. Good luck Coach O.
Iowa State is proving to be overrated.
I am pretty happy about this one if I must say. It seems that the two teams from the Big-12 have been getting a lot of love all offseason about how they are now real contenders. Iowa State was returning like 20 starters including a really good quarterback and running back. Their coach is one of the hottest in the country blah blah blah. The Iowa State Cyclones are a product of 2020 being what it was, a year that didn't count.
Iowa State won a nail biter against Northern Iowa 16-10. The offense got into the end zone one time and settled for three field goals other than that. So much for a team with a lot of experience and depth, and now they are heading to play Iowa who looked really good in week one. To be fair the team Iowa beat was another 2020 story in Indiana. It does seem like Iowa is going to get to feast on the 2020 stories though to start this year.
Florida is going to have two quarterbacks.
The Gators looked a little shaky through their first game of the season in their 35-14 win of the Florida Atlantic Owls. Emory Jones seemed to struggle at the helm throwing two interceptions and less than 115 yards passing. He was able to get it done on the ground effectively which kept the Gators ahead easily. The story that takes toe eye though is backup quarterback Anthony Richardson who came in and lit it up on the ground running seven times for 160 yards.
Dan Mullen may not have a quarterback with the arm like Kyle Trask did. He may not have Kyle Pitts and Kadarius Toney anymore. What he does have though is two guys with elite running ability that we all know he will make work in the game plan. I expect to see a lot of both of these guys during the season progresses. Week 3 against Alabama will feature both of these guys to try and fool the Tide who do struggle against running quarterbacks.
Ohio State will own the Big 10 again
We may have already knew this one to be fair, but it's worth pointing out. A lot of people are a little cautious about CJ Stroud for some reason, but I am not one of those people. The guy has the best receivers in the country in Chris Olave and Garrett Wilson, and his running backs are just as good as ever. Good players will make those around them do well too. This offense will get moving very quickly.
The real reason we notice how much they will dominate again is from what we saw from others. Penn State vs Wisconsin was a barn burner in it's own right, and had all the features to go along with a typical low scroing Big 10 game. Both teams looked timid and not aggressive enough to score. Penn State had a few big plays on blown coverages by the Badgers, and Ohio State will absolutely torch them way harder than Penn State did if they get on islands like those. Wisconsin had their typical run and gun style of play, but it didn't have the dominance it usually does as they were averaging just three yards a carry.
Ohio State outmatches these guys by a lot and it;'s not even close.
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