Week 2 Recap
I decided to wait until midday Sunday, Pacific time, to begin writing this week’s recap. First, I needed the extra time to process what I saw over the course of 14.5 hours Saturday. Second, my gut told me something newsworthy would drop today that I’d need to discuss. My intuition was right. Scott Frost was mercifully relieved of his coaching duties at Nebraska earlier today after a stunning 45-42 loss to Georgia Southern last night. It was an ironic twist of fate in that it was only one day short of a year ago that Georgia Southern head coach Clay Helton himself was fired from USC after an ugly Week 2 loss to Stanford. Associate Head Coach Mickey Joseph will assume the Cornhuskers’ head coaching responsibilities for the remainder of the season.
I’ve spent a fair number of megabytes dissecting Frost’s tenure, both in writing and on podcasts, so I won’t spend too much time eulogizing it. He seems like an easy guy to root for, and I expect at such a relative young age he’ll have another opportunity. He’ll have to demonstrate that he’s learned some lessons first, most prominently that it’s the little details that matter. As for Nebraska, they now have three months to finally get this right. Too often, they seem to have made knee-jerk hires that serve no other purpose than to replace the guy they just fired with someone who is the polar opposite. AD Trev Alberts is new and doesn’t own any of the past mistakes, but he needs to end this streak of poor decisions before Nebraska’s days of college football relevancy completely fade from the rearview mirror.
Now, on to my random Saturday musings:
Hold on…I have one final, non-Scott Frost thought on Nebraska: Given what we have seen out of the Big Ten West division so far, I would not completely rule out the possibility of them making a bowl game if Joseph can turn the locker room culture around quickly. Their defense has been awful, and I’m not certain whether it can be adequately fixed on the fly. What I feel fairly confident saying at this point is that there is not a single team in that division that looks any more than marginally better than the Huskers right now. Mickey Joseph has an opportunity in front of him.
It’s so rare that you see Nick Saban-era Alabama play the kind of game they did at Texas Saturday. We knew the offensive line and receivers had question marks coming into the season. Both of those units struggled for a good portion of the game, so the Tide may be more vulnerable than we expected. What you’d never expect to see is 15 penalties for 100 yards – and if we’re being honest, it should have been worse. They appeared to get away with two instances of pass interference that weren’t called and definitely got away with a pretty obvious facemask late in the 2nd Qtr. LB Will Anderson in particular had a rough day, twice lining up offsides and then what appeared to be a frustration-induced late hit. I wouldn’t obsess over the penalties being a problem going forward. I would keep an eye on the OL and WRs.
I think the bigger question is what to make of Texas? QB Quinn Ewers looked very sharp and confident, albeit with a small sample size thanks to an unfortunate clavicle injury that forced him out of the game at the end of the 1st Qtr. His backup, Hudson Card, played admirably himself, despite suffering an ankle injury that left him noticeably gimpy. The biggest surprise was the Texas defense. After giving up some big plays early, they absolutely swarmed the Tide offense for about three quarters worth of football, until Bryce Young pulled a Houdini act and willed his team to a 1-point win. While there are no moral victories in college football, holding Alabama to just 20 points is quite an accomplishment. How much of what we saw was Texas taking a big step forward versus Alabama have an uncharacteristically off day? Stay tuned….the Longhorns will host a tough visitor from just down I-35 next week in the form of the UTSA Roadrunners.
The Sun Belt Conference started playing football in 2001. In the 21 seasons that followed, they had one victory over a Top 10 team. They posted twice as many wins against Top 10 teams Saturday. Marshall went to South Bend and knocked off #8 Notre Dame 26-21, just one week after many came away very impressed with the Irish’s showing against Ohio State in Columbus. Meanwhile, one week after giving up 63 points to North Carolina, Appalachian State went to #6 Texas A&M and held the Aggies to just two scores in a 17-14 victory. It was only the second time a G5 conference recorded multiple wins against Top 10 teams on the same day; the last being the MAC in 2003. Capping it off was Georgia Southern’s win at Nebraska. Let the discussion begin whether the Sun Belt can claim the G5 spot in a New Year’s Six Bowl.
Notre Dame’s loss was head coach Marcus Freeman’s third straight to start his career, if you count last season’s Fiesta Bowl. No other coach in school history began their tenure by losing three straight. The Irish will get a visit from Cal next week, then travel to North Carolina. They should be favored in both games, but you have to wonder if they might be feeling some pressure after Saturday’s shocker. Long-term Freeman still has commitments from high school recruits that rank their class #4 in the country. Far too early to panic.
As for Texas A&M, they have recruited in the Top 10 for four straight years now, including this year’s freshman class that ranked #1 overall. For someone who is supposed to be a “quarterback whisperer,” head coach Jimbo Fisher is not getting the results to back it up. With the sort of talent he has on hand, there is no good excuse for losing at home to a G5. The natives in College Station might be getting restless if things don’t turn around quickly.
That was an impressive win by Kentucky in The Swamp. After the Gators recorded a safety late in the 2nd Qtr thanks to an errant snap on a punt, the Wildcats’ shutout Anthony Richardson & Co. I’ve thought highly of the ‘Cats since preseason. It’s time for the rest of the college football literati to put some respect on their name.
Maybe I need to alter my approach to evaluating USC and get on board with the idea that they can simply outscore almost any team in the country. Giving up 441 yards to a Stanford offense that was 122nd in the country last year was not pretty, and Stanford shot themselves in the foot with 4 turnovers. But even if the Cardinal played a clean game, I’m not sure if it would have mattered. The Trojan offense looks unstoppable.
That Baylor-BYU game was like a great 12-round heavyweight boxing match. Neither team deserved to have to walk off the field with the loss. I greatly overestimated the impact that the loss of BYU’s two best receivers to injury would have on the Cougars. QB Jaren Hall didn’t seem to care, as he went 23-39 for 261 yards and a touchdown. Both kickers struggled when they had chances to put the game away; but this is college football, and poor kicking just seems to be part of the fabric of the game. Baylor was also the third Top 10 team to lose yesterday, also to a (sorta) G5 team. That this game will be played on the regular once BYU joins the Big 12 next season might be one of the few good things that emerges from conference realignment.
The Biggest Stones of the Week Award goes to Oregon State head coach Jonathan Smith. Down 29-32 to Fresno State with 58 seconds left, the Beavers quickly went from their own 27 into Fresno State territory and seemingly were in good shape to attempt a game-tying FG in hopes of prevailing in overtime. A Fresno pass interference call in the end zone with three seconds left put the ball on the 2-yard line to set up what would have been a chip shot. The Beavers left their offense on the field and lined up as if they would go for the TD, then called their last timeout to bring in the kicking team on. As they were lining up to attempt the FG, Fresno State head coach Jeff Tedford called his last timeout to ice the OSU kicker. Smith, seemingly knowing this would happen, sent his offense back out on the field. They lined up in a wildcat formation with Jack Colletto (a true Jack-of-all-trades player). Everyone in the stadium, including the Bulldog defense, knew what was coming. That usually doesn’t matter, though. When Colletto is in the backfield on short-yardage situations, he’s money. He took the snap and ran right, just wide of his tight end, and through a Fresno defender into the end zone. The timeout gamesmanship between coaches was intriguing. That Smith took the all-or-nothing gamble, in a season the Beavers hope will be pretty special, earns him this week’s Big Stones.
After going 4-for-4 in Week 1 on my picks, both straight up and agains the spread, I came crashing back to Earth on this most chaotic of days. Still, I’m at least on the right side of .500.
This week: 2-2 straight up, 1-3 ATS (Overall: 6-2 straight up, 5-3 ATS)
I had a really hard time compiling my Top 25 after yesterday’s chaos. We’ll see how long this lasts.
