Moving the Chains: Takeaways from Week 2 of College Football

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Three teams from the ACC played their games on weeknights, no doubt to attract viewers they wouldn’t ordinarily have on Saturdays.  At best the games were more like ‘batting practice’ than, say, actual competition.  The average margins of victory for three blowout wins for #7 Miami, #24 Louisville, and #25 Virginia were a whopping 57 points.  That seems like a lot – until you consider their opponents were Florida A&M, Villanova, and Norfolk State, respectively. 

In Miami’s 77 – 7 win, their two Heisman candidates put up impressive numbers for the second week in a row.  Quarterback Darian Mensah was 14/15 for 252 yards and 3 touchdowns and receiver Malachi Toney had 4 receptions for 96 yards and 1 TD.  And that was just in the first half, because neither one played in the second.  That’s a luxury a team can afford when it has a 49 – 0 halftime lead.  For the game, Miami racked up 42 first downs and 856 total yards while holding the Rattlers to a mere 4 and 107, respectively.  

Last week, Michigan, which lost, then later won their game against Western Michigan courtesy of an extra ‘free’ play granted by the officials, was the team that showed they had no business being ranked in the Top 25.  This week it was #11 Oklahoma’s turn to demonstrate they didn’t belong there either, losing to Michigan 17 – 10.  Adding insult to injury, this time around the Wolverines didn’t even need any extra plays to win.  The star of the game was Cam Brown, the Michigan punter, with 6 of his 7 kicks pinning the Sooners inside of their own 20-yard line – two of them inside the one. 

‘Sooners, hold my beer,’ said Oregon.  On the road against Oklahoma State, the #6 Ducks trailed at halftime 24 – 17.  Had it not been for two tipped OSU passes that were intercepted by Oregon, both of which resulted in touchdowns, the score could have been a lot worse.  Things weren’t any better in the second half.  Final score: OSU – 39, Oregon – 31.  And if you happen to have Oregon quarterback Dante Moore on your Heisman Bingo card, you might want to erase it and pencil in Cowboy QB Drew Mestemaker, who was 26/43 for 317 yards and 2 TD’s (and 2 INT’s) and rushed a half-dozen times for 109 yards and another score. 

The Oregon-Oklahoma State game in Stillwater was historic for a number of reasons, because coming into the game:

• OSU was on a 12-game losing streak, with 21 straight losses to FBS teams.
• Oregon was 35 – 0 under coach Dan Lanning against unranked teams.
• OSU had won 30 straight home openers, the longest active streak in the country and third longest of all time.
• In their game last year, Oregon came out on top 69 – 3.
• No team had ever snapped a 10+ game losing streak with a win over a team ranked in the Top Ten.    

The Oklahoma State win – as well as the Oregon loss – is what made the game historic.   Read back over the five bullet points and you’ll know why.  

In a game that was historic for an entirely different reason, #4 Texas rallied from a 20-point deficit in the fourth quarter by scoring three touchdowns and defeating top-ranked Ohio State, 24 – 23.  Connor Hawkins missed a 45-yard field goal with 4 minutes left in the game that would have iced the game for the Buckeyes; instead, the missed opportunity opened the door for Longhorn QB Arch Manning to put together a game-winning drive and finish off an exciting, if not improbable, 21-point fourth-quarter rally in front of an enthusiastic, sold-out home crowd in Austin.   

Continuing with the aforementioned concept of ‘batting practice,’ here are other scores for Top 25 teams:

• #2 Georgia – 70 , Western Kentucky – 20 
• #3 Notre Dame – 52, Rice – 0 
• #5 Indiana – 55, Howard – 0
• #8 LSU – 45, La. Tech – 14
• #9 Ole Miss – 41, Charlotte – 9
• #10 Texas A&M – 48, Arizona State – 20
• #17 SMU – 56, UC Davis – 10 
• #20 Utah – 43, Arkansas – 10 (this one gave the SEC a black eye)  
• #22 Houston – 77, Southern – 6 

Blowouts such as these aren’t much fun, unless perhaps you play for the winning teams. 

However, there will be more competitive and exciting games soon enough, because conference play is just around the corner.  

Then again … 

There was that one SEC matchup in Lexington pitting Alabama against Kentucky.  The game was competitive for a while, and the Wildcats even had the lead at halftime as well as late into the third quarter.  Then the Tide rallied and blew them out anyway.  Final: #12 Alabama – 45, Kentucky – 17. 

Worth mentioning: it was rumored that Clemson coach Dabo Swinney’s job was on the line in their game against Georgia Southern.  However, the Tigers’ unimpressive 22 – 7 win at home just may have kept those rumors alive.