With 15 teams of the Top 25 playing teams from 1-AA, the Sun Belt, or the MAC, it was difficult to learn a whole lot in the opening weekend of the college football season. But it wasn’t a completely uneventful weekend…
ACC Awful: The ACC had a nasty weekend, with enormous nationally-televised losses by Virginia, Virginia Tech, Clemson, and NC State, who failed to cover the spread by a combined 86.5 points. There was minor success in the conference, however. In their two least visible games against 1-A opposition, the ACC had impressive, pointspread covering road wins by Wake Forest over Baylor and Boston College over Kent State.
Big East Worse: The ACC made every effort to put the Big East out of the football business with their raid a few years ago, but did the Big East a favor this weekend. The ACC’s spotlight losses provided substantial cover for the Big East, which was even worse than the ACC. Syracuse, Pitt, Louisville, and Rutgers not only all lost, but the last three were all favorites. The 0-4 quartet underperformed the pointspread marketplace by a combined 80.5 points.
Whoops: But at least the Big East didn’t have parachutists land in the wrong stadium with the game ball. Fortunately the North Carolina folks had some extra footballs, so the mistaken landing at Duke had no serious repurcussions.
Some Things Never Change: You may have noticed by the results of this weekend, Clemson is still coached by Tommy Bowden, Pitt is still coached by Dave Wannstedt, and Tennessee is still coached by Phil Fulmer. In retrospect, wouldn’t those gentlemen love to have been one of the 34 1-A teams playing 1-AA opponents last weekend.
Virginia Tech Loss No Fluke: Don’t let the fact that a blocked punt returned for a TD decided the game take away from how substantially East Carolina outplayed Virginia Tech on Saturday. Virginia Tech benefited from a return for a TD and a PAT return for 2-points themselves. Pirates outgained Hokies 369-243 and were the better team on Saturday.
Not Your Father’s (or Your Slightly Older Brother’s) Bluegrass Battle: Kentucky and Louisville combined for 927 and 891 total yards in splitting their previous two matchups, but together tallied only 415 yards in their hideous Monday matchup. Kentucky’s 27-2 win was largely due to their 5-1 turnover advantage, as the Wildcats converted only 13 first downs and won yardage by only 210-205.
Bama Slammer: Great job sandbagging his defense’s ability to the media by Nick Saban. Offseason personnel issues left them with little defensive depth, or so the storyline went. Yet despite this “lack of depth”, 21 Tidesmen appear in the “tackles” section of their box score. Clemson’s Thunder and Lightning, supposedly the best RB duo since Craig James and Erik Dickerson were putting SMU over the salary cap, suffered through a futile evening behind an inexperienced offensive line. James Davis’ carries resulted in gains (mostly) of -1, 2, 2, 2, 2, and 6. CJ Spiller’s only two carries resulted in +8 and -1. Spiller did provide Clemson’s lone spark when he returned the second half kickoff for a TD.
Emerald State Blues: A long season may be in store for fans of Washington’s two Pac Ten entrants. The Washington Huskies struggled to 242 yards of offense in their 44-10 whipping by Oregon, while Washington State managed only 196 yards in a 39-13 shellacking at the hands of Oklahoma State. Ty Willingham has surrounded ace quarterback Jake Locker with very little at UW, while Wazzou has a an experienced team that is changing offensive systems under new coach Paul Wulff.
Turnovers Fuel Upsets: Surprising results that were fueled by favorites suffering turnover margins of -3 or more included Stanford over Oregon State (0-3 turnover disadvantage), Louisiana Tech over Mississippi State (2-5), Bowling Green over Pitt (1-4), Arkansas State over Texas A&M (1-4), 1-AA Cal Poly over San Diego State (1-5), and Kentucky over Louisville (1-5). The only one of those upsetters that outplayed their opponent on the line of scrimmage was Arkansas State, as the Indians had a suprising 255-133 rushing edge over the Aggies.
Dull Matchups On Tap: We don’t exactly a classic weekend ahead of us. Not only do we not have a Top 25 vs. Top 25 matchup, but there isn’t a single Top 25 team favored by a touchdown or less this weekend. But that doesn’t mean that there’s not some value to be had on the card, and we’ll be back tomorrow in an effort to help you find some of that value.