College Football Week 1 Musings - Thursday Edition

College Football Week 1

Thursday, August 29, 2013

• One off the radar game that caught my eye was Tulsa at Bowling Green. Bowling Green shut down a high powered Tulsa offense in a very impressive performance. A great test of the BG defense is in 2 weeks on the road against Indiana.

• Utah State QB Chuckie Keeton will make life very difficult for defenses in the Mountain West. He was 31 for 40 for 314 yards with 2 TD's and also had 85 yards and a TD on 15 carries. 

• What a game put on by Ole Miss and Vanderbilt. Early it looked like it would be all Ole Miss. By halftime, Vanderbilt scored 21 points unanswered to go up 21-10. The performance by Jordan Matthews and Jeff Scott in the last 2 minutes is what makes college football so entertaining. Oh and the lack of defense doesn't hurt.

• Another entertaining game, if you stayed up to watch it, was Rutgers at Fresno State. The back and forth game saw each team go up and down the field at will with Fresno State winning 52-51 in 1 overtime. Derek Carr  of Fresno State (and younger brother of former #1 pick David Carr) was 52 for 73 for 456 yards, 5 TD's and 1 Interception. Gary Nova of Rutgers also had a solid performance going 26 of 41 for 348 yards, 5 TD's and 1 INT. RB Paul James of Rutgers also put on a show with 22 carries for 182 yards. 164 of those yards came in the 3rd quarter.

• In the overtime of that game between Rutgers and Fresno State, Rutgers Head Coach Kyle Flood decided to go for a 2 point conversion and the win. I have no problem with that call. As Herm Edwards famously stated, "You play to win the game!" Coach Flood certainly did even if the outcome was a loss. I applaud him for attempting to end the game that saw very little defensive resistance.

• I caught a little bit of the USC at Hawaii game and I was VERY unimpressed by USC. The QB's looked uncomfortable throughout and lacked confidence. Offensively, this entire game was awful to watch. The 2 QB's for USC and 1 QB for Hawaii combined to go 31 for 70. I'm not sure how many wins USC will get with the quarterback play that was presented last night.

• Finally, we come to the FCS portion of this post. #11 Towson (FCS Ranking per The SportsNetwork) went into Storrs and upset Connecticut. I watched the 4th quarter of this game and was impressed by the Towson team. On 3rd and 13 from their own 40, Towson threw deep and was able to get to the UConn 15 yard line. Later on the same drive, Towson went for it on 4th and 1 from the UConn 6, which resulted in a TD. Later in the game, with less than 1 minute to play, Towson again went for it on 4th and Goal from the UConn 5 and got another TD. It is easy to understand why Towson went for it, their kicker Soven had missed 2 extra points earlier in the game. When I watched these plays, it was clear that Towson was playing to win the game. And they certainly deserved to win this game against UConn.

• Another FCS team also beat an FBS team. Southern Utah went on the road to South Alabama and won 22-21. South Alabama is a full member of the Sun Belt Conference for those who are unaware. The FCS versus FBS "upsets" are not surprising to me. They occur each year and it is obvious that the FCS teams are getting better.