Ball so hard

There weren’t any major upsets in week one, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. Several ranked teams showed absolutely nothing in their openers and would have lost had they not scheduled terrible opponents. Michigan did not follow suit, leading to the Wolverines’ unfortunately predictable beatdown at the hands of Alabama. Say what you will about UM being overrated – they most certainly were – the Tide were still impressive. If I were releasing a top 25 this week, they would be number one. However, I’d rather wait for another week or two to really get a sense of where teams deserve to be ranked.

Michigan, on the other hand, is an interesting case. We know UM will win games; Denard Robinson is just too good of an athlete for them to lose more than a few times. But the truth is that he is not now, nor has he ever been, a quarterback. It’s the equivalent of Oregon lining De’Anthony Thomas up behind center: it would be cool for a while, but gimmicks don’t work against real defenses. Michigan is talented enough to still challenge for a division title, but just like last season, they aren’t close to a top 10 team.

While a lot will be made of Oklahoma’s struggles against UTEP, at least give the Sooners credit for going on the road when they didn’t have to. The team has enough time to figure things out and be a player in the BCS championship race. The defense didn’t allow a point Saturday; the offense is the only real concern. I’d knock OU down if I had a poll this week, but only a few spots.

South Carolina, on the other hand, is a different story. Even with QB Connor Shaw, the Gamecocks were anemic against Vandy. They were lucky to not go down 14-0 in the first quarter, a position that, as it turns out, would cost them the game. The forward pass remains a mystery to the Gamecocks, which should really have cost Steve Spurrier his “genius” label by now. However, analysts still seem to think it’s 1996 and the “Fun ‘n Gun” is tearing up the SEC. If Shaw is out for any length of time this team is in huge trouble, and they’re not a top 10 team with him anyway.

The same is more or less true for Stanford. I’ve been indignantly defending Andrew Luck’s greatness this entire offseason and my preseason prediction became prophetic when the Cardinal barely escaped San Jose State opening night. Yes, Stanford still has a great O-line and a quality (though not elite) defense. But Luck was REALLY, REALLY good. I don’t understand why this is so difficult for people to grasp. He made the Cardinal better than they were and this is a fringe top 25 team right now.

Florida is in the same boat. The Gators were fortunate to beat Bowling Green, looking out of sorts defensively and atrocious offensively. The QB situation in Gainesville is a mess, which has dragged the entire offense down. It makes sense now that Will Muschamp couldn’t pick a starter before fall camp – Jeff Driskel and Jacoby Brissett are both awful. Regardless of who starts (it looks like it might be Driskel from now on), Florida is going nowhere this year.

On the other hand, West Virginia was nothing but impressive on opening weekend. QB Geno Smith was easily the best player Saturday with his hyper-efficient, 32-36 performance against Marshall. The Mountaineers are a legit top 10 squad. As I said in the preseason, I still have reservations about the team’s ability to hold up over the course of a nine-game Big 12 schedule, but right now they deserve nothing but praise. Likewise for Oregon and USC, but I’ll get to that later.

Top 25

I have to say, I’ve never been as impressed with the polls as I am right now. Almost every team came in right about where they deserved after week one. Teams that should have dropped (Michigan, Stanford, Oklahoma) did so, and dropped the appropriate amount. Teams that deserved to move up (Oregon, West Virginia, Ohio State) also moved a few spots. The only real complaint is South Carolina – we’re still pretending that’s a top 10 team? – and the coaches jumped WVU over the Gamecocks anyway. Looks like people are finally doing their homework.

As I said, I’ve decided to hold off on releasing rankings for at least one more week, two if I deem it necessary. Some teams still have players under suspension or don’t play real opponents for a while, so it’s better to take some time. However, that doesn’t mean I can’t draw conclusions from what happened this week.

Without a doubt, the top four teams are: Alabama, LSU, USC and Oregon; I’d also throw Oklahoma in there to round out the top five. Based on last week, Bama deserves to be number one and OU should be fifth; other than that it doesn’t really matter. The SEC teams and the Pac-12 teams play each other. I feel there’s a fairly clear delineation between this group and the next tier of schools, composed of West Virginia, Florida State, Georgia and Arkansas. The third tier consists of most of the teams currently ranked in the teens, followed by the fringe top-25-er’s like Stanford, Florida, Boise State, BYU, Utah and Notre Dame.

I hate to say it, but the truth is that most of the rankings don’t matter. If any two of the current top-five schools go undefeated, they will advance to the BCS Championship. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the usual group of about eight to 12 true title contenders has been whittled down to those five this season. Teams from the second group could challenge (or more likely, impact by upsetting) members of the elite class, but realistically the list is very short. More on this next week, when I may or may not have my initial rankings.

Pac-12 Thoughts

USC and Oregon were both about as excellent as one could expect, given the atrocious level of competition. The Ducks rolled up 50 points in 23 minutes, then watched their backups allow 31 points, which was a little disheartening. Still, new QB Marcus Mariota looked great in his limited minutes, which was the biggest concern. SC didn’t do their reputation any favors by attempting three two-point conversions and playing their starters into the fourth quarter, but that’s what you gotta do when you’re working on a Heisman campaign, brah! BARKLEY 2012!

In the end, we didn’t learn anything from these games we didn’t already know. Oregon and USC are both extremely talented and faced completely overmatched opponents. Let’s be honest: both squads are just trying to avoid injuries on the road to their November 3^rd showdown. These are two of the best five teams in the country and they’ll represent the Pac-12 well throughout the season.

That’s good, because there was little else to get excited about Saturday. We should have known it would be a cursed week for the conference when, thanks to Hurricane Isaac, Nicholls State was unable to travel to Corvallis to hand the Beavers a much-needed confidence-boosting win (this could really end up hurting OSU down the road, though at 5-6 they could apply for a bowl waiver). But where to begin? Wazzu began the Mike Leach era with a dispiriting “thud” on Thursday night, getting blasted 30-6 by BYU. Utah, ASU and UCLA all won, but against vastly inferior opponents.

Stanford then gave the Pac-12 its biggest scare of the weekend by nearly losing at home to San Jose State on Friday night. Make no mistake, the Cardinal looked terrible. As the league’s only ranked team other than USC and Oregon, they must stay ranked for the Pac-12 to be taken seriously this year. The conference can’t afford this sort of embarrassment.

Of course, Cal was having none of that, and promptly lost their opener Saturday to Nevada. Oh, Cal. Every time I think I’m done with you, you pull me back in. I had believed, reasonably, that a year of strong defense and a more efficient offense could drive the Bears to a successful 2012 campaign, but it seems we’re right back where we started with this team. What do inconsistent QB play, a defense worse than the sum of its parts and miscues at the worst possible moments have in common? They’re hallmarks of the last several years of Cal football. Ugh.

Now, just to prove that Cal wasn’t the only team that could lose to a mid-major, Colorado dropped the Rocky Mountain Showdown with Colorado State, Arizona got taken to overtime by Toledo and Washington sweated out a victory over San Diego State. It may be rash to state only one week into the season, but right now the Pac-12 looks like Oregon/USC and a bunch of pancakes. The league will need some member to come up with a big non-conference win, or things could get ugly.

Random Thoughts and Observations

Apparently Joe McKnight took money while at USC, a charge that could have serious ramifications for the Trojans if true. It’s unclear at this point how the powers that be might treat this given that it occurred after Reggie Bush but before the program was put probation. However, it’s a possibility that it could be treated as a violation of NCAA bylaw 19.5.2.3.1., AKA the “repeat violator” clause. That’s the one they got SMU for. Keep an eye on that developing story.

Penn State played its first game since the Sandusky scandal/fallout/Joe Paterno’s death/severe sanctions fiasco, losing 24-14 to Ohio. Not Ohio State, Ohio. From one perspective, I was glad that the NCAA chose to make PSU ineligible for the postseason but still able to stay – why punish the players? However, it was very hard to watch that game and not wonder if the NCAA had erred by not going with their original punishment of a four-year death penalty. If the death penalty wasn’t invented to correct the exact kind of cult of personality still clearly residing in Beaver Stadium and Happy Valley, then what was it created for? It’s going to be interesting to see how the Nittany Lions are received at visiting stadiums this season.

I liked Oregon’s new uniforms in the sense that they combined a futuristic design with old-school coloring. Not sure about all the potential combinations, but we’ll get a chance to see a whole lot of them. I wasn’t happy with Northwestern’s new digs, which looked like a failed attempt at space-age and just came across as pointless. The same was true for Georgia Tech’s ridiculous honeycomb pattern and Cal’s white helmets. Why wear white helmets with home jerseys? It makes no sense. I thought we’d learned from the 2009 Oregon-Utah disaster.

There’s much more to come in the weeks ahead. We’ve only just begun!