Week one of the college football season is in the books. I am not sure of where to start, so I will just go as I read the things I wrote down over the weekend.

            Russell Wilson has the potential to win the Heisman Trophy this season. I was at Pippa’s Café in Concord for one of my fantasy football drafts Thursday evening and the Wisconsin-UNLV game was on. Every time I looked up at the television showing that game, Wilson was making a big play. Wilson threw for 255 yards and two touchdowns and ran another in from 46 yards to make a statement on opening night to a National audience. Wilson’s play this season will constantly set the bar for Mike Glennon at NC State. Glennon is Wilson’s replacement and Coach Tom O’Brien’s selection as a starter before Wilson announced his departure from Raleigh. Fair or not, many Wolfpack fans will make sure to follow the Badgers and Wilson’s performance and measure Glennon’s stats against those of Wilson. This is not fair to Glennon, but the actions of his coach this off season made this inevitable.

            In what was one of the more entertaining games of the weekend, Baylor upset      # 14 TCU, ending TCU’s streak of 25 consecutive regular season games, longest in the FBS. Baylor led 47-23 early in the 4^th quarter, and TCU did everything in their power to move the streak to 26 games. TCU score 25 unanswered points in the 4^th and took a 48-47 lead, but Baylor came down and kicked a 37 yard field goal with 1:04 left to secure the victory.    

            South Florida continued the trend and went into South Bend and defeated Notre Dame 23-20. South Florida jumped on the Irish early and took a 16-0 lead into halftime, when a major lightning storm cleared the stadium, creating a delay that lasted over two hours. Notre Dame has now lost its season opener for the fourth time in the past 15 seasons. In each of the previous three seasons, the Irish finished with non-winning records after losing the opener and resulted in the Irish terminating the contracts of two coaches (Bob Davie & Ty Willingham). When will the members of the media that continue to vote the Irish into the preseason Top 25 realize that they are not voting on a team from 1998, but 2011?

            Opening weekend also marked another rough weekend for the ACC versus out of conference opponents. Wake Forest blew a 15 point lead on the road at Syracuse and eventually lost in overtime 36-29. The last play of the game was an offensive pass interference call against the Deacons. I cannot remember ever seeing that call in that situation. Also, the Richmond Spiders beat the Duke Blue Devils 23-21, giving the Spiders a 3^rd win in 6 seasons against Duke. This is the third season in a row that a FCS school has defeated a team from the ACC (William & Mary over Virginia and Richmond over Duke in 2009 and James Madison over Virginia Tech in 2010). This also cannot do a lot for the confidence of the Duke football team as this upcoming weekend, the #6 Stanford Cardinals and Andrew Luck roll into Durham. The game I went to this past weekend was with my wife to see her alma mater Appalachian State at Virginia Tech. Turnovers ended any chance at App St’s chances in Blacksburg.

Everett Withers won his first game as Head Coach at UNC defeating James Madison 42-10. After the game, the team and Coach Withers created a bit of news by saying they were going to give the game ball to former Coach Butch Davis. Davis was confirmed to be at Kenan Stadium Saturday as a guest of a Ram’s Club member. Some in the media have stated that they were against this display of acknowledgement towards Davis. Some have stated that they felt Davis should have not been at the game Saturday or accepted the game ball. Fair or not, this team and many of the coaches, Withers included, are in Chapel Hill because of Davis. The team and coaching staff decided to do this and stated they hope to give a lot of game balls to Davis this season. The players and staff have not said much in words about Davis, but this action tells me all I need to know about how they feel about this situation and where their loyalty is.      

            All in all, it was great to see college football again. Boise State showed that they can play with the big boys, defeating Georgia in Atlanta. LSU, even with the loss of their starting QB, displayed the SEC’s strength in defeating the Oregon Ducks in Dallas. Sacramento State made Oregon State hate the decision to open with them as the Beavers lost to a FBS school at home in overtime.  Alabama at Penn State is the marquee game this week, while the rest of the games just don’t have that National appeal. This is the first Saturday that will act as a great lead-in for Sunday and the NFL!!  

 

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