Week 2 is in the books and with it a little more stability across the country as many power programs inserted easy opponents before the bulk of their conference scheduling begins. While ESPN did not choose the Fox telecast of Oregon-Ohio State for GameDay the Buckeyes loss (only the 3rd defeat of the Ryan Day era, mind you) sent out a huge shakeup across the nation.
Let’s take a look at the latest Top 20 poll from 18 Stripes.
18 Stripes Top 20 Poll
| RANK | TEAM | RECORD | RESULT |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alabama | 2-0 | 48-14 W vs. Mercer |
| 2 | Georgia | 2-0 | 56-7 W vs. UAB |
| 3 | Oregon (NR) | 2-0 | 35-28 W at Ohio State |
| 4 | Clemson | 1-1 | 49-3 W vs. South Carolina St. |
| 5 | Iowa (+5) | 2-0 | 27-17 W at Iowa St. |
| 6 | Oklahoma (+1) | 2-0 | 76-0 W vs. Western Carolina |
| 7 | Cincinnati (+1) | 2-0 | 42-7 W vs. Murray St. |
| 8 | Coastal Carolina (+3) | 2-0 | 49-22 W vs. Kansas |
| 9 | Florida (+5) | 2-0 | 42-20 W at USF |
| 10 | Ohio State (-7) | 1-1 | 35-28 L vs. Oregon |
| 11 | Penn State (+5) | 2-0 | 44-13 W vs. Ball St. |
| 12 | Texas A&M (-6) | 2-0 | 10-7 W at Colorado |
| 13 | UCLA (+4) | 2-0 | BYE |
| 14 | Virginia Tech (NR) | 2-0 | 35-14 W vs. MTSU |
| 15 | Notre Dame (-5) | 2-0 | 32-29 W vs. Toledo |
| 16 | Arizona State (+2) | 2-0 | 37-10 W vs. UNLV |
| 17 | Michigan (NR) | 2-0 | 31-10 W vs. Washington |
| 18 | UCF (+1) | 2-0 | 63-14 W vs. Bethune-Cookman |
| 19 | BYU (NR) | 2-0 | 26-17 W vs. Utah |
| 20 | Auburn (NR) | 2-0 | 62-0 W vs. Alabama St. |
Oregon, playing without perhaps the best defender in the country, registered a win so big they move all the way up from the unranked to 3rd nationally and while I’ve been plenty skeptical of their offense they showed a lot of promise in Columbus. Even more so, with the issues at places like Washington and USC, the door is wide open for the Ducks to waltz to a Pac-12 Title now.
Quick note that Clemson’s offense wasn’t amazing in their win, especially DJU at quarterback whose numbers weren’t very inspiring. Something seems off with them this year.
Iowa has 4 offensive touchdowns and stands dead last among Power 5 programs in total offense per game, yet they’ve put together 2 big wins so far this year. Honestly, they can still win the Big Ten West with those offensive numbers but I doubt they stick around the Top 5 for very long.
Texas A&M starting quarterback Haynes King broke his leg early against Colorado and the Aggies had to fight hard not to be upset out in Boulder.
Let the consternation of Michigan entering the rankings begin! The Wolverines ground game has looked very good so far (5th nationally in both yards per carry and total rushing yards) but so far hasn’t asked quarterback Cade McNamara (180 passing yards through 2 games) to do much.
I’ll repeat this from last week, but Jimmy Lake taking over at Washington is looking like a huge mistake. They can’t even play good defense anymore as his calling card and their offense is really stinky right now.
OUT: Texas, USC, Utah, Iowa State, TCU
Texas is back…to the unranked heap. Their offense fell apart against the Razorbacks while the Horns defense gave up 333 rushing yards. Now, the honeymoon is officially over for Steve Sarkisian.
By now you’ve heard USC fired Clay Helton following an embarrassing 14-point loss to previously hapless Stanford. We’ll see if the Trojans move quickly on a replacement (I’m going to bet they take a very long time) but the groundswell for someone outside of the USC family seems to be quite popular.
A couple costly turnovers doomed Utah in the Holy War while Iowa State remains cursed against Iowa. The Cyclones dominated statistically but shot themselves in the foot by going -4 in turnovers.
Week 3 Games to Watch
Last Week: 4-3
Overall: 9-7
Auburn (+6) at Penn State
I feel like these programs heading into Saturday are in a very similar place. Thus far, Penn State is more proven with that win at Wisconsin, though. I haven’t picked many outright upsets yet and my record is worse for wear right now. SEC! SEC! Tigers win 29-27.
Cincinnati (-3.5) at Indiana
I’m off the Indiana-could-be-really-fun train. During the Covid season it seemed like they briefly captured something magical but it dissipated quickly towards the end of the year and it has not returned for 2021. I don’t think this will be particularly close. Bearcats win 32-14.
Alabama (-15.5) at Florida
We warned that quarterback Emory Jones shouldn’t be a Heisman candidate until he proves he can throw the ball and thus far he’s been a disaster for the Gators in that regard. Florida is falling in love with freshman quarterback Anthony Richardson who has been dynamite as a runner, but again, the lack of passing is still there. Plus, Richardson is banged up. The Alabama defense will feast. Crimson Tide win 35-17.
Virginia (+9) at North Carolina
North Carolina lost this matchup last year despite maybe the best performance of Sam Howell’s career to date. For their standards, Virginia has looked pretty good so far in 2021 with an offense capable of swinging back and forth with UNC. This line feels way too high for me but I’ll take Mack Brown & Co. in a very close one. Tar Heels win 39-37.
Arizona State (-3.5) at BYU
What a sneaky great ranked matchup we have here. My first thought is this will be a tough comedown for BYU after defeating their rivals Utah last weekend. However, these are usually tremendous crowds in Provo and despite my Jayden Daniels stock at quarterback for Arizona State I like this upset from Vegas’ perspective. Cougars win 42-41.
This would be such an exciting CFB year…if not for Bama.
Georgia looks really good, but also beatable, while everyone else is just kind of a jumble of potential and shrugs. It would be a really exciting year where anything can happen. Instead, it just looks like a year where no one has a chance to beat Bama.
Since college sports is the only thing congress/senate/scotus agree on, we clearly need a congressional hearing to say Bama can no longer make the playoff, for fun’s sake.
You never want to cheer for injuries, but in the case of Alabama that would be one way to get a really exciting season.
Really bad thought. And with all the injuries we’ve had, you’re pushing the karma risk.
And for the record, Bama has lost its second best rusher, Chris Allen, for the season, several defensive line rotation guys, and their best player, Will Anderson, may miss the Florida game due to a chop block hit on his knee. I follow them pretty closely. I’ll always be Irish first, but I admire excellence, and Saban is absolutely the best coach in football.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assert that Saban is the best coach in any sport ever
Oregon’s gonna mess it up. Yeah, they were great last weekend, but I don’t trust or believe in Brown as their QB. He was so bad at BC. Has developed some, but their running game was why they won. Brown didn’t screw it up, but they’ll lose a game if they need his arm to win a close one.
Probably right, to be honest. They might still win the conference but you can just feel a loss to Colorado or Wazzu on the horizon.
Their pass defense looked awful to me, but OSU could not punch the ball in when they needed to. A good passing team that can defend decently will take them down.
I don’t follow the Pac 12 very much, but does that type of team even exist out there?
Now that Helton is gone. USC could be that team. The sky is the limit for them, sadly.
I actually don’t know. I was scrolling channels and came across the Oregon OSU game and stopped to watch it and was amazed at the ineptness of the OSU defense. They literally never adjusted to Oregon’s perimeter run plays that scored 2-3 TDs and gashed them repeatedly.
That said, Oregon couldn’t stop the OSU passing attack except that Stroud (who had over 400 yards passing) kept missing open receivers at critical times, and threw a pick with 2 minutes left that killed OSU.
If Oregon lucks into the playoffs, I think they’ll get killed in the semi-final.
Had to post this highlight in honor of that great DB post. Jenkins gets up and waves his hands incomplete, even though Hopkins caught the ball and came down inbounds to score a TD. That was a great article!
https://twitter.com/AZCardinals/status/1437107913378525190?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1437107913378525190%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theringer.com%2Fnfl%2F2021%2F9%2F16%2F22677319%2Farizona-cardinals-kliff-kingsbury-kyler-murray-titans-week-1
Classic.