The last thing many want to do after watching Notre Dame lose to Marshall is take a look at what all of the good teams are doing. Still, we march on with the rankings. Plus, fear not there is plenty of schadenfreude to fill your spirit with the struggles from other teams, too. There were some big upsets across the landscape, although the Tide escape from Austin prevents a major shakeup in this week’s poll and potentially massive ramifications for the playoffs.

Here’s the latest from 18 Strips as we head into week 3.

18 Stripes Top 20 Poll

RANK TEAM RECORD RESULT
1 Georgia (+2) 2-0 33-0 W vs. Samford
2 Ohio State 2-0 45-12 W vs. Arkansas St.
3 Alabama (-2) 2-0 20-19 W at Texas
4 USC 2-0 41-28 W at Stanford
5 Clemson 2-0 35-12 W vs. Furman
6 Arkansas (+3) 2-0 44-30 W vs. South Carolina
7 Tennessee (+3) 2-0 34-27 W (OT) at Pittsburgh
8 Oklahoma 2-0 33-3 W vs. Kent St.
9 BYU (+6) 2-0 26-20 W (2OT) vs. Baylor
10 Kentucky (NR) 2-0 26-16 W at Florida
11 Miami 2-0 30-7 W vs. Southern Miss
12 Florida (-6) 1-1 26-16 L vs. Kentucky
13 Utah 1-1 73-7 W vs. Southern Utah
14 Michigan 2-0 56-10 W vs. Hawaii
15 Texas (+1) 1-1 20-19 L vs. Alabama
16 Air Force (+1) 2-0 44-10 W vs. Colorado
17 Oklahoma State (+1) 2-0 34-17 W vs. Arizona St.
18 Wake Forest (+1) 2-0 45-25 W at Vanderbilt
19 Michigan State (+1) 2-0 52-0 W vs. Akron
20 Penn State (NR) 2-0 46-10 W vs. Ohio

 

National Storylines

It was an uncharacteristic poor performance from Alabama this weekend, including 100 yards in penalties plus an offense that sputtered way too often. Outside of Bryce Young they looked strangely ordinary for a long time. They also had big problems containing the Texas offense before quarterback Quinn Ewers went out with a shoulder injury, and even afterward didn’t shut the door.

The Tide needed a late field goal drive (and plenty of luck from the refs on one of the most bizarre end zone calls in history) to escape with a win. Given the Ewers injury, I thought it fair that Texas outplayed Alabama which drops the Tide and actually moves the Horns up one spot despite the defeat.

We worried about that A&M offense and yup, that was justified. The Aggies only put up an astonishing 186 total yards in a 17-14 home loss to Appalachian State. The oil bag men have questions and would like to speak with Jimbo.

Oklahoma started slowly and only led Kent State 7-3 at half before laying it on in the 2nd half.

BYU missed a 35-yard field goal to beat Baylor with 8 seconds left but credit the Cougars for coming back and winning for good in overtime.

Mark Stoops continues to DGT™ as the Cats beat Florida again. We knew it would be a tough turn around for the Gators after last week’s upset of Utah and their offense really struggled while being shutout in the 2nd half.

Arkansas now has 2 solid to good wins (TBD on South Carolina) and things got a little shootout-y against the Gamecocks on Saturday as the team’s combined for 37 points in the 4th quarter.

Tennessee won a very fun and entertaining double overtime game at Pitt. Although, the Vols did get to play against a backup following noted Heisman hopeful Kedon Slovis’ injury right before halftime.

It was nice to see Sam Hartman in good health back on the field as Wake Forest took down Vanderbilt on the road. Hartman ended up throwing for 300 yards and 4 touchdowns.

Houston had been hanging around the bottom of the Top 25 polls and that will be over for the near future as they fell in overtime to Texas Tech.

A weird but fun matchup saw Washington State go into Madison and pull out a 17-14 win over Wisconsin. That game featured a combined 6 turnovers and only 10 first downs from Wazzu. Tough loss for the Badgers.

Louisville won an important game on the road against UCF 20-14.

Mike Elko is on the DGT™ radar with a tight win over Northwestern to move Duke to 2-0 on the season. Northwestern had a brutal lost fumble running into the end zone to possibly tie the game, oof.

Colorado traveling to Air Force to lose by 31 points can’t feel great.

Iowa State finally beat Iowa! It appears the Hawkeyes were not playing coy about their offense with 150 yards and 7 points.

Kansas won a road game in overtime against West Virginia. I repeat, Kansas won a road game.

Penn State enters our rankings for the first time. Former Notre Dame big recruiting targets Drew Allar (6 of 8 for 88 yards, 2 TD) and Nicholas Singleton (10 carries, 179 yards, 2 TD) looked impressive if you care about these things.

Utah State finished last year ranked, by the way. They’ve been blown out by Alabama and now Weber State in 2022 with only a modest victory over UConn.

What can you say about Nebraska at this point? There are no words left. They lose 45-42 at home to Georgia Southern. Yeesh. As I just finish up this section, the Huskers went ahead and fired Scott Frost while eating the extra $7.5 million in buyout money that would’ve gone away in a few weeks. Huskers AD Trev Alberts has been talking a big game since the firing, best of luck dude.

OUT:

No. 7 Texas A&M

I can’t imagine Darrell Dickey will have a job much longer after this performance. Plus, maybe he should be fired for having the name Darrell Dickey, too. I don’t know the status of a buyout for Jimbo Fisher but even for the deep pockets around A&M it may be far too much.

No. 12 Notre Dame

Instant review HERE and game review HERE if you like punishing yourself and even more discussion on the loss to Marshall.

Opponent Watch

Ohio State (2-0): Marvin Harrison Jr. catches 3 touchdown passes as the Buckeyes roll without Jaxon Smith-Njigba in the lineup. Emeka Egbuka also went over 100 receiving yards.

Marshall (2-0): Sun Belt SZN? It was a big weekend for the conference that has been trying to stake a claim as being on par with the AAC in recent seasons. You feel good for the Sun Belt, but also, settle down a bit.

California (2-0): Our next opponent started out well but didn’t exactly put UNLV away in a 20-14 win.

North Carolina (3-0): North Carolina’s defense continues to look inept giving up over 400 yards to Georgia State. The Heels were -3 on turnovers and needed an early 4th quarter touchdown to survive 35-28.

BYU (2-0): This BYU defense looks much improved. They held Baylor to just 289 total yards. As things stand today, Notre Dame would be easy 10+ point underdogs when they visit Vegas for this matchup.

Stanford (1-1): The Cardinal shot themselves in the foot far too often and didn’t have the horses to stop the USC offense.

UNLV (1-1): After shining so well in week 1, quarterback Doug Brumfield threw for 206 yards with 1 touchdown and 1 interception during their loss to California.

Syracuse (2-0): Remember that dark 2003 loss at Syracuse? I’m having flashbacks as sneaky decent Syracuse has looked pretty good so far this year with quarterback Garrett Shrader 4th nationally in passer rating through 2 weeks.

Clemson (2-0): Despite the 35-12 scoreline, Clemson still doesn’t look super threatening and is arguably one of the shakiest teams in our top 20 rankings. They were out-gained by 8 yards against Furman and cannot get a ground game going at all.

Navy (0-2): The Middies can’t afford turnovers and coughed up 3 more in a 37-13 loss to Memphis. Navy has only won 4 out of their last 18 games stretching back to 2020.

Boston College (0-2): First round hopeful Phil Jurkovec threw an interception on his first attempt of the game as BC didn’t pick up a first down until their 22nd play on their last drive before halftime. The Eagles lost 27-10 on the road at Virginia Tech.

USC (2-0): The Trojans scored touchdowns on each of their first half drives before taking their foot off the gas in the 2nd half against Stanford. It took them just 27 plays at 13.4 yards per play to do that damage. Their defense is still leaky but I’m not sure if it’ll matter in all but a game or two.

Week 2 Games to Watch

Not a great week of action which is becoming all to common for week 3 in recent years. This partly explains why ESPN GameDay is headed to the Troy-Appalachian State game, mostly because Texas A&M lost and no one wants to go there right now. 

Oklahoma (-13.5) at Nebraska

Nebraska made this a 7-point game late in last year’s meeting. They just fired Scott Frost so maybe they’ll be playing a little more free and with reckless abandon. An upset here would be so college football and overall very, very funny.

BYU (+3.5) at Oregon

Bo Nix just tore up Eastern Washington and he’s back, baby! A let down sandwich is a huge possibility with BYU coming off an emotional and very physical OT win, so I understand the Ducks being favored. A win here and BYU is very likely undefeated and a top 10 team in all the polls when they face Notre Dame.

Penn State (-2.5) at Auburn

We haven’t heard much from Auburn so far this year. They recently scraped past San Jose State 24-16 which doesn’t feel like a super great sign for their season. But, teams can get better right? RIGHT? With the Big Ten being all fancy with their upcoming media deal this is the type of game Penn State has to put away for the league.

Michigan State (-3.5) at Washington

Quarterback Payton Thorne has been a bit shaky so far this season so fair play if anyone is skeptical of Michigan State being favored on the road in Seattle. I was on the Michael Penix, Jr. hype train last year and it didn’t work out at Indiana. He transferred to Washington and is averaging 341 yards per game through the air. Great story!

Miami (+6.5) at Texas A&M

We had to move the G5 poll to later in the week which bumped up today’s article and is giving us some EARLY lines. I have to think this one is going to continually fall in favor of Miami throughout the week. It’s already dropped by a point in the time it’s taken to put this together on Sunday. I’m guessing Jimbo Fisher wasn’t thinking about 2 losses before the Aggies even opened up SEC play.