The first full weekend of college football wasn’t supposed to bring us a whole lot in terms of compelling matchups, but damn it this sports keeps delivering us enough juice and we got our money’s worth after week one. I mean, I come out of every weekend hating Michigan more than any other team and the Wolverines shared that with the rest of the world following their shenanigans against Western Michigan. A full field storming after that performance? A villainous program showing their true colors, indeed.

18 Stripes Top 20 Ranking

Dropped Out:

#19 Vanderbilt
#20 Boise State

More on Boise State below. I may have gotten a little ahead of myself ranking Vanderbilt in the pre-season. They started slow and ended up looking fine against Austin Peay in a 28-9 victory but of course you’d like to see so much more from a SEC team against an overmatched opponent.

National Stories:

#1 Michigan Cheating (Again)

We have to start in Ann Arbor of course, where the world’s worst sports program on earth, picked up one of the most controversial wins in college football history. What more is to be said that hasn’t already been said? Stepping back from the clock controversy and looking at it from a football perspective–this was pretty much the worst start Kyle Whittingham could’ve had with Michigan. As frustrating as it was to watch Western Michigan have their hearts ripped out like that, I’ll take solace in the Wolverines continuing to be college football’s premier villain and now, very likely, not a good football team.

Whittingham’s hiring at Michigan felt weird at the time, and it looked even weirder on Saturday. Perhaps the all-yellow uniforms didn’t help. Losing to a MAC team (as was rightfully done, let’s be honest) won’t help the vibes. The defense was fine, although it’s not going to be anywhere close to the cheatin’ Harbaugh days. Quarterback Bryce Underwood looked mediocre at best and has the look of someone who is going to torpedo this offense–and the Wolverines don’t look like they have a ton of other playmakers to help out on offense. In our pre-season top 20 ranking I took the under on Michigan at 8.5 wins and feel pretty good about this. I hope things get so ugly.

#2 Clemson Wrecked

Is it time to shovel dirt on the grave of Dabo Swinney’s tenure at Clemson? They were truly embarrassed by LSU and looked like a FCS opponent playing inside Baton Rouge. I personally didn’t see much hope for them this year but this is a disaster start beyond anything I could’ve predicted. Christopher Vizzina doesn’t look like the answer at quarterback and the once proud Clemson defense gave up 644 yards in a 41-point loss. I’m going to wait and see how things shake out more in the ACC but through one week this is definitely not a playoff team at Clemson and I doubt they’ll improve enough to challenge for a top 4-5 finish in the league.

#3 We Didn’t Forget, Rutgers

A lot of football has been played since last Thursday and normally these things would get washed away with bigger game coverage. However, when a power program loses to UMass, it stays in the spotlight. A loss to UMass!? At home?? They were 0-12 last year and hadn’t beaten a FBS team since October 2023. I couldn’t find anything concrete but a quick Google search shows this was UMass’ first win over a power program since stepping up to FBS back in 2012. And they took it to Rutgers!

That’s a black eye for the Big Ten (who didn’t have the best opening weekend we should admit) and a tough blow for Greg Schiano. It briefly looked like his return to Rutgers was showing some promise but a guy making over $6 million can’t be losing to UMass. The Scarlet Knights travel to Boston College this Friday in what could be a certified early season Toilet Bowl game.

#4 SEC Clean Sweep

If the Big Ten didn’t have the best weekend, the SEC tried its best to grab momentum as the top league in the country–at least through week 1. For the first time in nearly 30 years, the entire SEC went unbeaten through the first full week with everyone 16-0 collectively to start 2026. Maybe this shouldn’t be a surprise as early season schedules are starting to look kind of pathetic across the country in this playoff era of college football. At the bottom of last year’s standings, we saw Arkansas play North Alabama (31-14 win), South Carolina play Kent State (57-0 win), Miss State play UL-Monroe (62-13 win), Florida play FAU (66-21 win), and Kentucky play Youngstown State (45-13). Shout out to Kenny Minchey (301 yards, 4 TD’s) in his first career start with the Wildcats, by the way.

#5 Louisville Looks Good (in a Loss)

Beyond LSU shooting Clemson into the sun, we should mention Auburn making a tremendous goal line tackle to beat Baylor and keep that undefeated SEC record alive over the weekend. Another competitive game–going head to head with the Irish game on Sunday evening–was Ole Miss needing a last-second field goal to beat Louisville 41-38. It was a sleepy first half for both teams then they exploded for 63 combined points in the last 2 quarters with both sides approaching 500 yards of offense.

It was probably what we expected from Ole Miss. However, how many other ACC teams would you take over Louisville right now? I’m not sure I’ve ever had a team start outside my pre-season rankings, lose, and then get put into the rankings the following week. Here we are!

#6 USC Quickly Out to a 2-0 Start

I was about to update the USC section down below then realized they aren’t on the Notre Dame schedule. It’s still taking some getting used to, isn’t it? Anyway, the Trojans are quickly 2-0 thanks to a week 0 victory over San Jose State and a shutout of Fresno State this past Saturday. Do things look any different in Los Angeles? San Jose State added 23 points in the 4th quarter, effectively all garbage time scores. In the other 7 quarters of the season USC has only allowed 3 points. Their ground game has looked okay so far, but the Trojans are excited about 4-star true freshman Trent Mosley who has 222 receiving yards and 3 touchdowns so far this season.

#7 The Rebuild Continues in Stillwater 

Eric Morris came over from North Texas and brought with him quarterback Drew Mestemaker and approximately 734 other transfers in the portal to Oklahoma State. There was hope things would be different for this program that quickly became moribund within the Big 12 in recent seasons. If week 1 was any indication, they still have a long way to go.

Mestemaker threw 2 picks and the Cowboys lost 2 more fumbles on their way to a 24-10 loss to Tulsa. Imagine, losing to Tulsa! I’m not sure why Oklahoma State opened up on the road against an AAC team but the worse news is that they welcome Oregon to Stillwater this weekend. I have this game currently set for my weekly picks, should I keep it? A reminder that the AP had Oklahoma State ranked 35th when taking into account everyone who received votes.

#8 Coach Prime on the Board

Although they had a sneaky good win over 8-win Iowa State last year, it was a dismal 3-9 season for Deion Sanders and Colorado last season. Traveling across the country to Georgia Tech and winning, if even by a single point, is a much-needed confidence boost for a Big 12 program that was nowhere to be seen in 2025. They make another non-league road trip in a couple weeks to Northwestern in a game that the Buffs will really want to win ahead of their league opener.

#9 Champs Return

Indiana still hasn’t lost since their 2024 playoff game against Notre Dame. They opened up their title defense with a 52-16 victory over North Texas which really isn’t worth mentioning, although TCU transfer Josh Hoover went 13 of 16 for 231 yards and 4 touchdowns. Heading into week 2 he’s now leading the nation in passer rating. The Hoosiers schedule has absolutely nothing challenging on it until mid-October.

#10 Va Tech & PSU Come Alive

Early days but the James Franklin era at Virginia Tech is off to a roaring start after a 73-3 drubbing of VMI. That was VMI’s second game of the season already and they’d previously lost to Idaho State 38-10 so we’ll wait to give more praise to the Hokies. Franklin’s former school Penn State also looked tidy (and threw the ball quite well) in a 45-0 win over visiting Marshall.

Also, I ranked Pitt during the pre-season with the idea that quarterback Mason Heintschel could be a Dude. To me, they could be worth a shout to make the ACC title game. Heintschel completed a school-record 7 touchdown passes against Miami (OH) and they were all to different receivers.

#11 Ducks Avoid the Upset

If you watched the game, it felt like Boise State had a great shot to upset Oregon. In fact, the Broncos led at halftime in Autzen. I didn’t see a huge problem with Oregon’s offense, although their defense looked pretty shaky at times. The overall stats in the game were still kind to the Ducks, though. They gained 223 more yards than Boise State and finished strong in a 34-27 win.

Opponent Recap:

Wisconsin (0-1): Following their loss to Notre Dame, the Badgers will have a couple opportunities (Western Illinois & Eastern Michigan) to get things right before a big, big visit to Happy Valley.

Rice (1-0): I am learning there is a FCS school call Houston Christian (the program began in 2013) and Rice beat them 31-3 to open their season.

Michigan State (1-0): It wasn’t pretty at all. However, the Spartans got past Toledo 30-20 in East Lansing.

Purdue (1-0): A big third quarter allowed Purdue to cruise past Indiana State 44-19.

North Carolina (1-0): The Heels upset TCU 15-10 in Ireland during week 0 and were idle this past weekend.

Stanford (1-1): The Cardinal opened up their season with a week 0 win at home over Hawaii, then hosted Miami and looked completely overmatched by the Hurricanes’ offense.

BYU (1-0): Utah Tech were no match, losing 63-7 in Provo.

Navy (1-0): Towson made the hour bus ride to Annapolis and lost 42-15.

Miami (1-0): The connection between Darian Mensah (27/30 for 401 yards, 5 TD) to Malachi Toney (12 catches, 234 yards, 3 TD) seemed awfully nasty against a Stanford defense that didn’t seem too bothered to stop either of them.

Boston College (0-1): The Eagles traveled to Cincinnati and lost 34-15.

SMU (1-0): Once they could see, racking up nearly 600 yards against Florida State was impressive. Turning the ball over 4 times and needing a late field goal to win, not quite as impressive.

Syracuse (1-0): Steve Angeli (263 yards, 3 TD) came back from injury to lead the Orange to an easy 66-3 win over visiting New Hampshire.