We’ve only had one week of a full slate of games, and it seems like there’s already plenty to talk about. To wit:
With #15 Houston’s 33-23 win over #3 Oklahoma, and Wisconsin’s 16-14 upset of #5 LSU, it marks the first time since 1972 that two AP preseason top-5 teams were beaten in their first game of the season (#1 Nebraska lost to UCLA 20-17; #4 Arkansas lost to USC, 31-10). We almost had two other top-5 teams go down before Clemson held on to beat Auburn and Florida State rallied to beat Ole Miss. In addition, #10 Notre Dame was beaten in overtime by an unranked Texas, meaning two top-10 teams lost to unranked opponents. It doesn’t give one a lot of faith in those preseason polls , does it?
With a 24-7 win over Massachusetts, Florida won their first game for the 27th straight year, the longest current streak in the country. The last time the Gators lost an opening game was a 24-19 loss to Ole Miss in 1989. However, two other such long winning streaks were snapped. USC, which hadn’t lost a season opener on the field since 1997 (14-7 to Florida State; the Trojans vacated a 63-17 win over Hawaii in 2005), lost to Alabama 52-6. Missouri lost 26-11 to West Virginia, breaking a 14-game streak (the Tigers lost in former coach Gary Pinkel’s first game in 2001 to Bowling Green, 20-13).
The SEC is often recognized as the best of the Power 5 conferences. However, its reputation was somewhat tarnished in the first week. The conference had seven teams lose their first game; that’s the most SEC teams ever to lose their first game. The previous record was six, last set in 1995. SEC teams had non-conference losses to ACC, Big Ten, Big XII, Conference USA, and Sun Belt teams (at least they went 2-0 against the Pac-12). In addition, there were close wins against Conference USA and Sun Belt teams. The “SEC” chants aren’t quite as loud right now as they’ve been in years past. However, they do have one bright spot: they were the only conference to post three wins against ranked opponents this week. In addition to Alabama’s win over then-#20 USC, Texas A&M beat then-#16 UCLA, and Georgia beat then-#22 North Carolina.
I’ve mentioned plenty of times in this space before about how service academy football has a special place in my heart, so I feel obligated to point out this little tidbit: each of the major service academy teams won their opening game this year (Army 28-13 over Temple; Navy 52-16 over Fordham; Air Force 37-21 over Abilene Christian). That makes each team 1-0 for only the second time since the turn of the millennium (2013 was the only other time).
Other interesting notes: Washington State lost to an FCS team in its opener for the second straight year, 45-42 to Eastern Washington. The Cougars still managed to finish 9-4 with a bowl win last year, so perhaps all is not lost…other FCS winners over FBS teams included Northern Iowa (25-20 over Iowa State) and Richmond (37-20 over Virginia).
Congratulations to TheColombian, who takes week one in a tie-breaker victory over In Accord! Each finished with 225 points. Shame! Shame! and notlastagain tied for third with 220 points.
After the sheer number of great matchups and exciting games that were on the docket in the opener, it might be a little tougher to come by interesting games this week. But, hey, it’s still college football! There are 23 games on our schedule this week, so a lot of points are at stake. The first game this week is Louisville at Syracuse (“in a classic ACC matchup”, he said, coughing), Friday, September 9 @ 8 PM ET, so make sure to get your picks in by then!