Going into week 2 of the college football season, there didn’t appear to be many games of interest. Sure, there was the novelty of the Battle at Bristol, which ended up with a record attendance for a college football game. Just shy of 157,000 people watched Tennessee beat Virginia Tech. But most of the big teams had easier opponents, so what would the storyline be coming out of the week? It appears that the answer to that question is “rulebook controversy”. In the Central Michigan-Oklahoma State game, the Cowboys took a snap on fourth down with four seconds left in the game and threw a pass out of bounds, seemingly running out the clock and winning 27-24. However, they were called for intentional grounding, and an untimed down was given to the Chippewas, who promptly completed a fifty-plus yard Hail Mary-plus-a-lateral that gave them an improbable 30-27 win. As it turns out, Central Michigan shouldn’t have gotten another snap, even though Oklahoma State took a penalty at the end. I won’t go into specifics, because this is supposed to be easy reading on a Monday morning, and much more knowledgeable people than I have discussed it online. However, it seems like there’s some work that needs to be done on the rulebook to make sure that situations like this don’t happen again.
Thankfully, there were some other interesting occurrences this week that didn’t involve controversial finishes. The most eye-popping occurred in Tempe, Arizona, after many of our bedtimes. Arizona State running back Kalen Ballage scored eight touchdowns for the Sun Devils in a 68-55 win over Texas Tech. In doing so, he tied an NCAA record for touchdowns in a game, but what perhaps is most interesting is how comparatively normal the rest of his stats were. Ballage only ran the ball thirteen times for 137 yards, but scored seven touchdowns on the ground (from 1, 1, 4, 2, 7, 1, and 75 yards). He caught two passes for 48 yards and one receiving touchdown (39 yards). Ballage’s effort ties the record of Illinois’ Howard Griffith, who scored eight touchdowns in a game against Southern Illinois in 1990.
Ballage isn’t the only touchdown machine early this year. Louisville quarterback Lamar Jackson has accounted for thirteen scores this year in two games against Charlotte and Syracuse. He’s run for six touchdowns and thrown for seven more. Perhaps most impressive in all of this is that Jackson didn’t play in the second half against Charlotte, so this has all happened in six quarters of football. Louisville is currently averaging 66 points per game, but things figure to get tougher this week – the Cardinals take on #2-ranked Florida State this Saturday. Patrick Mahomes of Texas Tech has thrown for nine touchdowns and run for three more in two games against Stephen F. Austin and Arizona State.
In small-school news, North Dakota State is finding the going tough to start the year. The five-time defending FCS champions and #1-ranked team in FCS were taken to overtime for a second straight game to open the season. After beating then-FCS #6 Charleston Southern 24-17 in overtime, the Bison squeaked by then-FCS #8 Eastern Washington 50-44 in extra time this past Saturday. North Dakota State ups the ante yet again this week – they travel to Iowa City to take on Iowa, currently ranked #13 in the FBS. If you think that the Hawkeyes couldn’t take the Bison any more seriously than they already are, consider this: in the five years that NDSU has won their titles, they have gone 4-0 against FBS teams, and only one of those wins was by single digits (37-24 against Minnesota in 2011, 22-7 against Colorado State in 2012, 24-21 against Kansas State in 2013, 34-14 against Iowa State in 2014). In addition to that, they have a win over Kansas in 2010, so NDSU is currently on a five-game winning streak against FBS teams. Overlook the Bison at your own peril.
Congratulations to In Accord, who wins week two with 273 points! Coming in second this week was Pachyderm, who had 271 points. Third was a tie between bamaken and maestro, who each scored 270 points.
Standings after two weeks:
| 1st | In Accord | 498 |
| 2nd | Shame! Shame! | 489 |
| 3rd | TheColombian | 487 |
| T-4th | Pachyderm | 486 |
| T-4th | Jeff4Bama | 486 |
| T-4th | AllySun | 486 |
| 7th | notlastagain | 485 |
| 8th | bamaken | 483 |
| 9th | AUBrian | 482 |
| T-10th | Crimson Gator | 481 |
| T-10th | maestro | 481 |
Week three promises to be very interesting, with several intriguing intra-conference matchups and a couple of big early division games between ranked opponents that will go a long way to determine the winner of the division. Pick wisely and well! The first game this week is Houston at Cincinnati (a future Big XII conference game, perhaps?), Thursday, September 15 @ 7:30 ET, so make sure to get your picks in by then!