College Football Roundup Week 2: What It All Means, Winners, Losers, Overrated, Underrated
College football Week 2 roundup with the 5 things that matter, winners and losers, overrated and underrated aspects to the weekend, and what it all means
College Football Week 2 Roundup
College Football Week 2 Roundup
CFN 1-131 Rankings | Bowl Projections
Week 2 Scoreboard | Week 3 Early Lines
What 12-Team Playoff Would Look Like
Hot Seat Coach Rankings
AP Rankings | Coaches Poll
Contact/Follow @ColFootballNews & @PeteFiutak
– Sun Belt, Fun Belt One Really Big Thing
– Bama’s close call: Most Overrated Thing
– Michigan’s roll: Most Underrated Thing
– This is going to be weird: What It All Means, Week 2
Winners & Losers From Week 2
Winner: College Football Playoff expansion
Originally the powers-that-be were pumping the brakes on when the 12-team expansion was going to happen. Contracts, bowl deals, various plans all require years to put together, and they aren’t as easily broken as many fans think, and … of course there’s a way to do it. It’s now being hinted that the expanded playoff might come as soon as the 2024 season. But for now …
Loser: Bowl ties and affiliations
Here’s the good and the bad of this last weekend. To look ahead a few months from now, the rise of the Sun Belt means some of the earlier bowls will be more interesting. The problem is that the Sun Belt bowl ties are awful.
No offense – every bowl is beautiful – but unless ESPN can rig it so a slew of Power Five teams can take over spots reserved for Group of Five programs, the best bowl tie-in for the Sun Belt is the … R&L Carriers New Orleans Bowl? The Frisco? The LendingTree, or the Boca Raton?
Winner: Georgia Southern QB Kyle Vantrease
To keep with the Sun Belt theme this week, 1) remember, Georgia Southern was an option-running, little-throwing program not all that long ago, 2) Kyle Vantrease spent five years at Buffalo and hit the 300-yard mark just twice in 35 career games with 25 total touchdown passes, and 3) last year Clay Helton was fired by USC after a tough Week 2 loss, and this year his team’s win over Scott Frost sparked a regime change at Nebraska. But I digress on that last part.
In two games at Georgia Southern, Vantrease is 2-0 throwing for 367 yards and four scores against Morgan State, and 409 yards and a touchdown against Nebraska. He’s currently No. 2 in the nation in passing yards per game, just three yards an outing behind Tulsa’s Davis Brin.
Vantrease has thrown for 767 yards in the two games. 2019 Georgia Southern threw for 968 yards and nine touchdowns in 13 games.
Loser: Florida passing game
The Gators are hardly a loser with an offense that features a top 10 overall draft pick talent in Anthony Richardson, but the O has yet to throw a touchdown pass in two games. As great as 15 is, his two picks – especially a tough pick six – were costly against Kentucky. The team has just 311 passing yards in two games.
Winner: Washington State QB Cameron Ward
The transfer from Incarnate Word was supposed to raise the level of the Washington State passing game and the offense as a whole. The numbers might not be astronomical – 428 yards and four scores with two picks in two wins – but he was strong in the opener against Idaho, and he came up with a slew of clutch, strong throws with 200 yards and a score to get out with a win, which leads to …
Loser: Wisconsin vs Power 5 teams in September
Wisconsin had three home games and one neutral site date in Chicago against Power Five programs over the last two Septembers. It went 0-4. The last win over a Power Five program was against Northwestern in late 2019 – the 2020 season started in October.
It lost to Penn State and Michigan in Camp Randall in 2021, and got rocked by Notre Dame in Soldier Field. This last Saturday it lost to Washington State, and now it’s not looking good to avoid 0-5.
The next – and last – September game against a Power Five team this season is at Ohio State.
– Sun Belt, Fun Belt One Really Big Thing
– Bama’s close call: Most Overrated Thing
– Michigan’s roll: Most Underrated Thing
– This is going to be weird: What It All Means, Week 2
NEXT: The really big Week 2 thing was …
The Really Big Week 2 Thing Was …
Sun Belt, Fun Belt …
Who’s on a better roll than the Sun Belt Conference?
When all of the expansion and realignment stuff started to kick in last year, the Sun Belt appeared to be destined for big problems.
After all, it was a young league on the big FBS stage, the programs weren’t necessarily nationally known, and it seemed like Conference USA, and maybe the American Athletic Conference, would fortify their respective positions by picking and choosing the best schools and football teams of the bunch.
And then a funny thing happened on the way to total irrelevance and possible WAC/Big East-like big stage extinction. The Sun Belt got proactive.
Hint, hint, Pac-12 – if you’re worried about your standing in the college sports business world, acquire properties, acquire properties, acquire properties.
What did the Sun Belt do? It managed to work a deal that brought over Marshall, Southern Miss, and Old Dominion from Conference USA to go along with James Madison.
Did they come over in 2024ish or so? No. The Sun Belt found a way to get them this year, and now the league has Marshall, who just went out and took down Notre Dame in South Bend. Old Dominion was the only Group of Five team to beat a Power Five program – Virginia Tech – in Week 0 or 1, and Southern Miss hasn’t been that bad in losses to Liberty and Miami.
Meanwhile, James Madison is playing for keeps with two wins over Middle Tennessee and Norfolk State by a combined score of 107-14 to kick off life in the FBS.
Oh yeah, and Coastal Carolina is 2-0 in a rebuilding year. All Appalachian State did was push North Carolina to the brink and embarrass Texas A&M in its own house.
South Alabama is a strong-looking 2-0, Louisiana has pushed to two wins, and Georgia Southern got paid $1.423 million to go amass the most yards ever allowed at home by a Nebraska team – 642 – forcing the end of the Scott Frost era.
The problem going forward will be the spotlight. There are enough good teams up top to keep the eventual champion – like a Marshall, or Coastal Carolina, or Appalachian State – from getting the New Year’s Six bowl slot.
Whatever. For the moment, the Sun Belt is fun, the SEC isn’t, and it’s only Week 2.
– CFP, Bowl Ties Winners & Losers
– Bama’s close call: Most Overrated Thing
– Michigan’s roll: Most Underrated Thing
– This is going to be weird: What It All Means, Week 2
NEXT: The most overrated thing was …
The Most Overrated Thing Was …
Alabama beat Texas 20-19.
In this crazies of weeks, Bama files this under the Any Win You Can Walk Away From Is A Good One category.
Did Texas just expose a few massive problem with the Tide? Yup.
Start with this – where the hell are the wide receivers?
It somehow got totally glossed over this offseason that Bama didn’t reload at receiver like it normally does. It lost John Metchie and Jameson Williams, and it brought back a slew of young parts that in a just sayin’ sort of way got blamed by Nick Saban for not stepping up in the national championship.
The assumption was there that it’s Alabama – the receivers will rise up and rock once they get there. Georgia transfer Jermaine Burton caught two passes for ten yards.
Georgia Tech RB Jaymyr Gibbs led the way with nine catches, banged up tight end Cameron Latu came up with four big short-range grabs, and for the most part, all of the downfield targets were totally erased.
There was that, there was the inability to cover Texas star WR Xavier Worthy early on, there were the 15 penalties for 100 yards – and, really, the Tide could’ve and should’ve been called for at least five, closer to ten, more – and it took the reigning Heisman winner to save the day with yet another legendary game-winning drive. And …
Alabama won.
Texas A&M lost at home to a Sun Belt team – not to program shame, but Appalachian State is a Group of Five program, not Texas.
Notre Dame lost at home to a Sun Belt team – Marshall is terrific. It’s not Texas.
Who else out there looks the part of a College Football Playoff team? Georgia, of course, and Ohio State, but now that Notre Dame win doesn’t seem like anything special.
Alabama survived. Last year it got out of Florida alive with a close-call win that was this close to going into overtime, lost to Texas A&M a few weeks later, and almost won the national title.
In 2020 it survived an early shootout with Ole Miss and went on to win the national title. In 2015 it lost to Ole Miss in September and went on to win the national title.
Almost every Saban national championship season had a bump, a bad performance, or a moment that made it seem like the wheels might be finally coming off.
And then things get fixed.
There’s ULM up next, and then Vanderbilt before going to Arkansas. There are two weeks to get The Process in peak form, but for now …
Alabama is 2-0. It survived in a weekend when many teams didn’t.
– CFP, Bowl Ties Winners & Losers
– Sun Belt, Fun Belt One Really Big Thing
– Michigan’s roll: Most Underrated Thing
– This is going to be weird: What It All Means, Week 2
NEXT: The most underrated thing was …
The Most Underrated Thing Was …
Michigan is still pretty good.
It’s not that Michigan was coming into 2022 appreciably worse than the version that won the Big Ten title and went on to the College Football Playoff, it’s that Ohio State appears to have fixed the defensive glitch and is now back to being national championship-level amazing again.
That still might mean Michigan is one of the four best teams in college football.
It’s only two games, and the team got to do whatever it wanted against totally miserable Colorado State and Hawaii squads, but this matters.
Does beating those two by a combined score of 107-17 mean it’s about to be a repeat of 2021?
No, not because of that, but the Wolverines had some rebuilding to do on the defensive front, they added a new center to the O line mix – and a great one in Virginia’s Olusegun Oluwatimi – the quarterback situation needed some massaging, and enough new players came aboard to matter.
Using the first two games as true tune-ups was a luxury, there’s another with UConn coming up, and so now – unlike a slew of other teams that had to survive tough fights right away – Michigan got to have an NFL-like preseason.
And what’s up after all of these light scrimmages?
Maryland, at Iowa, at Indiana, Penn State, Michigan State, at Rutgers, Nebraska, Illinois.
The toughest games are at home, the Wolverines will be double-digit favorites in the three road games, and all of that means 11-0 might really be possible before dealing with Ohio State.
With the way this season appears to be going, and with all of the key losses early by top teams, get to Columbus unbeaten, don’t get annihilated, and at 11-1 – assuming Michigan loses – the four-team tournament might have an invite waiting.
In the end, getting the first part of the season to practice might be the difference.
– CFP, Bowl Ties Winners & Losers
– Sun Belt, Fun Belt One Really Big Thing
– Bama’s close call: Most Overrated Thing
– This is going to be weird: What It All Means, Week 2
NEXT: What It All Means: Week 2
What It All Means: Week 2
This is going to get weird.
I keep saying it, but it continues to be true. We’re only two games in, or 2.5 if we’re counting Week 0.
It doesn’t matter. 2022 has packed a season’s worth of stuff in a little bit of time.
Remember, there has yet to be a two-loss team in the College Football Playoff. The committee likes 12-1 or unbeaten teams that win their conference championship, or are powerhouses who come close, as long as there’s only one loss.
That means there’s almost certainly no margin for error the rest of the way for several of the CFP preseason hopefuls.
For all intents and purposes, unless something insane happens, Notre Dame is out. Texas A&M is out. All of the Group of Five programs are going to be out – yeah, they are – so no Cincinnati storylines this year. Utah is out – okay, that’s more of a maybe than some of the others.
Oregon, Florida, Baylor, Texas, Wisconsin, LSU – none of them are likely surviving the rest of the season without a second loss.
Does NC State seem like is about to rock up fast and be amazing? You sold on that Clemson offense yet? How about that USC defense?
College Football Week 2 Roundup
CFN 1-131 Rankings | Bowl Projections
Week 2 Scoreboard | Week 3 Early Lines
What 12-Team Playoff Would Look Like
Hot Seat Coach Rankings
And, of course, teams are going to start picking each other off in conference play.
Michigan, Michigan State, Penn State, Ohio State – they all play each other.
Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and all of the other unbeaten Big 12 teams will take their turns beating each other up.
Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky are all going to get their turns dealing with the others. Arkansas, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Auburn, Alabama – all of them undefeated now, and unlikely to be three months from now.
Okay, maybe Georgia, Ohio State, and Alabama will be the exceptions, Clemson might have enough of a defense to get through unscathed, and USC might have enough of an offense to avoid the problems on the other side.
And maybe, BYU beats Arkansas, and Notre Dame, and Boise State, and it becomes the story of the 2022 season.
After Alabama’s close call, and the big losses by giant favorites this week, nothing is too crazy in what might be the most interesting College Football Playoff chase so far.
But before worrying too much about the end result, please, college football …
More weekends like Week 2, and please, keep this great start to the season going.
– CFP, Bowl Ties Winners & Losers
– Sun Belt, Fun Belt One Really Big Thing
– Bama’s close call: Most Overrated Thing
– Michigan’s roll: Most Underrated Thing
– This is going to be weird: What It All Means, Week 2
