NCAA Football: Week 2 Preview
What an excellent kick-off week we were all witness to. There were mega-upsets, with the likes of Texas losing at home to Maryland, or lowly UNLV losing to an FCS team in Howard! We watched as aspiring playoff hopefuls Florida State were dismantled by the Crimson Tide, and we watched their star quarterback Deondre Francois go down for the season with a knee injury. If Week One was any indication of how wild this season will be, Week Two will begin to separate legitimate contenders from program pretenders.
This season, I will keep track of my win/loss records, and post it atop the article for all my phenomenal readers to see. In Week One, I went 25–3 during the midweek games, 53–7 on Saturday games, and 3–0 on the Sunday/Monday games and finished with an overall record of: 81–10
20 Highlights From Last Week
1. Stanford doesn’t miss Christian Mccaffrey as much as we may think. New running back Bryce Love torched Rice for 180 yards on 13 carries, and the team totalled 287 rushing yards as they steamrolled Rice.
2. Charlie Strong is a great coach. He struggled mightily in Texas, but now that he’s taken the reigns at USF, coupled with an excellent quarterback in Quinton Flowers, he’s led this USF team to a 2–0 start and. it will be another five weeks until they face a team that may give them some competition.
3. This will likely be coach Scott Frost’s final year at UCF. He’s taken this struggling program, turned it around in a hurry, and created an extremely competitive team. He will no doubt be scooped up by a big program this winter. Maybe Texas A&M?
4. Oklahoma State is going to be a fun team to watch all year long. This team is going to score a ton of points, and it’s going to be great watching QB Mason Rudolph torch defenses all year long, especially in the no-defense conference of the Big 12.
5. RB J.K. Dobbins is the next stud for Ohio State. They struggled in the first half vs Indiana, but the Buckeyes turned up the heat and torched Indiana in the second half, led by super running back Dobbins, who had over 200 all-purpose yards.
6. Wisconsin might be the best team in the BIG 10. Down 10 with a minute to go in the first half, they remained true to their game plan and scored 59 unanswered vs Utah State, running the ball with excellent force and efficiency.
7. Alabama is still the top team in college football. QB Jalen Hurts did not look good at all, but the ‘Bama defense stepped up and took control of the game in the second half.
8. Florida States playoff chances are all but over already. Losing to Alabama in week one isn’t that big of deal for a contending program, but losing your star QB in game one? Good luck.
9. Penn State and Saquon Barkley can’t be stopped. The best running back in college had 17 touches for 226 all purpose yards in the 52–0 rout of Akron.
10. LSU looks good enough to beat Alabama. Their defense limited BYU to 97 yards, and they almost put up 500 offensively. The addition of Matt Canada as offensive coordinator seems to be the boost that this program has needed for a decade.
11. Same old Florida. Stout defense, anemic offence. That’s the motto of the Gators. Michigan played poorly defensively, but Florida couldn’t muster even one offensive touchdown.
12. Michigan is still good despite the new faces on defense. They played excellent defensively, albeit against a woeful Florida offense, but issues are still present for the team offensively.
13. Baylor fell asleep at the wheel. The debut for new head coach Matt Rhule couldn’t have gone any worse, losing to FCS team Liberty. I think they’ll come out hot next week.
14. Not the same Lousiville as last year. Heisman winner Lamar Jackson relied on his arm more than his legs, but still played great to eek out a win against Purdue.
15. New coach, same results in Texas. Coach Hermann came over with extremely high expectations, but this team was carved up on the defensive end, and looked lost offensively against a poor Maryland team. It’ll take awhile to right the ship for a once well-respected program.
16. Clemson is still a title contender. Despite losing their QB, RB, and a plethora of other players to the NFL, the new starters all stepped up and played great.
17. USC struggled, but showed resiliency. They stumbled out of the gate against Western Michigan, but in the 4th quarter top NFL QB prospect Sam Darnold led his team to victory. They’ll need to shore up the defense or Stanford will run all over them this week.
18. Wyoming’s Josh Allen did not look good. NFL QB prospect Josh Allen played a stiff defensive test against Iowa and looked out of place. That will definitely hurt his draft prospects.
19. Complacency costs Texas A&M. Coach Sumlin’s seat as head coach is red hot as they gave up a 34 point lead to UCLA. You can never take your foot off the gas in college football.
20. Improbable comeback highlights Josh Rosen’s NFL potential. Returning from injury, this highly touted NFL QB prospect led his team to victory after trailing by 34 points in the second half, amassing 491 passing yards, 4 TDs, and ZERO interceptions.
5 MUST WATCH GAMES
1. #5 Oklahoma @ #2 Ohio State: Two teams expected to contend for the college football playoffs. Baker Mayfield leads the potent Sooners offence into “the Horseshoe” to take on the Buckeyes. This game is a true test of both teams before conference play begins, and it should be a much closer game than last years beat-down that Ohio State gave to Oklahoma.
2. #13 Auburn @ #3 Clemson: Two teams expected to compete for a playoff spot this season, both installing new quarterbacks. This game should be an excellent barometer of what to expect from each of these teams this season. Auburn will have a tough task ahead entering “Death Valley” and hoping to come away with a victory.
3. #14 Stanford @ #6 USC: Stanford has won three in a row (since 2015) and seven of the last nine(since 2009) in this series against USC. Stanford brings a strong running game and USC needs to shore up their run defense, or it’ll be four Stanford wins in a row. USC will rely on Sam Darnold to lead them to victory at home.
4. Boise State @ #20 Washington State: If you haven’t watched Washington State’s quarterback Luke Falk play, you’re missing out. He leads one of the best air raid offenses in the country, and the Washington State defense has been improving leaps and bounds since the beginning of last season. This should be a fun game to watch, as Falk should put on a show against a competitive team.
5. Utah @ BYU: THE HOLY WAR: one of the best rivalries in all of college football. Utah has won this rivalry six years in a row, but all but one game has been decided by a touchdown or less. This game, like most previously played before, will be determined in the final minutes of the game in what will likely be another nail-biting finish.
5 UPSET ALERTS
- #23 TCU @ Arkansas: Despite being on the road and against an SEC team, TCU has a good enough squad to knock off Arkansas and avenge the home loss from last year that Arkansas dealt to TCU.
2. South Carolina @ Missouri: Sorry, but am I missing something? SC was on my upset watch last week and pulled the upset off, and they are dogs again to a terrible Missouri team who gave up 43 points to an FCS team. South Carolina isn’t that great of a team, but they’re not this bad either.
3. New Mexico State @ New Mexico: The New Mexico Lobos will bring a steady dose of rushing to stave off the upset minded New Mexico State Aggies, but star wide receiver Jaleel Scott should take over in this game and give the Aggies a legitimate shot at the upset.
4. Minnesota @ Oregon State: Oregon State is downright awful, and Minnesota plays a very stringent defense. I fully expect Minnesota to come away with the upset victory, as Oregon State will struggle to score on the Golden Gophers.
5. #5 Oklahoma @ #2 Ohio State: yes going into the Horseshoe is a daunting task, but Baker Mayfield is a phenomenal quarterback. If Ohio State struggles out of the gate as they did against Indiana last week, Oklahoma can put points up on the board and put Buckeye fans on edge.
The following are all the games from Week 2. The team that is in bold are my prediction to win the game outright.
Friday, Sept. 8
Ohio at Purdue
Memphis at UCF
Oklahoma State at South Alabama
Saturday, Sept. 9
Abilene Christian at Colorado State
Alabama A&M at Vanderbilt
Alabama State at Troy
Alcorn State at FIU
Auburn at Clemson
Austin Peay at Miami, OH
Boise State at Washington State
Buffalo at Army
Central Michigan at Kansas
Charlotte at Kansas State
Chattanooga at LSU
Cincinnati at Michigan
Delaware at Virginia Tech
East Carolina at West Virginia
Eastern Illinois at NIU
Eastern Kentucky at Kentucky
Eastern Michigan at Rutgers
Florida Atlantic at Wisconsin
Fresno State at Alabama
Gardner-Webb at Wyoming
Georgia at Notre Dame
Hawaii at UCLA
Houston at Arizona
Howard at Kent State
Indiana at Virginia
Indiana State at Tennessee
Iowa at Iowa State
Jacksonville State at Georgia Tech
Louisville at North Carolina
Marshall at NC State
Middle Tennessee at Syracuse
Minnesota at Oregon State
Mississippi State at Louisiana Tech
Montana at Washington
Nebraska at Oregon
New Hampshire at Georgia Southern
New Mexico State at New Mexico
Nicholls State at Texas A&M
North Texas at SMU
Northern Colorado at Florida
Northwestern at Duke
Oklahoma at Ohio State
Old Dominion at UMass
Pittsburgh at Penn State
Rice at UTEP
San Diego State at Arizona State
San Jose State at Texas
Savannah State at Appalachian State
South Carolina at Missouri
South Dakota at Bowling Green
Southern at Southern Miss
Stanford at USC
TCU at Arkansas
Texas State at Colorado
Toledo at Nevada
Towson at Maryland
Tulane at Navy
UAB at Ball State
UAPB at Akron
UL Lafayette at Tulsa
ULM at Florida State
UNLV at Idaho
USF at UConn
UT Martin at Ole Miss
Utah at BYU
UTSA at Baylor
Villanova at Temple
Wake Forest at Boston College
Weber State at California
Western Michigan at Michigan State
WKU at Illinois
Josh Higgs is a baseball and NCAA contributor for TheOcho.ca. By day he teaches in schools or works at gas stations. By night he’s watching hours of sports and brainstorming his next article.
