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As stated last week, there are certain things you can never talk too early about: beer fests, three-day weekends, college football playoffs … things of that nature. The regular season is the playoffs. It’s cliche, but that doesn’t make it any less real.
We started with week one last week, and here we are in week two. As a reminder, if your team isn’t on here, it isn’t because I hate it. Maybe you just need to send me more money. Kidding. Sort of.
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5. LSU
Playing in Starkville to basically open your season (their game against McNeese State in week 1 was cancelled) seems like the exact opposite of what LSU was thinking when it scheduled a “come over for a flogging and I’ll pay you handsomely” tilt in week one. The Bulldogs mounted a scathing rally to come within three of winning, two of the tie, but in the end it wasn’t meant to be. In spite of being outscored 16-7 in the second half, there are no such things as bad road wins. LSU will need to find more non-Leonard Fournette related offense, but that’s a worry for another day.
4. UCLA
UCLA moves up the ladder not so much because it came onto UNLV’s hedges and trimmed them bare, down to the twigs, but because the Bruins saw BYU win and will obtain a major feather in their cap if they can win that game next week. Free advice to Jim Mora, Jr.: be up by at least 9 when BYU gets its final possession.
Quarterback Josh Rosen and running back Paul Perkins have highlighted the first two games, but when it comes down to it and you’re parsing betwixt which 1 or 2-loss teams may deserve to be in over others, games against teams like BYU can tilt the balance of opinion one way. Of course, that’s the easy part. The hard part is actually killing off …
3. BYU
Tanner Mangum sounds like the real-life name of some hipster Marvel Comics villain. In real life, though, he plays quarterback for Vampire BYU, which never actually dies. Riding their second straight Hail Emma Smith in a win this time over Boise State, the Cougarrs have thrust themselves into:
1. lore;
2. more importantly, a national conversation that will only continue and make the CFB Playoff committee uncomfortable the more they keep winning.
They still have games against Michigan (gasp, bad thoughts of Hail Marys in the Big House), UCLA, and Missouri to enhance their resume and give a feel of where they are versus a variety of Power 5 conference contenders.
2. Temple
This marks the first time in my life I’ve written anything about Temple football. One week after outclassing Penn State (which, in its own right, still doesn’t look totally above the weather), they Owls dusted off Cincinnati rather handily (despite the Bearcats’ late rally) and find themselves being a legitimate focus of New Year’s Six bowl discussions. To get anywhere, they will probably have to be unbeaten, but their defense has been hell-raising two weeks in, and you can’t go unbeaten without winning the first two games on your schedule.
1. Michigan State
Sparty was the big winner this week, using defense to fend off Oregon in a high-profile top-7 battle that will endure in importance. When it comes down to … say … a 1-loss MSU or a 1-loss Oregon, this is a big skin to have on the wall. The Spartans will root for the Ducks from here on out. You figure if you lose a game, that means the other team probably needs two losses more than you if you’re going to jump them. This is the most important non-conference win to date for any team in the country, much like the long-lasting ramifications of Oregon’s win over MSU last year carried weight in December when decisions had to be made about playoff slots.
