5. Playing Alabama on a neutral field to open the season will give you plenty to grovel about, if you’re looking for it
The upside of playing Alabama on a neutral field to start the season is that if you ever want to know how you’d feel at the lowest possible confidence point in the season and how you’d go about reacting to it, they’ll give it to you.
But the Trojans were eviscerated, and under a “new” regime, it’s just simply not a good look to seem so unprepared and overwhelmed by any opponent. And this is USC … this isn’t some team that just doesn’t recruit on the level of an Alabama. Now, it’ll be up to them to respond going forward and making something positive of this mess, but let’s be honest … that was a team not prepared for the moment in spite of having all off season to get there. You’ve got to at least be competitive.
4. Arizona’s offense is regressing
Anu Solomon was uncharacteristically inaccurate and turnover prone behind an offensive line that at best, was mediocre, and at worst, was sieve-like at times against BYU. The Wildcats had only three points going into the fourth quarter and were basically two Nick Wilson runs away from being shut out on touchdowns. It shouldn’t take 17 points to defeat a Rich Rodriguez-offense, and give BYU plenty of credit, but this had a “Nick Sheridan is the starting quarterback at Michigan” Rich Rod feel to it, and folks, that’s not a good thing this far in.
3. Wazzu needs to stop scheduling FCS teams to open the season, apparently
The good news: Washington State showed that you can still have a successful season after getting pelted by Portland State. Hope they didn’t mothball that speech after was Eastern Washington did to them this past weekend.
The bad news: The obvious. They couldn’t stop an FCS team, albeit a really good one. Certain programs are swearing off FCS scheduling going forward. WSU probably should, too, although for different reasons.
2. Colorado is on the mend, and that’s awesome for college football
CU was once one of the great environments in college football, and that hasn’t changed, but when you don’t win, no one really gets to see that. It’s staggering to think CU hasn’t had a winning season since 2005 when they won seven games under Gary Barnett in his final year.
QB Sefo Liufau became the first offensive Buff to win a conference player of the week award since Paul Richardson in 2013! Yes, and exclamation point. It shouldn’t be a surprise under Mike MacIntyre that this ship is getting righted, but the Buffs exploded on their rivals 44-7 in what is normally a tight game either way. Outside plea: can we get Nebraska back on the schedule, please?
1. We have the most to learn still on Oregon and Utah
Both teams won handily against overmatched and underwhelmed opponents (by 25 and 24, respectively). The Utes were up only 3-0 late in the second, and though they cruised to a 24-0 clip, that dog won’t hunt in the Holy War this weekend.
As for Oregon, their win has been called “uninspiring” which is tough to really know the inspiration level, but they did rattle off 33 straight against UC Davis after starting out up 8-7 after the first. In theory, we’d learn more about them next week against Virginia, but the Cavs are licking their wounds after a bloodletting by the Richmond Spiders of the FCS, so know knows? (See how I did that. Spiders eat their prey that way. Science, y’all.)
