Week 1 in College Football: Hope for New Programs, and The Crushing Weight of Reality

Okay, so before each one of my weekly college football recaps I'm going to include a bunch of links like I did with my intro article:

First we've got all the scores from last week; and here they are in a more visual format.

Here are the rankings as they stand, and here are the two best weekly college football summary columns out there, both from blogging network SB Nation: The Alphabetical and The Numerical.

With that in mind, I'm going to have some brief recaps from last week, organized by category.

Games That Went As Expected:

-  The highlight game of the week was defending national champion Alabama's convincing 41-14 win against Michigan. Despite Michigan's high billing, Alabama rolled to a 31-0 lead and looked in complete control the entire game. This performance was enough for Alabama to regain the #1 national ranking they held at the end of last season; Michigan dropped to #19.

- Many Division I (FBS) teams choose to begin their season against a 'cupcake' opponent from Division II (FCS). The higher division team gets an easy win, and the lower division team gets a nice payout. Most of these games go as expected, and this week Kent State, Utah, New Mexico State, Utah State, Arizona State, Temple, East Carolina, North Carolina, Air Force, Virginia, New Mexico, Florida State, Oklahoma State, South Florida, Western Kentucky, Missouri, Louisiana-Lafayette, Mississippi State, Texas Tech, and Fresno State (20 teams total) all handled their FCS opponents easily. Highlight scores include North Carolina's 62-0 win over Elon and Oklahoma State's jaw-dropping 84-0 win over Savannah State, who has to play Florida state next week. That has to be demoralizing.

- Heisman favorite QB Matt Barkley looked sharp in #1 USC's 49-10 win over Hawaii. USC is coming off of a 2-year probationary period and is looking to challenge for the national championship this season.

Close Calls or Unexpected Blowouts:
- Some FBS schools had more trouble than expected against their FCS opponents or allowed more points than they would have liked. Central Michigan, Florida Atlantic, Maryland, Wisconsin, Wake Forest, Arkansas, Ole Miss, Kansas, and Indiana (9 teams total) all were at least somewhat disappointed in the box scores, and there were a few very close games: Maryland sneaked past William & Mary 7-6, while a ranked Wisconsin team needed a stop on the last drive to close out a 26-21 win over Northern Iowa.

- Stanford, who experienced a heyday recently under quarterback Andrew Luck, found themselves struggling after his departure in an unconvincing 20-17 win over San Jose State.

- The tenure of coach Mike Leach at Washington State did not start well, as the school commonly known as Wazzu was rolled 30-6 by Brigham Young. Leach's version of the famed Air Raid offense failed to score a touchdown.

- In a game perplexingly held in Dublin, Ireland, Notre Dame handily beat their Naval Academy rivals 50-10. I doubt the game was enough to convince the actual Irish to start watching American football.

- ACC Coastal division favorites Virginia Tech needed a last-minute drive and an overtime period to beat Georgia Tech 20-17. Virginia Tech, traditionally a defensive powerhouse, struggled on offense; they will have time to work on this over their next few games, which are against a fairly easy non-conference slate. Despite the loss, Georgia Tech looked competent on defense and now has four consecutive home games in which to try and build some momentum.

Upsets:

- As happens every year, a few FBS programs received the humiliation of losing to their FCS cupcake opponent. Middle Tennessee, Idaho, Pittsburgh, and Memphis (4 teams total) all lost to Division II teams, with Idaho and Pittsburgh losing convincingly.

- The picture at the top of the page (courtesy of ESPN) is from the FBS debut of the Texas State bobcats, who in their first game, and despite being 34-point underdogs, upset Houston 30-13. Their Division I tenure could not have started any better.