College Football Week 1: Upset Saturday Shakes Things Up Early

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So it begins. The college football season got underway this past week, and boy, did it get off to quite a start. As college football fans, we look at the Week 1 schedule and make our predictions. Oh, we know some will be wrong, but sometimes the ones we are pretty sure of don’t go that way either.

This past Saturday, three teams saw the upset bug bite them right off the bat. For these teams, playoff implications have already begun. So, let’s take a look at who the big losers were.

#3 Ohio State 14 #1 Texas 7

It was the debut of Arch Manning for the top-ranked Longhorns, and there was plenty of hype surrounding this game. Manning came in as the presumptive front-runner for the Heisman. The guy who was going to show us why he has gotten all that hype. What we got was a Texas team that could not put a point on the scoreboard for the first 56 minutes of play. We got a sub-par performance from Manning (17-30, 170 yds, TD, Int), and an Ohio State team that just was not ready to lose.

To say Manning was sub-par is not telling the whole story. It’s not like he was under duress or much pressure all day. He had time, time to make throws, to make reads. In the end, he and the Longhorns are 0-1, and the Buckeyes (1-0) get a jump on other teams in the race for the college football playoffs.

Florida St 31 #8 Alabama 17

Okay, folks, how many of you thought this would happen? Answer: NONE OF US. What happened in Tallahassee yesterday was an absolute beatdown from the team that was supposed to be beaten down. The Seminoles came into this game with nothing to lose, well, except for the game, and played just like that. Big play after big play, from both sides of the ball, saw the Seminoles pull off the biggest upset of the day.

Florida St had almost 400 total yards, including more than 200 on the ground. New QB, Thomas Castellanos, led the way with 78 yards and a touchdown. The defense held the Crimson Tide all day, limiting them to a touchdown in the first and another, too late, in the fourth quarter. The loss ended a 23-game streak of winning openers for Alabama. A bad start for head coach Kalen DeBoer, whose team is 5-5 in its last 10.

#9 LSU 17 #4 Clemson 10

So many football prognosticators had the Clemson Tigers as one of the favorites to win the national championship. Well, somebody forgot to tell the LSU Tigers. They would dominate the line of scrimmage, and the Clemson offense looked like an anemic replica of recent years.

But it would still come down to a fourth-quarter drive that would make the difference in this one. Garrett Nussmeier would hit Trey’Dez Green with the go-ahead score that would give the Tigers their first season-opening win in six years. LSU had the ball for most of the second half, which saw Clemson score no points. Another big game in the biggest conference in college football.

Other Upsets

#22 Iowa St 24 #17 Kansas St 21

USF 34 #25 Boise St 7