We are still figuring out exactly how we are going to handle the Sunday recap segment here at Crystal Ball Run.
But as we bat around ideas for next week and beyond, here are 10 of my personal takeaways from Week 1 of the college football season:
1. LSU: Let’s start with the most obvious Saturday storyline, and that’s this: Les got us again.
We once again spent the last eight months questioning him. Wondering how he could so easily hand the quarterback keys to Jordan Jefferson this past spring, when Zach Mettenberger showed up from junior college seemingly ready to compete for the job. We wondered what would happen when LSU’s second best returning wide receiver, Russell Shepard, was suspended indefinitely. And we wondered what would happen when Jefferson himself received the same fate for Saturday’s opener against Oregon and beyond.
And now we’re left wondering another question on this Sunday morning: Why did we ever question Les in the first place?
In Saturday’s matchup with Oregon, Les Miles again proved to not only have the bigger, faster and strong team than the Ducks, but also the more technically sound and meticulously prepared one as well. LSU did all the little things early to make sure that even when Oregon had a bit of confidence, they were never totally comfortable. They rushed Darron Thomas, and knocked him down every chance they got. They clogged the running lanes to make sure that three yard gains didn’t turn into 30 yard gains. They didn’t make mistakes with the football. Because of it, they held a 16-13 lead at halftime, despite being outgained, and with their offense unable to put the ball in the end zone. Their one first half touchdown was on a strip and score by my 2011 college football man-crush, Tyrann Matheiu.
And that’s what’s easy to forget if you only saw the final score of Saturday’s game: Oregon was absolutely, positively in the game at halftime. Thomas- after his baptism by fire in last year’s BCS National Championship Game- was making quicker, reactive decisions with the football, and Oregon’s young offensive line was holding up decently well, while their smallish defense was playing, fast, aggressive and to the ball.
But then a funny thing happened: The team that is so used to wearing down their opponents over four quarters, got worn down themselves.
Look, I don’t know who was the more physically fit last night, all I know is what I saw with my own two eyes. And what I saw was that right around the middle of the third quarter, LSU’s offensive line simply began to overwhelm Oregon’s defensive front. It wasn’t an accident that after LSU’s Sam Montgomery stripped De’Anthony Thomas, and the Tigers recovered the ball, that LSU put together a scoring drive, with five straight plays, all on the ground. LSU was the bigger and strong team up front over the course of 60 minutes, and it showed. By the fourth quarter, the game had simply turned into a formality.
And to me, that last sentence just about says it all right there. Ultimately, there was no more telling moment from the evening than when ABC’s cameras cut to Chip Kelly as they went to commercial, and the poor guy had a look on his face I’d never quite seen from him. Kelly- who is as confident as they come- looked into the distance with a blank stare, and you could almost read the emotion on his face: He had no answers. LSU simply had the better team.
But let’s stick with Miles for a second. Because for all the grass chewing, fake punt calling foolishness that surrounds him, there is a damn good football coach underneath it all. You can’t emphasize how much his players love him, and how hard they play for him, which is a direct byproduct of what he puts back into the program. It’s hard to think of any other coach who gets less credit, for having his team more consistently prepared than Miles does.
And that’s not even necessarily just in the X’s and O’s, but the little things too. I love how when Matheiu stripped the ball and scored a touchdown, everyone reacted with the same, “That’s just another bounce for LSU,” as if it happened by accident. Hell no. Same with the strip of Thomas later in the game. Go back, and watch the replay. That strip was about as textbook as it gets; it was practically out of a coaches training manual or something. And here’s the funniest part: If it were a Nick Saban, Will Muschamp or Jim Tressel (bless his soul) coached-player who did that, we’d be lauding it as “great coaching.” But because it was Miles, it was fluky. Enough already.
Now, onto..
2. Oregon: I know that the easy narrative here is to paint this loss for Oregon as just another example of the undersized, overwhelmed little-engine-that-couldn’t from the Northwest running into the bigger, badder more tradition led schools. Since January 1, 2010, the Ducks have lost to Ohio State, Auburn and LSU, all on neutral fields, with the one common denominator being that those three schools all had plenty of time to prepare for Oregon’s face-paced offense, and were able to slow it down. Being on Twitter last night, I was amazed at how many Oregon fans seemed to have turned on Kelly, or more realistically have become resigned to the fact that for all their successes in the Pac-12, Oregon will never be able to beat the big boys.
To which I say this: Relax Oregon fans.
Look, I know that last night’s loss was tough. But do yourselves a favor. Don’t sell your coach short, and don’t compare last night, to last year’s BCS National Championship. Chip deserves better than that.
Last year was a different team, and as easy as it is to forget now, you were in that game until the final seconds. Yes Auburn had a defensive front that had eerily similar success to what LSU had last night. At the same time, in last year’s BCS National Championship Game, you also accounted for 449 yards of total offense, which is basically what Auburn totaled until the final possession of the game.
And that’s what’s easy to forget here: Last year Oregon had a veteran team, built to take a title, and you damn near did. This year, you’ve got a familiar face at quarterback and running back, which unfortunately gave the whole college football world a false sense of how good this team actually is.
Above all, that’s the one thing I couldn’t help but think last night: Yes LSU dominated the lines of scrimmage, no one is arguing that. But name me a team in college football breaking in three new starters on both the offensive and defensive lines that LSU wouldn’t have dominated? You can’t. This wasn’t a systematic problem at Oregon, this was a problem of youth. It’s hard to break in that many new starters in against anyone. Let alone one of the most physical teams in college football.
So to any and all Oregon fans who may be reading, please relax. You have a good…no, great head coach. You have far and away the most talented team in the Pac-12 (And yes, I’m still not buying Stanford…yet). Your coach has a grand total of five losses in his 26 games, four against Top 15 opponents, three to teams in the Top 10. There are about 116 Division I schools that would trade that success for what they’ve had over the same time. Nobody goes undefeated every year.
Give it time, everything will be ok.
3. Georgia-Boise: What I found to be most interesting entering the Boise-Georgia game, was that while Georgia was probably more physically talented, had more five-star athletes, and more guys that simply jumped out and made you say… “Woah!” most people seemed to like Boise to actually win the game. Their reasoning was simple. Essentially they said, “At this point, I don’t bet against Boise. They’ve burned me too many times.”
Personally, I wasn’t so sure. And once again, I was proven to be an idiot.
Look, we can sit here and break down the Boise-Georgia game from every statistical and analytical measurement you please. But the one thing that stood out to me above everything else was that Boise looked like the team that thought it “belonged,” on Saturday night. They might not have been the most physically intimidating, but they were the most confident. When the Broncos fell behind early they never panicked, and when they got the lead, they piled on. I found it fascinating that when ESPN went to commercial to start the fourth quarter, it was Boise that was walking with their chests out, four fingers confidently in the air. Georgia? Well they had four fingers up as well, but there’s were much more of a, “We have four fingers up because this is what we’re supposed to do. But honestly, we don’t want to play another 15 minutes against these guys. We’re ready to go home.”
Speaking of which, was anyone else absolutely dumbfounded by Boise’s dominance in the trenches? I mean, I knew Boise’s defensive line was good, and I knew Georgia’s offensive line was bad, but I did not expect, umm…that. As bad as Aaron Murray was (and he was bad), it didn’t help that he barely had any time in the pocket, and it was hard to gauge how good freshman Isaiah Crowell was, considering he had nowhere to run. As I joked on Twitter, the reason that Georgia chose to 
wear red uniforms last night was to hide all the blood that Boise beat out of them. Quite frankly, I probably shouldn’t call it a joke.
And ultimately, if there was one place that really signified where these two programs are right now, it had to be I the trenches, right? At this point, what does it say about Chris Peterson and Boise’s coaching staff that he’s taking three-star recruits and turning them into five-star college football players? And what does it say about Mark Richt and Co., that he’s continually winning on Signing Day, and losing when all his recruits actually hit the field?
4. One More Thought On Mark Richt: I thought my buddy Barrett Sallee pointed out something important on Twitter last night, when he asked this: “At any point in the season, will Mark Richt take over play-calling duties? Richt takes the heat, but a lot of this is on (offensive coordinator) Mike Bobo.
Personally, I couldn’t agree more, and couldn’t have been more disappointed in Georgia last night. Yes their subpar play on the lines limited what they were able to do offensively. At the same time, how do you excuse some of the play-calling? How do you excuse that on Brandon Boykin’s first carry, he broke it for an 80-yard touchdown…and then he never touched the ball again? How do you explain that Malcolm Mitchell had one carry for 18 yards, a 51-yard touchdown catch… and basically didn’t get the ball the rest of the game?
You can’t.
And if I’m Richt, why not take over the play-calling duties? What is there to lose? The ship has already taken on water, and at the end of the day, nobody is going to blame Mike Bobo if the whole thing sinks. Nope, they’re going to blame you. At some point Richt has to get a backbone, has to get a pulse, and has to do something, because he’s running out of opportunities.
Come to think of it, the last opportunity period, might be this coming Saturday against South Carolina.
5. Auburn: As I watched Auburn yesterday, I couldn’t help but think back to something that CBS’s crotchety, annoying and wildly intelligent analyst Gary Danielson continued to say last year. To paraphrase, it was something to the effect of, “The reason I give Cam Newton so much credit, is that for the most part, he’s carrying an inferior team. This team does not have the talent across the board of previous SEC Champs.”
As usual Danielson looks to be right.
We can sit here and talk about yesterday’s wild, come from behind win by the Tigers. We can call it an eerie extension from last year, when Auburn never really seemed to step up until their backs were firmly against the wall. We can even make the same claim that I did on Twitter yesterday, that Auburn’s victory over Utah State once again proves my theory that “God loves Trooper Taylor.” It’s probably all true.
What is also true is that Auburn looked bad yesterday. Like, really, really bad. Not only is Barrett Trotter not Cam Newton (which no one expected him to be), but right now, he’s not even a poor man’s Chris Todd. Not that he was helped by an offensive line that couldn’t open up holes from the running game; if anything I thought that Michael Dyer would be the star of yesterday’s show. I honestly don’t know if he was bad, or just that the offensive line was worse. One things clear, the Tigers aren’t in Kansas…I mean Arizona anymore.
Above all, the one thing that stood out, was that as important as Cam Newton was to the Tigers last year, Nick Fairley was even more so. There’s no denying that of all the concerning things that came out of yesterday’s loss, the most concerning was that Utah State…let me pause for emphasis….UTAH STATE was able to move the ball at will on the ground. They finished the game with 227 yards rushing, compared to Auburn’s 78, for an average of over four yards a carry. And with all due respect to the visitors (Who are now clearly my favorite group of ‘Aggies’ in college football, with Texas A&M set to ruin the sport), if Utah State can put up four yards a carry on this defense, what are Alabama, LSU and South Carolina’s rushing attacks going to do to them?
I entered the season firmly believing that Auburn was a team that could surprise, and could maybe steal a win or two they shouldn’t.
Yesterday told me that I couldn’t be more wrong. They’ll be lucky- very lucky, actually- to get to get a bowl game.
6. Notre Dame: And the award for “Most Disappointing Team of the Opening Weekend,” goes to…
(Envelope Please)….
Notre Dame!
Unfortunately Brian Kelly couldn’t be here tonight, as he was busy evaluating film, avoiding bolts of lightning and in general, just walking around with a hue of red on his face that was named a new terror alert color by President Obama yesterday…
Ok, I’ll stop now with the bad jokes. But what I won’t stop is piling it on Notre Dame. Because I’ve got to ask, was there a more disappointing, underwhelming and overall disheartening team than the Irish in Week 1? My answer is no. After a near flawless opening drive, Notre Dame didn’t do much else right in the first half, fumbling, stumbling and not tackling their way to a 16-0 halftime deficit. It wasn’t just ugly, it was embarrassing.
At the same time, I think finally, possibly, Brian Kelly may have realized that Dayne Crist is not the answer at quarterback.
Understand, this is not news to anyone who paid attention to the Irish closely last season. Crystal Ball Run has been questioning it since Day 1. Granted, Crist is certainly the most physically gifted signal-caller on their roster, which is ironic, since he doesn’t give the Irish the best chance to win. That title of course belongs to Tommy Rees, who won his four games as a starter last year, including the Irish’s beat down of Miami in the Sun Bowl. Crist? He went just 4-4 in games he started and finished, before his season ended with an injury in Notre Dame’s ninth game against Utah.
Look, Rees is someone that’s never going to impress you with his raw physical skill. There are probably girls on the Notre Dame basketball team that look better suited to play big-time college football then he does.
But for whatever Rees lacks in physical skill, he makes up for by just being a “gamer.” He’s got those intangible qualities that everyone looks for in a quarterback, the ones that are impossible to quantify with stats and box scores. He seems to always make the right play, seems to always be totally in control, and his teammates seem to have an innate confidence in him. Michael Floyd in particular appeared to have an extra pep in his step when Rees entered the game.
As for Crist, he’s a good quarterback and by all accounts a good teammate. But I thought that NBC analyst Mike Mayock (who is fantastic by the way), hit the nail on the head, when he said that Crist never seemed quite as confident after the fumble which ended the initial drive of the game. Watching that game, it was hard to disagree.
Whether that means that Rees is the starting quarterback going forward or not, that I’m not sure of.
As far as this writer is concerned though, he should be.
7. Michigan: While Notre Dame moved around the field with the urgency of a dog sniffing every fire-hydrant on the block, the team the Irish will play next weekend, Michigan, seemed to be the exact opposite. The Wolverines were bigger, faster and played with an edge in their 34-10 victory over Western Michigan that was called because of the mercy rule…I mean, lightning.
But before we all go building a statue for Hoke and handing him the nickname ‘Lil Bo, let’s take a step back for a second.
Looking at the final score tells you that the Wolverines were the totally dominant team, but actually watching the game told me something entirely different. What it told me was that while Michigan put up a lot more points than Western Michigan, they were hardly dominant. The Wolverines only had nine more yards of total offense than their opponent, but capitalized on three turnovers including a 94-yard interception return for a touchdown and a 28-yard fumble return for a touchdown. Take those two plays out, and we’re looking at a 20-10 Michigan lead, in basically an otherwise even matchup.
So while everyone is hailing the victors, I’m more curious to see what next week brings.
Notre Dame and Michigan will prove to be an interesting matchup, if only because you’ve got two teams that have entirely different narratives to their season through one game. Notre Dame is the much more hyped, and quite frankly the much more talented team, that just can’t seem to put it together mentally right now. Michigan is a club that is still trying to figure out who they are, but played with a sense of purpose that I really hadn’t seen since the second game of their season last year, which coincidentally came against Notre Dame.
Next week’s matchup certainly will be telling.
8. Fight On?: There are two things, and two things only that I felt I could take away after USC’s narrow escape against Minnesota on Saturday: Either Lane Kiffin can’t coach, or the depth problems that plagued USC last year are set to strike again in 2011.
To the former, everyone who reads my work knows that I’m a Kiffin supporter. But at this point, even I’m having trouble defending him. After jumping out and scoring 19 points in the first half, USC’s offense was near non-existent in the second half. The offensive line couldn’t move anyone, the Matt Barkley to Robert Woods pipeline basically dried up, and a backup quarterback whose name I never bothered to learn, nearly led the Gophers to an upset. If anything, give Jerry Kill credit. His team made all the adjustments at halftime, and Kiffin and Co. made none. It almost cost USC the win.
At the same time, it did look like for all intents and purposes, that USC just wore down in the second half. Didn’t it seem like in the first half, the defensive line (especially Nick Perry) was much more explosive off the ball, and the offensive line got more push too? That’s not about adjustments. That’s about simply being tired.
Either way, USC fans should be worried. Because if the Trojans had to hold on for dear life against quite possibly the worst team in the Big Ten, what will happen against Oregon, Stanford and Arizona State?
Heck, what’s going to happen next week against Utah?
9. Ole Miss: As a general rule, I don’t get too worked up over which teams win and lose games at this point. I watch way too many games, every Saturday, to ultimately let one game affect me in the big picture.
With that said, it’s hard not to feel bad for Ole Miss fans right now. How could you not?
As a team, the Rebels basically pitched a shutout through the first 50 minutes a game, before falling apart in the last 10. They allowed zero points through three quarters, then 14 points in the final nine minutes, highlighted of course by Zach Stoudt’s fumble on Ole Miss’s own three-yard line. The Rebels also probably could’ve sealed the game earlier in the third quarter, when a perfect Stoudt touchdown pass fell right through the arms of an Ole Miss receiver. Had the catch been made, Ole Miss would’ve been up 17-0. Instead they settled for three, and BYU outscored them 14-0 from there. Just another day in the life of an Ole Miss fan, right?
Anyway, the one takeaway that I couldn’t help but think as the clock wound to zeros, is that Houston Nutt needs to go. Like right now. There aren’t many coaches in the country (and certainly none in the SEC) who routinely get less out of their talent, have their teams seemingly less prepared, and see their players make more dumb mistakes than his do. False starts, late hits, the dumb things that swing games, and that you never see well-coached teams, like those of Nick Saban, Bobby Petrino do. Which wouldn’t be a big deal, you know, except that the program is also a mockery off the field. No program has taken more chances on more players who are less deserving than Nutt’s has. The guy has literally turned himself into a punch-line.
Simply put, there are too many good young coaches out there looking for a shot, looking for an opportunity, looking for a chance to run a major program, to let Nutt stay gainfully employed beyond this year.
Someone deserves that shot. Nutt has lost his.
10. Florida: Full-disclosure, I didn’t have a chance to watch a ton of Florida’s beat down of Florida Atlantic last night. But of what I did see, I’ve got say, man did Florida look good! The defense finally seemed to play up to its insane potential, Chris Rainey and Jeff Demps seemed like, well, Chris Rainey and Jeff Demps again, and John Brantley was way better than expected.
I know it’s only one game, and it’s only Florida Atlantic, but do we have to consider the Gators as an outside contender for the SEC East title? Given the way that South Carolina and Georgia looked yesterday, I’d say so?
For updates on late-breaking news, opinion and everything else in the world of college football, follow Crystal Ball Run on Twitter @CrystalBallRun.
Follow Aaron Torres on Twitter @Aaron_Torres.
