Opening Weekend Full Of Surprises

The first full weekend of college football has come and passed us by and left many impressions. Fifteen schools experienced coaching changes during the offseason, including Arkansas, Baylor, Georgia Tech, Hawaii, Houston, Michigan, Mississippi, Navy, Nebraska, Northern Illinois, Southern Methodist, Southern Mississippi, Texas A&M, UCLA, and West Virginia. With so many new faces, new schemes, and new personnel it is no surprise that the opening games for those and many other teams were a little rough. Below are some of the things that I took away from the weekend.

Big East teams were thoroughly disappointing. Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Louisville, and Rutgers all lost their openers. Pittsburgh went on top early in their match versus Bowling Green but let the Falcons take advantage miscues in the second half. Rutgers lost to a very solid Fresno State team that seems to always play the BCS schools tough despite not being able to win the WAC conference title in years. Syracuse played like an improved team, but was overwhelmingly unimpressive against the lowly Northwestern Wildcats. Louisville is in a world of a mess and have been ever since former head coach Bobby Petrino left for the Atlanta Falcons (he's now coaching the Arkansas Razorbacks after quitting on the Falcons before the end of last season). 

LSU spoiled Appalachain State's attempt to beat a preseason top 10 team for the second straight year as the Tigers rolled to a 41-13 win. Where's that Tiger? Oh wait, those Tigers crumbled on national television Nick Saban's Alabama Crimson Tide rolled all over Tommy Bowden's Clemson Tigers. It seems as though every year Clemson is bound to have a breakout year. They have the talent, but Bowden has yet to assemble an entire season of solid football. What a shame.

Michigan received a lot of press leading up to the start of the season due to numerous changes (spread offense, new conditioning coach) and drama courtesy of new coach Rich Rodriguez. The Wolverines will likely receive much more attention during the rest of the season, but for different reasons. They looked awful in their bout with the Utah Utes. Utah should have won my a much wider margin but they committed several silly penalties and switched to a prevent defense early in the second half, allowing the Wolverines to climb back in and almost tie the game late. It could be a long season for the skunkbears in Ann Arbor, perhaps reminiscent of the atrocity that was the 2007 Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

Florida manhandled Hawaii 56-10. After a scoreless first quarter, the Gators exploded for 56 points in the next two quarters. Yikes. No real shock there, though, since Hawaii lost Colt Brennan to graduation and looked equally as terrible last year in the Sugar Bowl against the Georgia Bulldogs. The rest of the SEC had mixed results. Mississippi State was stunned by Louisiana Tech 22-14, Arkansas narrowly escaped Western Illinois 28-24, and South Carolina overcame a multitude of miscues in their 34-0 win over North Carolina State.

Ohio State cruised to a victory over Youngstown state, setting the stage for a matchup verse the USC Trojans on Sept 13 in what could be the best game of the entire season. USC destroyed Virginia 52-7 in their opener and have a bye this week leading up to their game against the Buckeyes.

As my esteemed colleague Justin mentioned earlier today, Virginia Tech got bit by the upset bug as the East Carolina Pirates created their own version of Beamer Ball by blocking a punt and returning it for a TD late in the game to seal the deal. Skip Holtz's crew fought hard all game, but the real story of the game was Sean Glennon's inability to distribute the ball effectively to the rest of the Hokies' offense. I bet Beamer will rethink his decision to redshit sophomore quarterback Tyrod Taylor.

Missouri and Illinois duked it out to an epic 52-42 score as the Tigers prevailed over the Illini thanks in part to Jeremy Maclin's two returns for TDs.

Arizona gets the award for biggest jerks of the weekend, as they showed no class in a dismantling of the Idaho Vandals.

All in all it was a great start to the season, but to me the real season begins this Saturday at 3:30 pm ET as the Fighting Irish take on the San Diego State Aztecs.