I guess that eliminates the Huskers from competing for the college football playoffs? (incompleted schedule) :lol:
Alabama had a good first game. Tagavolua looked very good. Freshman receivers looked good. Running backs looked good. Offensive line started out very weak but came around later in the game. Defensive line looked good, linebackers missed some coverage assignments which left the short middle of the field wide open for Louisville receivers at times. Secondary looked good. Overall good game for Alabama. The difference in the Alabama offense when Tagavolua was in and when Hurts was in was huge. I feel bad for Hurts but Tua has the job I'm sure. Saban was testy in the postgame interview about it but I think he was just protecting Hurts. 8)
AJ has to be losing it. Being all teed up for the next chapter to begin and then to have to wait another week... SHITE!!! kp's boys look fast and mean... Nothing new. I wanted Auburn to win but how the hell does that targeting on Browing not get called? ND and Mich defenses look pretty good. Terry already covered his team... :wink: And... A.couple more still to go. Thank God football is back!!!
A couple items of interest on the Buckeyes, One, Dwayne Haskins set a record yesterday for the QB to throw for over 300 yards and five TDs in their first game as a starter. Another record for total points scored by both squads on the first game of the season.
Will Grier looked amazing most of the day yesterday. He has to be the Heisman favorite at this early point. The Vol DBs weren't playing that bad.... he was just making phenomenal throws.
Very happy to see Joe Burrow (former Ohio State QB transfer) have a good game in his first collegiate start for LSU's win over Miami in Arlington Texas
Naturally I didn't see all the games, really only saw UM/ND and some of Alabama/Louisville and some of Stanford/SDSU. Watched most of Auburn/Washington. Between highlights and reading game reports though.. Looks like we're going to have a lot of very good QB's this year. Haskins at Ohio State really got rave reviews, some think he'll go in the 1st round of the NFL draft if he continues to play like he has. He has NFL size and NFL arm. Heisman Candidate. Kyler Murray at OU, he looks like he'll have a great year also..he won't be going to the NFL but he might be a Heisman candidate and lead OU to the CFP. Both Jake Browning of Wash and Jarrett Stidham of Auburn look like they could have great years. Alabama , Clemson and Georgia all have 2 QB's that they say they want to play. Alabama has Tua who looks like he could be the best 'Bama QB in awhile and Hurts who Saban wants to play as well. Clemson has steady Kelly Bryant who will start and Trevor Lawrence who is the wunderkid in waiting and played this past weekend and will play going forward as well, whether or not he can grab the starting job at some point is the question. At UGA you have last years freshman phenom in Fromme and this years freshman phenom in Justin Fields and they say both will play. Usually playing 2 doesn't work but maybe for those 3 teams it can work. They should have enough games that they have in hand at half time to for sure give the backup plenty of snaps. I don't know if Ohio State will play Tate Martell who was also a High School stud, OSU should have lots of opportunity to play him. On the Heisman, the QB's all did well but Bryce Love who maybe was the leading candidate had a low day, 18 carries for 29 yards. He'll have some big games in Sept with USC, Oregon and Notre Dame all being high profile games that he can redeem himself easily. Penn State and Michigan State stumbled out of the gate against teams they were heavily favored against but they did win and I doubt the polls will punish them very much if at all. Miami however is going to plummet like a rock I'll guess. Texas will not likely even be in the "others" category. JT Daniels of USC who along with Lawrence at Clemson and Fields at UGA was one of the elite QB's in the 2018 class, had a good start to his career along with his high school teammate Amon-Ra St. Brown. USC didn't exactly bury a bad UNLV team that was a pretty heavy underdog but Daniels had a good game and likely will justify all the hype surrounding him coming out of HS. I don't know what to say about Texas, that was a bad loss. Fans are pretty critical of Herman right now and the design of the offense and while after the season they were worried somebody would grab Todd Oralando the DCoord and sighed in relief when he signed a contract extension making him very well paid....thinking that maybe that was a mistake. USC, TCU a trip to KState and of course OU all in the next 5 weeks, a lot of fear that we could find ourselves 1-5 or 2-4 after OU. Patience will be pretty thin if that happens. I don't think short of a felony they will fire Tom Herman, but another .500 year at best will put him squarely on the hot seat. I'm sure Bobda will confirm but the unhappiness in Ann Arbor is at a peak with the loss to the Irish. I've seen the articles in the Freep and none I saw did anything but blame Harbaugh, the national press is pretty down on him as well. Of course some good wins and with W.Mich and SMU coming up UM will have a chance to take breath and maybe get rolling again before that Big Red Train arrives in Ann Arbor. Truthfully Shea Patterson didn't look bad, but our DL just overwhelmed his OL and he never could get comfortable and make big plays when needed. I expect he will do just that against W.Mich and SMU and maybe that will get the UM offense untracked.
Oh and it was a great weekend for the SEC with only the Vols losing. The ACC went 9-3 with FSU/VaTech tonight The B1G went 11- 2 The Big 12 went 6-3 The Pac12 went 8-4 Kansas is one of the teams that lost to a FCS opponent. BYU some how reduced the AZ QB (Tate) who was a Heisman candidate to an after thought and BYU had a terrible defense last year and their coach on the hottest of hot seats. Everybody kept talking about how if UW lost to Auburn the Pac12 was out of the CFP. But that was a great game and while UW screwed the pooch in the redzone, I doubt if that's the last we hear of the Pac12. USC, Stanford, Oregon, UW all good teams that should provide plenty of boost if somebody out there runs the table or ends up with 1 loss as a conference Champion. All the media has jumped down on Nick Saban over his comments to that ESPN reporter, not a surprise that reporters would be offended by one of their own getting taken to task. But personally since I think reporters as a ton of dumb questions or questions that resemble Yes or No do you still beat your wife, I was ok with how Saban responded.
Terry, Saban apparently apologized to her,one to one. Hurts is a great kid and a team leader and I think Saban does not want to abandon him. S he was just the latest reporter to ask a variation on the same question. I think Saban is uncomfortable with the answer.
A combination of both I think. Taggart's winning record isn't all that lustrous. Maybe he isn't all that when it comes to coaching or Fisher could see a talent hole coming and that helped him bail. The FSU O-line was wretched.