Just two days—well, three technically—into the college football season and we've already had some stunning upsets that are going to cause some quick adjustments to our pre-season power rankings. All of this happened on Thursday and Friday—just imagine what Saturday will bring!
#26 Texas A&M 52, #14 South Carolina 28
Life without Johnny Manziel is looking pretty sweet already thanks to Kenny Hill. Hill passed for 511 yards and 3 touchdowns, completing 44 of 60 passes against what should be a good South Carolina defense. Hill is already generating Heisman talk after breaking several of Manziel's records. It's clear the Aggie offense is a force to be reckoned with, but what does this mean for the Gamecocks? From what we saw Thursday night, it's pretty clear they miss Jadeveon Clowney but everyone is going to have trouble containing A&M if they can play like this on the road.
#73 UTSA 27, #16 Houston 7
Lighting strikes the Cougars again in their opener! Two years ago Houston lost to brand-new FBS team Texas State 30-13, and this could have been an instant replay against UTSA who is in their 4th year of football, period. Ineffective on offense (they had -27 rushing yards rushing, 15 if you take away a disastrous punt play), Houston didn't score until late in the game as John O'Korn threw 4 interceptions. Unlike two years ago, the Cougars weren't replacing the main pieces of their offense (they had lost Case Keenum back then) and they were expected to be good this year—especially by us, as we ranked them in the top 25! While it's clear we vastly overrated the Cougars, what does it mean for UTSA? We had them as high as anyone else at #73, but that might be far too low for the senior-laden Roadrunners. When this happened two years ago Houston ended up 5-7 and Texas State only finished 4-8...but this year's results might mean that the UTSA defense is for real on a national level.
#91 Temple 37, #78 Vanderbilt 7
Yet another road upset, and that Temple won isn't too surprising but the magnitude is pretty shocking. We weren't very high on the Commodores pre-season but we expected they would handle the Owls at home. The uniform fiasco was a distraction but wasn't the problem on field—that was on offense, and unlike Texas A&M who is thriving so far without Johnny Football, Vanderbilt is already officially hurting without James Franklin. Vanderbilt had 7 turnovers so it might be too early to write them off, but give Temple credit as they held Vandy's offense scoreless, giving up a touchdown on a flubbed punt play.
Between this result & the developments in the Cleveland Browns preseason, do we start to reevaluate how much of Johnny Football's success was him vs the system?
Posted by: Corwyn | August 31, 2014 at 05:22 PM
Very true, this is a lot like David Klingler following Andre Ware. That, and Ware's lack of pro success pretty much solidified his role as the archetypal System Quarterback.
Manziel's running ability and amazing improvisation plays sort of make him immune from that, though. You can't call it a system when the QB does his own thing so often. Lots of QBs who are great in college don't make the next level, especially not right off the bat.
Posted by: SportsRatings | September 01, 2014 at 09:33 PM