College football Week 1 winners and losers: Georgia’s offense looked amazing, North Carolina’s defense did not

Friends, Romans, countrymen and countrywomen...wipes single tear from eye...college football is back in full swing. Week 0, which consisted of Nebraska doing Nebraska things such as onside kicking while up 11, and Vanderbilt scoring...a lot of points...like a LOT of points on Hawaii, was merely a palate cleanser for the shenanigans of Week 1.

Pep bands struck up classics like “Every Time We Touch” and my personal national anthem, “Still Fly”, Mississippi State began their beer bleacher initiative, allowing fans to bring REFRIGERATORS FULL OF BEER into their section of the stadium. Oh yeah, and fans were treated to an insane amount of close and competitive football games across all levels of the sport.

So in a way, the fans were the biggest winners here, being treated to amazing games from kickoff on Thursday to the final play on Monday. Of course, now we get into the fun part: deciding the major takeaways from the true opening weekend. College football is back, people. Let’s get rowdy.

So, do you guys remember Brock Lesnar vs John Cena from Summerslam 2014? If not, let me refresh you. Brock Lesnar German suplexed John Cena through the Earth’s core for 16 minutes in a stunning win, but it was more stunning by the mere beatdown that happened. Just replace Brock Lesnar with Brock Bowers and you get what Georgia did to Oregon, dismantling the ducks 49-3.

The stunning part wasn’t the final score, but the relative ease at which Georgia’s offense dismantled an Oregon defense that was supposed to be the strength of the Ducks this year. Bulldogs QB Stetson Bennett threw for 368 yards, but a majority of that was yards after the catch, getting the ball out to Ladd McConkey and possibly the best tight end group in the nation, who cruised through the Oregon defense. If Georgia offensive coordinator Todd Monken can continue to batter teams in the run game with both TEs on the field while continuing to be explosive in the passing game, Georgia’s offense might become a buzzsaw.

For example, Darnell Washington is the second tight end on Georgia’s roster, and at 6’7 and 270 pounds, he’s less college student and more Hummer with Fast and Furious level upgrades. Bennett threw the ball to Washington in the flat, and Washington proceeded to shrug off an Oregon defender before HURDLING ANOTHER ONE. Again, he is 6’7, 270 pounds!

North Carolina and Appalachian State decided to start basketball season early this year, abandoning all defense in a 63-61 barnburner that saw App State have two chances to win and tie the game on a two point conversion, and fail both of them with the same play.

Despite that happening, the real loser here is Gene Chizik, North Carolina’s defensive coordinator. Why? Because in the fourth quarter, Appalachian State scored 40 POINTS. Chizik’s defense went into sleep mode and almost allowed the Mountaineers to crawl back and win this game. The concept of scheduling a road game in Boone is confusing, but Chizik and the Tar Heel defense almost made that 2.5 hour drive back to Chapel Hill real uncomfortable for everyone involved.

For as much hype as the Ohio State offense got going into their clash with Notre Dame, it was defensive coordinator Jim Knowles and the Ohio State defense that emerged as the stars in their 21-10 victory. After one drive in the second quarter that ended in a touchdown, Notre Dame was shut out over the final 42 minutes by the Ohio State defense, and Knowles hand was all over the defensive play.

What Knowles did was change the picture up front against the Irish, making blocking assignments more difficult. The most popular choice for Knowles was playing three down linemen with a linebacker standing head up over a lineman, or “mugged”. However, this linebacker was really their defensive end, who’s built better to stop the run from that alignment. This moves their defense to a traditional 4 defensive linemen look after the ball is snapped, changing the blocking rules up front.

Of course it’s very early in the season, but Knowles looks like he’s going to be a fantastic addition to the coaching staff for the Buckeyes, completely shifting that defense.

Brian ... buddy ... we have to talk. LSU and Florida State played a football game on Sunday that can only be described like this:

Florida State beat LSU 24-23 after blocking the potential game-tying extra point after a 99 yard drive that came from FSU fumbling on the goal line to put the game away, WHICH CAME AFTER LSU fumbled a punt. However, that blocked extra point was a result of poor in game adjustment by LSU and their special teams. Earlier in the game, the Seminoles blocked a field goal by overloading one side and rushing a defender through the C gap, which was totally open. LSU, of course, overcorrected themselves and went super heavy on protection in the C gap, so Florida State hit them in the D gap.

Stack that on top of two critical muffed punts that resulted in turnovers and you get an absolute disasterclass in special teams by coordinator Brian Polian, who was the only coordinator to follow Brian Kelly from ND. Polian might not want to check his social media mentions...like ever.

Now if you wanted to watch a wild football game without the extreme amount of points we saw in UNC-App State, Utah-Florida was for you. It had vomiting, physicality, fantastic finishes, and great QB play from Florida QB Anthony Richardson. The 6’4, 230 pound redshirt sophomore threw for 168 yards, ran for 104 yards and accounted for three total touchdowns as the Gators upset Utah 29-26.

If there was ever a player that we truly saw go Super Saiyan in the middle of the game, it was Richardson. He was decisive with the ball, delivering passes with accuracy and to all levels of the field, and if the play wasn’t there with his arm, he could simply outrun your entire team, like he did on his 45 yard touchdown run. Then, if both of those don’t work, he’s got the Blue Eyes White Dragon card in play, which lets him do this:

Richardson still has a ways to go when it comes to seeing the entire field, and minor QB mechanics that can be fixed. But what Billy Napier has done is built that offense around Richardson’s strengths. Lots of outside zone and zone reads for Richardson, combined with passes that get him on the move. Richardson is seen as a boom-or-bust type QB in this upcoming NFL Draft QB class, but if he can continue to put together impressive performances like this one, his stock will skyrocket higher.

Quick, pop quiz! In the first half, with Clemson only up 14-3, Georgia Tech had all 3 timeouts, a minute left to try and score, and the number 4 team in the country as their opponent, with the Clemson offense struggling mightily in the first half, and Georgia Tech forced Clemson to punt. What did Georgia Tech head coach Geoff Collins do?

A) Use one of his three timeouts to stop the clock

B) Try and score before halftime

C) Let the clock run out and go into halftime

If you chose C then you are correct! Clemson defeated Georgia Tech 41-10, but it didn’t feel like the beatdown that the score shows. That’s another story for another day, because man, Geoff Collins really did not want to be there on Monday. After that timeout debacle in the first half, Geoff Collins saw that he took all three timeouts with him into halftime and said to himself, “I HAVE to be better,” — THEN BURNED ALL OF HIS TIMEOUTS BEFORE THE 10 MINUTE MARK IN THE FOURTH QUARTER.

That’s one of the biggest self sabotage by a coach that I’ve ever seen in my life. I’m convinced Collins only abides by Scott Steiner math, because using all three timeouts, including two within a span of five minutes in the third, is absurd. It even made Dabo Swinney laugh because he knew that he just bamboozled Collins out of his timeouts.

Geoff Collins seat shouldn’t be hot at this point: it should be a raging inferno, hotter than the deepest layer of hell, because you simply cannot do that as a head coach.