Everyone Messes With Texas: College Football 2017 Week 1 Recap

The 2016 College Football season was a disappointing one for the Lone Star State, which saw no schools finish the year in the top 25.  Texas recorded their third consecutive losing season, while TCU took a big step backward.  Texas A&M and Baylor were early bright spots, both starting 6-0, and reaching #6 and #9 in the polls.  However, the Aggies faltered down the stretch, finishing just 8-5, while the Bears went winless through the rest of the regular season.

With a new season comes excitement, and endless possibilities.  Unfortunately, just a week into the 2017 campaign, the state’s biggest programs seem destined to repeat last year’s lackluster results.

First, it was UT.  The #23 Longhorns marched into Darrell K. Royall Stadium Saturday morning eager to make a statement in first-year coach Tom Herman’s debut against Maryland.  After Holton Hill’s pick-six on the third play of the game, that certainly seemed to be the case.  However, by the middle of the second quarter, the Terrapins had scored 27 unanswered to take a commanding lead.

Texas was outworked in the trenches on both sides of the ball but still managed to make things close, drawing to within three in the second half.  Ultimately, though, a few crucial mistakes did them in, and the Longhorns fell 51-41.  It’s early in the year, but let’s be honest- giving up 51 to Maryland is unacceptable.  As a student at the university, I want to see Texas win as much as anyone, but this team didn’t deserve to enter the year ranked, and they proved it.

In Waco just hours later, Baylor took the field under their own new head coach, Matt Rhule.  The Bears entered as 34-point favorites over FCS Liberty University.  Judging by my tone, you can guess what happens next.  A back-and-forth game and over 500 yards of offense from both teams later, Liberty pulled off a stunner, 48-45.

Somehow, that wasn’t even the biggest upset of the day.  That honor belongs to the Howard Bison, quarterbacked by Caylin Newton, younger brother of Cam.  UNLV paid the FCS school $600,000 to play the game and were favored by 45 points.  By a score of 43-40, though, Howard was victorious, claiming the largest point spread upset in NCAA history.

Lastly, we have Texas A&M, who traveled to California to face the UCLA Bruins on Sunday night.  A relatively even matchup, the season opener projected to be an early test for the Aggies in a crucial season for Coach Kevin Sumlin, currently on the hot seat.  In the first half, things couldn’t have gone better, as an unstoppable rushing attack led to a 38-10 lead heading into the locker room.

Early in the third quarter, quarterback Nick Starkel suffered a leg injury on the tail end of a field goal drive that extended the lead to 41-10.  With four minutes left in the third, another field goal made it 44-10.  That’s a 34-point advantage with just 19 minutes in the game.

Murphy’s Law states that “anything that can go wrong will go wrong.”  That’s the best explanation I have for how UCLA scored 35 unanswered.  UCLA’s Josh Rosen had an incredible performance during the comeback, finishing with 491 passing yards and four touchdowns, the last of which came off a fake spike with less than a minute to play.  It was the largest FBS comeback since 2006.

I’m sorry, Texas.  At least TCU beat up on Jackson State 63-0.  Sure, that’s not saying much, but in these hard times, anything counts.

Both #1 Alabama and #3 Florida State entered the year with National Championship aspirations, and in the most-anticipated matchup of the week, the Crimson Tide played host as both schools looked to start the year with a landmark victory.  Coming off a championship loss to Clemson where their usual lockdown defense failed to show up in critical moments, Alabama stifled the Seminole offense, holding them to just 250 yards and seven points in a 24-7 triumph.

Sadly, it was more than just a loss for Florida State, as quarterback Deondre Francois injured his left patellar tendon, which will keep him out for the remainder of the season.  It’s difficult to imagine the Jimbo Fisher-led team in the College Football Playoff conversation come November.

One team likely to be there is #5 Clemson, who started their title defense with a 56-3 domination of Kent State.  It’s one of those scorelines native to the first couple weeks of the season when we see huge mismatches result in even larger scoreboard discrepancies.  #14 Stanford took down Rice 62-7, and Army literally ran over Fordham 64-6, not completing a single pass.  Among others, Air Force topped VMI 62-0, Fresno State dropped 66 while shutting out the Incarnate Word, and Oregon totaled over 700 yards, never taking the foot off the gas in a 77-21 affair with Southern Utah.

None of these blowouts, however, could come close to matching the Division III St. John’s Johnnies, who defeated St. Scholastica by a score of 98-0.  Ninety-eight points.  Fourteen touchdowns.

Surprisingly, two quarterbacks who didn’t throw any touchdowns this week are USC’s Sam Darnold and Wyoming’s Josh Allen, currently projected as the top two quarterback prospects in the 2018 NFL Draft.  Darnold went 23/33 for 289 yards and was aided by a strong rushing game in the Trojans’ 49-31 victory over Western Michigan.  Allen was just 23/40 for 174 yards in a 24-3 loss to Iowa.  Both QBs threw two interceptions.

Darnold entered the season as Heisman Trophy favorite, but those aren’t exactly Heisman numbers.  #7 Oklahoma’s Baker Mayfield, 4th in 2015’s Heisman voting and 3rd in 2016, was nearly perfect against UTEP, throwing just one incompletion.  Mayfield finished 19/20 for 329 yards and three touchdowns, taking a 35-7 lead into halftime before resting the second half.

Reigning Heisman Lamar Jackson of #16 Louisville racked up 485 total yards and two touchdowns, while Ohio State’s J.T. Barrett, the last of the four favorites, led the #2 Buckeyes to a 49-21 victory over Indiana with 365 total yards and four TDs.  It’ll be a few weeks before clear favorites emerge, but it’s never too early to start gaining momentum.

If the bizarre occurrences and big storylines of Week 1 serve as any indication of the rest of the season, we’re in for quite the wild ride.  I’ll be here recapping the action every week.  Get ready.