The scores from Week 1 of the college football season have presented fans with what they wanted. College football is back, and the excitement of the first week is enough to make everyone forget that the NFL just had a work stoppage.
In Week 1, there was already a big upset on Friday night. No. 14 TCU, which finished the 2010 season undefeated, went into Baylor and found out the Big 12 Conference isn’t dead yet. Baylor kicked a field goal with about one minutes left to win 50-48 and notch a pretty impressive win.
There were a couple of other games on Thursday and Friday but it involved ranked teams beating up on unranked opponents for the most part. No. 11 Wisconsin beat UNLV 51-17, No. 17 Michigan State beat Youngstown State 28-6 and No. 20 Mississippi State beat Memphis 59-14. It was up to Saturday to provide the most competitive games of the weekend; and possibly a few more upsets in the midst.
One of the notable games early on Saturday was No. 23 Auburn squeaking out a 42-38 win over Utah State. The defending national champion had a tough go of it, and had to score two touchdowns at the end of the fourth quarter to put that one away. Some of the other early games were far from being that close.
No. 18 Ohio State shut out Akron 42-0, No. 13 Virginia Tech crushed Appalachian State 66-13 and No. 2 Alabama had very little trouble beating Kent State 48-7. These games won’t be confused as possible upsets though, as each of the three big name schools were hosting opponents that aren’t even considered to be competitive in the upper echelon of college football. These “cakewalks” won’t help the rankings, but will serve to get the teams ready for tougher schedules later on in 2011.
The two big games of this opening weekend won’t take place till late on Saturday when four ranked teams take part in them. Both will be nationally televised at 8 p.m. EDT and could showcase several schools working towards a national title game this year. On ESPN it will be No. 5 Boise State vs. No. 19 Georgia and over on ABC it will be No. 3 Oregon vs. No. 4 LSU. Boise State, LSU and Oregon are suffering with suspensions of players that were supposed to play, possibly proving the teams will underperform in Week 1.
This was a great taste of college football to open the season, and fans should get buckled in for a very exciting year ahead.