FBS Independents, Group of Five, Power Five, Round up, Top 25

2022 College Football Week One Round Up – Buckeyes Make A Statement

2022 College Football Week One Round Up – Buckeyes Make A Statement

The 2022 College Football season is now in full swing and the scheduler has elected to spread week one out a bit with games on Thursday,  Friday, Saturday & Monday! Anyway, the opening week was showcased by a couple of Power Five showdowns and for both Notre Dame & Oregon, their CFP hopes are now out of their hands.

It was a bad night for the PAC-12 full stop with both of their top-ranked teams losing. Still, at least USC did what was expected of them. They should get a small bump going into week two.

Overall it was quite a good weekend for the opening top 25 teams, with only Utah losing to non-ranked opposition. Still, a few got a scare and they will have to improve if they want to stay there.

Statement Wins

Alabama & Georgia both look as good as the pre-season hype. The Bulldogs manhandled Oregon for who QB transfer Bo Nix made a disappointing start. Their defense seems to have made light of the losses in the draft and offensively they lit it up with 439 yards passing.

The Tide was facing much less exalted competition but did what they needed to. They shut out a decent G5 team and Bryce Young helped himself to six TDs passing for 5 and running another in. They eased off late in the third quarter and who knows what the score could have been had they kept the pedal to the metal.

However, arguably the best win of the weekend came in Columbus where Ohio State wore down a stubborn Notre Dame. The pre-season talk has been about the Buckeye’s offense, however, it was their defense that won it as they held what looks like being a very good Fighting Irish team to only 12 first downs. Come season end quality wins count in the CFP rankings and this could be a big one.

Finally, Clemson showed that 2021 might just be an aberration as they pulled away from Georgia Tech in the 4th Quarter for a comfortable opening win. DJ Uiagalelei is no Trevor Lawrence but the Tigers look to have a solid defense.

Not Too Impressive

We blinked a couple of times when we saw NC State ranked at 13 pre-season and after their lucky escape against East Carolina that could be as good as it gets. The Pirates were only a decent kicker away from pulling off the upset and had more yards and time of possession.

OK, a 42-yard field goal attempt is not a given but they still would have taken it to OT had it not been for the missed PAT.

We were tempted to put Houston in here too but despite needing triple OT to get past UTSA it’s worth remembering that the Roadrunners were 12-2 last year and of course, are our tip for the C-USA title.

The top 25 results are below, all ranked games in blue…

AP Top 25 Results For The Opening Week

Thursday Night

17 Pittsburgh 38 – West Virginia 31

12 Oklahoma State 58 – Central Michigan 44

22 Wake Forest 44 – VMI 10

No surprises here but Oklahoma State look like being involved in plenty of shootouts this year.

Friday Night

13 Michigan State 35 Western Michigan 13

An easy win for the Spartans, despite them not playing particularly well. Payton Thorne only managed to go 12-24 but still got 4TDs. He should be better with this game under his belt.

Saturday Games

2 Ohio St.21 – 10 Notre Dame (No 5) 

3 Georgia 49 – 3 Oregon (No 11)

19  Arkansas 31 – 24 Cincinnati (no 23)

6 Texas A&M 31 – Sam Houston 0

13 NC State 21 – East Carolina 20

8 Michigan 51 – Colorado St. 7

24 Houston 37 – UTSA 35 / 3OT

9 Oklahoma 45 – UTEP 13

16 Miami (Fla.) 70 – Bethune-Cook 13

21 Ole Miss 28 – Troy 10

14 USC 66 – Rice 14

25 BYU 50 – South Florida 21

7 Utah 26 – 29 Florida

20 Kentucky 37 – Miami (Ohio) 13

18 Wisconsin 38 – Illinois St. 0

10 Baylor 69 – Albany 10

1 Alabama 55 – Utah State 0

Monday Night

4 Clemson 41 – Georgia Tech 10

Racking them up

Outside of the Top 25 results, the scoring honours go to:

UNC 63 Appalachian State 61 – a crazy game with over 1200 yards of offense, 17 TDs and a crazy final minute. When we say crazy think 3 TDs in the last 31 seconds! Apparently, there was a defense put out for both sides but they were hard to spot!

UNC is going to be fun to watch if their opening two games are anything to go by as they were also involved in a high scoring one in their opener beating Florida A&M 56-24.  That’s 119 points in two games!

 

Getting Your Money’s Worth

Liberty trip to Southern Miss was finally settled in quadruple OT. It looked like neither side wanted to win this one and it was finally settled with a 2 point conversion attempt. Hopefully no one missed their ride home after the game.

 

Entertaining Game of the Week (outside of the Top 25)

Loads to choose from including the shootouts mentioned above. However if we had to sit through another with no Beer & Pizza then it would be the Seminoles game (especially the second half). With Beer & Pizza, we would pretty much watch any game except the Iowa one. More on that later.

Florida State 24 LSU 23

A great game needs a bit of late drama and that’s what we got in The Superdome where the Brian Kelly era didn’t get off to the most auspicious of starts. This one ticked plenty of the boxes, big plays, 4th down conversions, and a final quarter fightback that fell just short.

For those who haven’t seen the ending – Enjoy…

 

Honourable mention goes to Penn State for their excellent 35-31 win at Purdue. Three fourth-quarter lead changes and a 80-yard game-winning drive kept us enthralled.

Wake Me Up When It’s All Over

Iowa 7 South Dakota State 3

What can we say two field goals and a couple of safeties sum up the scoring! South Dakota being an (all be it very good) FCS team can be excused for their poor offensive showing, but Iowa putting up 109 yards passing doesn’t bode well for them in the deep Big Ten. Their only consolation is that they are in the West which looks slightly easier this year.

We are struggling to remember a game that was decided by two safeties so from a curiosity angle it is worth a watch. Just keep the remote handy to fast-forward through most of it.

Performance of the Week

The following three teams take a bow…

James Madison 44 Mid Tennessee 7 – JMU couldn’t have wished for a better start to life in the FBS. Having just moved up from the FCS they can’t become bowl eligible or win the Sun Belt in 2022 but this was a statement of intent.  They will be renewing their rivalry with Old Dominion this year and speaking of the Monarchs…

Old Dominion 20 Virginia Tech 17 – A nice win over a Power Five side to open the season. Virginia Tech will wonder how they let this happen again given they should have killed the game off. Still, it is never over till it’s over and a TD as time expires gave the Monarchs their second consecutive win over the ACC side.

Finally, Delaware gave their new head coach the perfect start as the FCS site shocked AAC Navy winning 14-7 at the Midshipmen.  This was Navy’s first loss to an FCS team since 2007 when they lost to… You guessed it, Delaware.  It was also the Blue Hens’ first FBS win since then too.

One You Might Have Missed

William & Mary 41 – 24 Charlotte 24

An FCS team winning at FBS opposition on the road is uncommon but not unheard of, however, this game is of note for the 49ers’ late collapse. They led 24-20 going into the fourth quarter but gave up 21 unanswered points.  Looks like it could be a long hard season for Charlotte fans!

Stat Attack Week One

  • Most Yards: Air Force 691
  • Combined Yards: 1216 Appalachian State v UNC
  • Most Points: Miami (FL) 70 
  • Biggest winning margin: Baylor 59 points
  • Most Combined Points: 124 Appalachian State v UNC

Offensive Leaders Week 1

Passing

  • Davis Brin 460 yards
  • Will Rogers Mississippi State 450 yds
  • Tanner Mordecai SMU 432

Rushing 

  • Chase Brown (ILL) 199 yds, 0TD
  • Anthony Grant (NEB) 189 yds, 2TD
  • Frank Gore (USM) 178 yds, 2TD

Receiving 

  • Keylon Stokes (TLSA) 11 rec 169 yds, 1TD
  • Rashee Rice (SMU) 8 rec 166 yds, 1TD
  • Ainias Smith (TAMU) 6 rec 164 yds, 2TD

TDs

  • Chase Brice Appalachian State 6
  • Todd Centeio 6
  • Bryce Young 5
  • Will Rogers  5

So there we have it week one is in the bag and the top four ranked teams all recorded solid wins. There is a lot of football still to be played but it wouldn’t be a surprise if the CFP semi-finalists are the pre-season top 4.

Check out our other 2022 Weekly Round Ups here

 

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