For Georgia, offense hot from the start

So much of the talk about Georgia last year focused on a defense that produced five NFL first-round draft picks.

The Bulldogs defense showed no sign of dropping off against thenNo. 11 Oregon, but it was the offense that was front and center statistically in a 49-3 win Sunday.

The defending national champion Bulldogs, who moved up one spot to No. 2 in the latest AP Top 25, became the second team in 15 seasons to score a touchdown on its first seven possessions against a ranked opponent.

The seven TD drives ranged from six to 12 plays, the first six under the direction of QB Stetson Bennett. Carson Beck was in the game for the seventh. The streak ended when they went three-and-out on their first full series of the fourth quarter.

Last year Ohio State reached the end zone on its first seven drives, all in the first half, against Michigan State.

Block that kick

FBS kickers have been almost automatic on extra points, having converted 577 of 586 this season. Of the nine misses, three were blocked — none bigger than Shyheim Brown’s deflection of Damian Ramos’ try on the final play of Florida State’s 24-23 win over LSU on Sunday.

In the last 20 years, according to Sportradar, no previous one-point game involving an FBS team had ended with the winning team blocking an extra point with no time left in the fourth quarter.

Baylor and Akron kickers also had extra-point tries blocked last weekend.

Scoring surge

Appalachian State’s 40 points in the fourth quarter of its 63-61 loss to North Carolina were the most by a team in a quarter since BYU hung 42 on UMass in the second in 2019 and most by a team in a fourth quarter in 20 years, according to Sportradar.

According to Stats Perform, Saturday marked the first time an FBS team scored at least 60 points and lost and an FBS team scored fewer than 10 points and won on the same day. Iowa turned a field goal and two safeties into a 7-3 win over South Dakota State.

Rule of 70

Wisconsin, in a 38-0 victory over Illinois State, was the first FBS team in four years to have a run, pass and interception return of at least 70 yards in the same game.

Braelon Allen’s 96-yard TD against Illinois State was the longest run from scrimmage in program history, John Torchio set a school record with a 100-yard INT return and Chimere Dike turned a short pass into a 74-yard gain for the longest completion in QB Graham Mertz’s career.

Middle Tennessee was the previous team with 70-yard plays three different ways, against Old Dominion in 2018. No Big Ten team had done it since 2003.

‘Air’ Force

Haaziq Daniels put the air in Air Force on his first pass attempt of the season.

The Falcons, whose triple-option has had a run-pass ratio of nearly 90-10 the last two seasons, scored their first TD in a 48-17 win over Northern Iowa on Daniels’ 80-yard pass to Dane Kinamon.

Air Force faced third-and-12 from its 20 when Daniels scrambled to his left and threw to Kinamon, who had his defender beat by 5 yards and caught the ball in stride.

It was Air Force’s longest pass since Daniels’ school-record 92-yarder against Colorado State last year.