College football: The good, the bad and the ugly
Weeks into the 2019 season, we’re seeing nice surprises, shaky starts and horror stories.
After three weekends of results, narratives are steadily being formed surrounding college football’s most intriguing teams, players and coaches. Boiled down, the takeaways from even this limited sample size fit into two categories: pleasant surprises or terrible, woeful, the-sky-is-falling disappointments. (There’s little room for gray area, as always.)
On the positive side, there might be no bigger surprise than the Heisman Trophy-level play of Oklahoma quarterback Jalen Hurts, who across two games since transferring from Alabama has more touchdowns, nine, than incomplete passes, seven. Hurts has averaged 14.4 yards per pass attempt and 9.3 yards per carry in wins
against Houston and South Dakota and leads the Bowl Subdivision in averaging 12.5 yards per play.
The numbers won’t hold, only because it’s impossible to imagine any player – even the starting quarterback for Lincoln Riley and Oklahoma – staying this hot as the schedule rises in difficulty. Still, it’s worth mentioning: Kyler Murray averaged 10.4 yards per play in winning the Heisman last season, and Baker Mayfield averaged 9.9 yards per play in doing the same a year earlier.
Asked Monday if Hurts could maintain this clip, Riley responded, “Seems like same question, different year.”
That Hurts would succeed in Riley’s scheme was nearly a foregone conclusion. That he’d look this good in doing so, however, makes him one of the biggest surprises of the early season. Here are several others, good and bad:
The Pac-12 North: This was once viewed as the dominant of the league’s two divisions, with No. 21 Washington and No. 17 Oregon pegged as College Football Playoff contenders and Stanford ranked in the preseason Amway Coaches Poll. But Washington has already lost; the Huskies dropped an upset to California late on Saturday evening. Oregon coughed up a sizable lead in losing its opener to Auburn. And Stanford fell on Saturday to No. 24 Southern California and its true freshman quarterback. Two weeks into September, the division’s lone remaining unbeaten teams are the Golden Bears and No. 20 Washington State.
Meanwhile, the South Division has outplayed expectations. Beyond No. 12 Utah, which has looked about as good as advertised, the division has landed strong starts from the Trojans, Arizona State and Colorado. The Buffaloes are 2-0 under new coach Mel Tucker, with a huge win this past weekend against rival Nebraska. It’s almost enough to outweigh the continued diminishing returns from Chip Kelly and UCLA, which has opened with two losses to Group of Five competition.
LSU’s offense: One way to put the No. 5 Tigers’ newfound explosiveness in perspective: After throwing for 521 yards as a team all of last October, LSU went for 471 yards through the air in Saturday’s win against No. 13 Texas. The program with as much talent as anyone has found a way to harness and use its athleticism. It’s enough to start imagining Ed Orgeron and the Tigers as not just the best team in the SEC — yes, better than No. 2 Alabama and No. 3 Georgia — but the best team in the entire country.
Mack Brown and North Carolina: The feeling among UNC coaches and players this summer was that a bowl game was very realistic after back-toback awful seasons to round out Larry Fedora’s tenure. The Tar Heels might have been underselling their potential. With wins against South Carolina and Miami, UNC joins Hawaii and No. 1 Clemson as the only FBS teams with two victories against Power Five competition. While Brown’s successful return to the sidelines has made headlines, perhaps the most surprising development has been the play of freshman quarterback Sam Howell, who has thrown four touchdowns without an interception while averaging 10.8 yards per attempt.
South Florida: After winning its first seven games last season and cracking the Top 25, USF has dropped eight in a row and is the only winless team in the American Athletic Conference. In the Bulls’ defense, the 49-0 loss in the opener came against No. 14 Wisconsin. But Saturday’s 14-10 loss to a Georgia Tech team in the start of a major rebuild under a new coaching staff is enough to ask whether coach Charlie Strong can get this team back to bowl eligibility once the schedule shifts to AAC play.
Southern California: The Trojans deserve some positive attention. While he’s far from out of the woods in terms of job security, Clay Helton quieted his critics with the win against Stanford, especially given the team’s issue at quarterback. Kedon Slovis completed 28 of 33 attempts for 377 yards and three touchdowns as the replacement for sophomore JT Daniels, who will miss the remainder of the year with a knee injury. With Brigham Young, Utah, Washington and No. 7 Notre Dame up next, this was a win Helton and USC had to have. If Slovis keeps this up, this could be a team that finds a permanent home in the Top 25 and challenges Utah for the Pac-12 South championship.
Under-the-radar hot starts: SMU has a pair of very nice wins against Arkansas State and North Texas, two Group of Five contenders picked to finish at or near the top of their respective leagues. Virginia has looked sharp in beating Pittsburgh and William & Mary and should soon find itself ranked in the Amway Coaches Poll. Kansas State has outplayed expectations under first-year coach Chris Klieman, formerly of Football Championship Subdivision powerhouse North Dakota State. No. 25 Maryland has become an offensive juggernaut under Mike Locksley, as seen in Saturday’s 63-21 shellacking of Syracuse. And Hawaii has two wins against Pac-12 competition in Arizona and Oregon State. They’ll try for three in a row Saturday at Washington.
The big-name flops: After losing to No. 22 Boise State to open the year, Florida State barely avoided a monumental catastrophe with its 45-44 overtime win against Louisiana-Monroe. (The Warhawks missed the potential tying extra point in the bottom of the first overtime.) Few coaches could’ve used a hot start quite like Willie Taggart, who quickly found himself under immense pressure after missing a bowl game in his FSU debut. Losing to one Group of Five opponent and barely beating another is not the way to go.
Tennessee is a complete mess. On Monday, coach Jeremy Pruitt compared players who have recently left the program to the mice who climbed to the top of the Titanic as the ship sank into the ocean. Hey, it’s never a great idea to compare your team to the greatest nautical disaster in modern history. But after losing to Georgia State and BYU, the Volunteers are indeed taking on water.
UCLA had some projecting a major turnaround after a strong close to last season. That’s not going to be the case, though the Bruins might turn a corner in Pac-12 action to get within striking distance of bowl eligibility. This is still well below what most expected from Kelly, who is 0-4 against Group of Five competition through 14 games. UCLA’s offense ranks 128th nationally in yards per play, 127th in yards per game, 127th in yards per carry and 119th in scoring.
The transfer quarterbacks: Hurts is just one example of a transfer quarterback lighting up scoreboards and box scores through two weeks. Another is Maryland’s Josh Jackson (Virginia Tech), who has seven touchdowns against a single interception. Likewise with Illinois’ Brandon Peters (Michigan), who has piloted the Illini to two wins to ease the pressure on coach Lovie Smith. SMU’s Shane Buechele (Texas) has averaged 326 passing yards per game during the Mustangs’ strong start.