Oregon and Iowa earn biggest wins in Week 2
The possibility that Ohio State will not play a leading part in deciding this year’s College Football Playoff suddenly exists after Oregon’s dominant running game and late interception keyed a 35-28 road win Saturday.
That being said, there is precedent for an OSU rebound after an early-season loss. In 2014, the Buckeyes lost in September at Virginia Tech and then won out to claim the national championship in the debut year of the playoff format.
But now the Buckeyes find themselves playing from behind while Oregon surges to the forefront of the postseason race. For the first time in six years, the Pac-12 can realistically envision placing the conference champion inside the top four.
That makes the Ducks the biggest winner of the week. Here are the rest of those teams worthy of praise from Week 2 of the 2021 season (Note: Poll rankings reflected here are from last week): Oregon
The Ducks’ obvious growth under coach Mario Cristobal was forgotten amid last year’s struggles against the backdrop of the pandemic. Since taking over, Cristobal has built a roster capable
of standing up against any team in the country, with the sort of physical mindset borrowed from his stint at Alabama that stands in contrast to the larger norm in the Pac-12. Case in point: No. 11 Oregon went for 269 yards and three touchdowns on the ground in No. 3 Ohio State’s worst performance against the run since 2018. If the Ducks can do it against the Buckeyes, they can push around every team left on their schedule.
The Pac-12
The Ducks are big winners. So is the Pac-12. Largely a non-factor in the playoff hunt since 2017, the conference can now make a huge boast: Our best team, Oregon, is better than the Big Ten’s best. These arguments carry enormous weight among members of the playoff selection committee. And while currently reserved for the Ducks, the benefit of Saturday’s win would extend to whichever unbeaten or one-loss team stands atop the conference in early December, whether that’s the Ducks, UCLA or another.
Iowa
No. 12 Iowa should be the highestranked Big Ten team in the next USA TODAY Sports AFCA Coaches Poll after a 27-17 win against No. 10 Iowa State, the Hawkeyes’ sixth straight win in the series. How did they pull it off? It’s simple: Iowa was plus-four in turnover margin and scored 20 points off of those takeaways. This helped overcome a weak showing on offense, as the Hawkeyes finished with just 173 yards on 60 plays.
After smothering the Cyclones, it’s time to start taking Iowa very seriously as a top contender for the New Year’s Six and a legitimate contender for the Big Ten title and top four.
Kentucky
The Wildcats didn’t get another monster game from quarterback Will Levis but still managed to beat Missouri 35-28 in the SEC opener for both teams. Levis, a transfer from Penn State who threw for 367 yards in the opener, finished with 204 yards of total offense and two combined scores. With two weeks in the books, the Wildcats are an easy pick for the third-best team in the SEC East and the only team other than Florida with any shot at unseating Georgia from atop the division.
Matt Corral
Corral threw for 281 yards and five touchdowns without an interception despite playing less than three quarters as Mississippi trounced Austin Peay 5417. The Heisman Trophy credentials are growing for the former five-star recruit, who has yet to turn the ball over through two games after a 2020 season defined by stretches of wild inconsistency. Corral has now gone three full games and 109 attempts without throwing an interception.
South Carolina
If not coming against elite competition, that South Carolina is 2-0 after a 20-17 win against East Carolina is worthy of commendation given the two factors at play. One, this is a team clearly in the early stages of a rebuild under firstyear coach Shane Beamer. And two, the Gamecocks have won both games with coach-turned-quarterback Zeb Noland taking over for an injured Luke Doty, the team’s projected starter in August.