College Football is back! Night one of week one kicked off with some fireworks (literally) as we were gifted with two upsets by road dogs. Josh Pate may talk about winners first, but the story lines are driven by the losers.
UMASS Upsets Rutgers as a Huge Underdog
UMASS entered the game on the road as a 29.5 point underdog
and +2350 odds to win outright when the game kicked off. Despite seemingly insurmountable
odds, the Minutemen absolutely dismantled the Rutgers fighting Tony Sopranos, I
mean Scarlet Knights. The only thing that hurts worse than a beat down at home
as a big favorite is having to sit through the preplanned fireworks show after
getting shell shocked by an underachieving G6 team. At what point does the
first college football program start looking at other options than Greg
Schiano? As a student at Tennessee, I lived mere steps away from the now
infamous Schiano Sunday protest that stopped a coaching hire, and thank God it
did. Jeremy Pruitt may have been bad, but it ultimately led us to Danny White
and Josh Heupel.
If you are Rutgers where do you go from here? It seems like
there is no hope to even be respectable in the Big 10 after a performance like
that. Moreover, what are your options? Move on from Schiano? Try to find a Tony
Soprano-esque mafioso to fund your NIL? What a fugazi that would be. In a world
where Indiana can win National Championships and Vanderbilt can upset Alabama,
Rutgers is still woefully subpar. At least the fireworks looked nice.
Colorado Stuns Georgia Tech at Home.
Hand up, I picked Georgia Tech to win and cover the 6.5
point spread in my pick em preview. This was an ugly game for the entire 60
minutes. Both teams shot themselves in the foot consistently and the weather
conditions did not help. Every time Colorado would start to move the ball a
penalty, bad snap, or missed 4th down conversion would end the drive.
In the closing minutes of the game Georgia Tech went up 6 and gave the ball
back to Colorado with no timeouts. And what do the Buffalos do? Go down and
score of course to go up one. The two plays that stand out for me are Julian
Lewis connecting with his receiver across the middle to get out of bounds and pick
up a big first down to extend the drive, and a devious halfback draw up the middle
that stopped the clock with a first down. The draw was especially gutsy knowing
there were no timeouts but credit to the Colorado OC for playing to his
strengths. Colorado had imposed their will at the line of scrimmage on both
sides of the ball most of the second half with a solid run game and consistent
pressure on Georgia Tech QB Alberto Mendoza.
Georgia Tech did not go down without a fight. With less than
40 seconds on the clock Mendoza sets up Georgia Tech comfortably in field goal range
for the game winning kick. In a game that had already seen one field goal block
when tech prevented Colorado from tying the game earlier in the second half,
Boo Carter put on his cape and saved the day for the Buffalos by blocking the go-ahead
field goal and sealing the win. Georgia Tech hosts Tennessee next week and I
would be worried after watching the play of the offensive line.