Opinion: College Football 2014 – Week One Villains

The first weekend of college football is in the books, so let’s go through who wasn’t so great throughout in my Week One Villains:

South Carolina: Touted as being one of the better teams in the SEC before Thursday night’s opener, Steve Spurrier’s men were roundly and thoroughly embarrassed on their home turf by a rampant Texas A&M outfit. The Gamecocks defense gave up 680 total yards of offense (511 of which came on the arm of Aggie QB Kenny Hill).

Although QB Dylan Thompson’s numbers looked pretty good – 366 yards and three scores – most of that yardage came on a couple of big plays. Spurrier looked as angry as I’ve ever seen him, and it’ll probably be a long week of soul-searching in Columbia.

Eastern Michigan: Perhaps looking for an edge in the player entrance department, EMU thought it would be a fun idea to have players smash through a brick wall with sledgehammers prior to kick-off. Good idea in theory…in practice, not so much. It took three players more than twenty seconds to beat down the wall, whilst fans waited patiently – and probably a little amusedly, too – for the game to begin. 

For the record, EMU beat Morgan State 31-28 but might want to stick with the inflatable helmet entrance going forward.

Vanderbilt: The Commodores lost successful head coach James Franklin to Penn State this year, and have apparently regressed during the off-season, because they were easily beaten by Temple 37-7. That’s a Temple team that went 2-10 last year. The Commodores converted only three of fourteen third down attempts and were held to an embarrassingly pathetic fifty four total yards in giving the long-suffering Owls their first win against an SEC school since 1938. That’s not a good omen for SEC play upcoming.

Iowa State: The Cyclones join the ranks of those Division I/FBS opponents who have lost to Division II/FCS schools – a list that’s growing by the year – after being embarrassed by North Dakota State at home on Saturday. Some thought that 2014 would be the beginning of the Cyclones resurgence, but not on the form they displayed against the Bison. ISU were dominated in all areas of the game, and you can bet that head coach Paul Rhodes won’t enjoy the coming few days on campus.

Clemson: A great first half, and a woeful second half. As far as playoff hopes go, the Tigers suffer from a weak schedule in the ACC and really needed this win against a good Georgia team on the road, but they didn’t bother showing up in the second half. Star Bulldog Todd Gurley went nuts, accounting for all but a fraction of the 300 yards of rushing that the Tigers defense gave up. They looked like traffic cones at times, tackling either weak or non-existent. It won’t be a pleasant film review this week.

Wisconsin: 24-7 up on LSU in Texas almost halfway through the third quarter, and it fell apart from there for the Badgers, who gave up that lead to crash to a four-point defeat, the Tigers winning 28-24 after a furious final quarter-and-a-bit, aided by two interceptions by Badgers QB Tanner McEvoy and an apparent aversion to giving the ball to RB Melvin Gordon who had gashed the LSU defense to that point. 

Another chance for the Big Ten to prove they’re able to compete with the SEC falls disappointingly by the wayside. Wisconsin threw this one away.