College Football Recap: Week One

The opening weekend of the 2013 college football season was so big that it actually started on Thursday evening and ended late Monday night, but now that the festivities have finally concluded, here's a few things that we learned during week one.

• Jadeveon Clowney is going to have a tough time pleasing the prognosticators that pegged him as a Heisman frontrunner. The reason why defensive ends don't get Heisman nods was on full display Thursday night when South Carolina opened the season against North Carolina. The media microscope that was fixated on Clowney revealed a dirty secret to the world -- defensive ends take plays off. Now this may not come as shocking news to anyone who has ever played football before, but criticism and scrutiny hit the junior phenom like an anvil as pundits began critiquing his work ethic on running plays that were heading in the opposite direction of his pursuit or pass plays where he was triple teamed. It would make sense to run the ball away from Clowney, especially when you consider that he nearly killed Michigan running back Vincent Smith during last year's bowl game [Watch the video. I seriously thought he was dead when I saw it live. I still have no idea how he got up from that hit]. Just as shut down corners struggle to intercept passes because quarterbacks don't throw to their side, Jadeveon Clowney won't when the Heisman because opposing teams will spend more time running away from him, rather than running up the field. It seems that his Heisman run has ended before it even started. 

Fresno State QB Derek Carr

• No one is beating the Fresno State Bulldogs. I didn't think much of Fresno State's win against Rutgers when it happened. The unfortunate thing about being a good team in the Mountain West is that Boise State is always better than you. However, after watching the Broncos get crushed by Washington Saturday night, it's obvious that this year is providing an exception to the rule. The Dogs, led by Derek Carr [brother of David] and a ridiculously talented group of skill position players, are clearly a better team than Boise this year. Fresno can score with any team in the country, and Boise has finally graduated too much talent to replenish in one year. Never count out Chris Peterson, but it looks like Fresno is this year's best candidate to be a BCS-buster.

•  I could throw for at least 300 yards and two touchdowns if I suited up at quarterback for Texas Tech. New head coach Kliff Kingsbury started a true freshman walk-on quarterback against a half decent team from Southern Methodist last Friday. What would surely be a recipe for disaster at most schools turned into a record breaking performance from little known Baker Mayfield [he even has a walk-on sounding name]. Mayfield threw 4 TD passes and rushed for another score on his way to 413 yards passing in relief of another unknown Texas Tech quarterback who will probably through for 500 yards next week since he's on scholarship. It doesn't matter who is taking the snaps for Coach Kliff, the Red Raiders are going to put points on the board. 

• Johnny Manziel has officially turned heel. Similar to Hulk Hogan's turn to the dark side that saw him become "Hollywood" Hogan and join the NWO, Johnny Manziel's transformation into Johnny Football has turned him into college football's favorite villain [The video of Hogan betraying the good guys pretty much parallels Manziel's day against Rice. We thought Johnny Football would run out and make everything OK...instead he took the field and delivered three leg drops to Randy Savage]. Manziel's taunting and other antics against Rice on Saturday weren't that big of a deal. What could be a big deal is Manziel's apparent revelry in his new found role as the bad boy of college football. Manziel, much like Tim Tebow in college and in the NFL, is a competitive force of nature more than anything else. The more angry Johnny Football gets, the more his negativity may be channeled towards his competition. Two weeks from now, we could see Johnny Football holding a can of spray paint as he stands triumphantly over an unconscious AJ McCarron, writing "A&M" across the back of his jersey to cap off a second straight upset of the Crimson Tide. Johnny's angry, and I don't think his opponents will like him when he's angry. Rice sure didn't. 

• A quick note on Alabama. AJ McCarron is an awful quarterback -- and it just doesn't matter. He's still good enough [mostly smart enough] to lead Bama to big wins. The Crimson Tide are well on their way to another national championship. 

• The Clemson Tigers had every opportunity to "pull a Clemson" and give away their marquee game against Georgia, but the Tigers showed a trait that hasn't been seen on campus in a long time. These Clemson Tigers showed a killer instinct against the Bulldogs, refusing to loosen their grip on the game and their national title hopes. After holding it together against Georgia, the Tigers essentially play a three game season that includes Florida State, South Carolina, and the ACC Championship game. Clemson has never been in better early season position to play for a national title.   

Who was the idiot who put these guys on the schedule?

• The FCS ain't nothing to f--- with.  This weekend, several FBS programs found out the hard way that the lower rung of Division I plays some pretty decent football. Fresh off a banner year behind quarterback Colin Klein, Kansas State welcomed two-time defending FCS champion North Dakota State to the Family Stadium in the Little Apple. K-State is still trying to figure out what hit them, as the Bisons stunned them on their home field. Eastern Washington won the 2011 FCS National Championship preceding NDSU's two titles. They showed off their championship pedigree by beating a ranked Oregon State squad in Corvallis. Northern Iowa, a ranked FCS outfit, knocked off Iowa State. McNeese State, who is unranked even in the FCS, blew the doors off of USF in the debut of their new head coach. The most ironic part of this FCS uprising is the fact that the losing teams from the FBS are dishing out six figure payouts to these FCS programs. This money, in most cases, is being used to help further the development of the already rapidly growing athletic programs at these FCS powerhouses. The more cash unsuspecting FBS programs throw towards the likes of NDSU and EWU, the harder it will become to beat them.

•  The Heisman trophy is Teddy Bridgewater's to lose...and so is a spot in the BCS National Championship. Watching Bridgewater dismantle Ohio this weekend was a joy to watch, but what's truly scary is that the Bobcats were actually one of the better teams on Louisville's ridiculously soft "power conference" schedule. Excluding a complete and total meltdown, the Cardinals' only chance of losing a game is on December 5th in the season finale

  

  Teddy Heisman?

  against Cincinnati [Seriously, Ohio is the second best team Louisville will play this year, check the schedule]. With double digit wins almost a certainty, Bridgewater should have two main goals for 2013 -- throw as many touchdowns as possible, and look good enough doing it to be the second player picked in the 2014 NFL Draft [behind Jadeveon Clowney of course]. If Louisville can run the table with Bridgewater tossing 4-5 touchdowns each weekend, a trip to New York's Downtown Athletic Club is a definite, but it may also prelude a trip to Pasedena for the BCS title game. Louisville will never have an easier road to gridiron glory, and they may never have a more talented quarterback to get them there.