College football Week 1 roundup with the 5 things that matter, winners and losers, overrated and underrated parts of the weekend, and what it all means.
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College Football Week 1 Roundup
CFN 1-76 Rankings | Bowl Projections
Ranking Projections AP | Coaches
Recaps, Ranking All Week 1 Games
Week 2 Schedule
5. Winners & Losers From Week 1
– The One Really Big Thing
– Most Overrated Thing
– Most Underrated Thing
– What It All Means, Week 1
Winner: BYU
And now the Cougars are in the spotlight. With a 55-3 win over Navy, the program gets to become a major national talking point with at Army, Troy, UTSA, at Houston, Texas State, WKU and North Alabama left on the slate. The program might still try to find games to play, but who wants to deal with it after this whacking?
Loser: Navy lines
The lines were overmatched and overwhelmed all game long. BYU ran for 301 yards with big gash after big gash, and the Cougar defensive front destroyed everything Navy wanted to do with its option attack.
Winner: Kalani Sitake
On a bit of a hot seat coming into the season after a 7-6 campaign finished up with two straight losses, his BYU team came out roaring against Navy. In a battle of coaches from Hawaii, Navy’s Ken Niumatalolo was the veteran star, but it was Sitake’s team that showed up ready to ball out.
Loser: Jay Hopson
The former Southern Miss head coach had four winning seasons out of four and went to three bowl games, winning one. One ugly home loss to South Alabama later, and he resigned as the head man.
Winner: Sun Belt
Yeah, the conference went 1-2, but South Alabama went from being the projected doormat of the league this season to a possible threat after looking great in the upset win over Southern Miss.
Arkansas State fought the good fight against a Memphis team loaded with enough talent to push for a New Year’s Six game in a 37-24 loss, and Texas State gave SMU all it could handle in a 31-24 fight.
Loser: Conference USA
The Southern Miss 32-21 loss to South Alabama was a kick in the teeth, but the Middle Tennessee 42-0 blasting to Army was every bit as brutal. Yeah, Marshall was flawless in a blowout win over Eastern Kentucky, and North Texas hung up 57 on Houston Baptist, but those were wins over FCS teams. UAB was hardly sharp against Central Arkansas, and UTEP needed a late score to finally put away Stephen F. Austin.
Winner: Underclassmen Running Backs
At the immediate moment, the nation’s leading rusher is BYU sophomore Tyler Allgeier after his 132-yard day against Navy. In all, ten running backs ran for 90 yards or more, and UAB’s Spencer Brown was the only upperclassman.
Loser: Middle Tennessee and Southern Miss Running Games
To pile on to the misery the two Conference USA programs had, neither one managed to get to 100 rushing yards. Southern Miss at least bombed away to try staying alive against South Alabama. Middle Tennessee never had the ball and came up with 184 total yards against Army.
– The One Really Big Thing
– Most Overrated Thing
– Most Underrated Thing
– What It All Means, Week 1