Snap judgments from Week 2 of college football
College football's biggest story lines can build up — or get knocked down — in one snap. After a Saturday full of action and overreaction, we're here to help you figure out what's hot, what's not and what's true. Here are five storylines to know (and, in some cases, debunk):
This week's Snap Judgments:
1. THE SEC IS OVERRATED: Auburn nearly lost (and should have lost) to Jacksonville State, an FCS team. The Tigers escaped with a win in overtime, narrowly avoiding an annoying fate as the eternal answer to a trivia question. Tennessee blew a 17-point lead at home to Oklahoma, which came back to win in double overtime. Toledo beat Arkansas in Little Rock, days after Hogs coach Bret Bielema ripped Ohio State for playing so few (read: one) ranked team the rest of the regular season. Bielema said he had eight on his schedule. As he's surely aware of by now, Toledo wasn't one of them.
Certainly, it would be foolish to say the SEC won't get a team into the College Football Playoff — let alone to make any sort of sweeping statement off of one weekend's worth of games. But couple these showings with the league's poor results in bowls last postseason. Let's remember that not all SEC teams are created equal.
2. NOTRE DAME JUST LOST ITS CHANCE AT THE PLAYOFF: The Irish pulled out a dramatic win at Virginia, but lost starting quarterback Malik Zaire for the season with an ankle injury. Zaire was a huge, huge part of why Notre Dame had turned into a dark horse Playoff pick, and why coach Brian Kelly was so excited about his offense this season.
Notre Dame has been hit hard by the injury bug, but it's never a good idea to write off a team or conference in Week 2. Did we learn nothing from J.T. Barrett and Cardale Jones last season? Let's give Irish redshirt freshman backup quarterback DeShone Kizer some time to show us what he's got before we write Notre Dame off — or in. After all, Kelly is 15-1 with a freshman or redshirt freshman quarterback during his time at Notre Dame. And Kizer did find Will Fuller for a 39-yard touchdown pass with 12 seconds left in Saturday's game to secure the win.
3. OKLAHOMA COULD BE THE BEST TEAM IN THE BIG 12:
OK, this is a stretch. We can't forget about TCU or Baylor just yet, even if they've both had quarters and/or halves where they've looked quite pedestrian so far this season.
But after the Sooners' 17-point comeback and double-overtime thriller against a good Tennessee defense on the road, it's definitely fair to raise expectations for quarterback Baker Mayfield and this mentally tough Oklahoma team. At the very least, we can expect a stingier, stronger defense than we saw from the Sooners a year ago.
4. THE BIG TEN COULD GET TWO TEAMS INTO THE PLAYOFF:
Yes — if a conference gets two teams into the four-team Playoff. We're still not sure that sort of thing will happen unless it were to expand to six or eight teams, but hypothetically, let's say it could this year.
Michigan State now owns the best win of the season so far, a victory against Oregon. Ohio State has so much talent it's impossible to imagine the Buckeyes losing anytime soon. So, let's say Ohio State beats Michigan State on Nov. 21 and ultimately gets the top spot in the Playoff. If the Spartans' only loss of the season came to the best team in the country on the road, wouldn't they have a good shot to get into the Playoff, too? We'd argue yes, and we believe the number-crunching world supports this theory.
The Big Ten should, hypothetically, have a better shot than any other league at nabbing two spots this year.
5. BYU WILL WIN ALL OF ITS GAMES WITH ITS ONE-TIME BACKUP QUARTERBACK THROWING HAIL MARYS: This is just a dream, but, hey, we're two games closer achieving it than we ever thought we could be. Tanner Mangum has already done it twice, the first time coming against Nebraska on the road and most recently, late Saturday night at home against Boise State. Keep airing it out, Tanner. We'll keep watching.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL'S WEEK 2 HIGHLIGHTS