It wasn't a great slate of games, and that's putting it mildly, but college football is back with Week 0 games in the book.
Cats Illustrated publisher Justin Rowland offers some takes and observations following the first action of the season.
Vanderbilt looked improved against Hawaii ... I really haven't been expecting too much from Vanderbilt. The O/U for its win total some places was 2.5 at one point and I could see two wins but I wasn't sure how they would get to three unless they stumped Missouri or South Carolina.
It was really cool for me to see Timmy Chang coaching for Hawaii. I was still a fairly young fan when he was the quarterback there but can remember watching many late night games and grateful for the extended football.
Vanderbilt doesn't get many wins like this 63-10 thrashing. Quarterback Mike Wright did some good things against Kentucky last year and was an efficient 13/21 for 146 yards and two touchdowns. More impressively, he rushed for 163 yards on 13 carries and the Commodores racked up 404 yards on 44 carries (9.2 YPC) with five scores on the ground.
Clark Lea has to feel like it was a step forward, because it was.
Scott Frost shouldn't coach at Nebraska ... It's almost inconceivable that Nebraska would bring a coach into a new season after four consecutive losing campaigns. Though I have picked NU to beat Oklahoma as my upset of the year, that's an incredible lowering of the standard, no matter what his name is. I'm not in the camp that chides them hard for breaking with Pelini because expectations were different then, but Frost threw his assistants under the bus after Saturday's loss to Northwestern in Ireland. He said his offensive assistants needed to get more creative to make the offense work in the Big Ten.
I'll admit to thinking Nebraska would win this game both before kickoff and later in the game. But Frost's decision to go for an onside kick with his team up two scores in the second half was almost inconceivable. Nebraska deserves better and they will surely be looking for it soon.
Not impressed by UNC ... Sam Howell's successor is Alabama transfer Drake Maye, the younger brother of Luke Maye, and he looked good against Florida A&M. But even in a 56-24 win against FAMU, the Tar Heels had some questions, especially on defense where Gene Chizik was hired to improve a unit that wasn't improving fast enough. They showed too many vulnerabilities against an opponent that was missing a ton of players and almost wasn't able to participate. I'm only expecting about three more years out of Mack Brown anyway, but this team's defense needed to get a lot better and we'll see how much better it got. Next week against App State on the road will be a challenge. That's not great scheduling.
What's WKU got for an encore?
WKU's passing stats were absolutely insane last year but in spite of four passing touchdowns from Austin Reed, the Hilltopper offensive unit looked a bit more mortal in a 38-27 win against Austin Peay. Reed was 20/34 for 279 yards but WKU struggled to run the ball a bit against the Governors, and this was a neck and neck game in the fourth quarter.
UConn showed signs of life
It has been a long time since I've been impressed with UConn in a football game but I thought the Huskies did some nice things on the road in a 31-20 loss to Utah State, which won 11 games last year.
UConn should have had a chance to win the game late but a really bad pass interference call set the Aggies up when it would have been a change of possession in the fourth quarter.
Nathan Carter rushed for 190 yards for UConn, and while the defense surrendered 530 yards, at least the visiting Huskies showed some grit and toughness in key moments.
Illinois plays a complete game
In previewing this week's action I noted that Wyoming has played well on the road against solid teams in recent years so I was interested in what Bret Bielema's team would look like in the first game of his second season with the Illini. I thought they played a complete game in its 38-6 win over the Cowboys.
Cowboy quarterback Andrew Peasley was only 5/20 for 30 yards and a pick. It looked every bit like a season opener for him. Transfer Illinois quarterback Tommy DeVito was 27/37 for 194 yards and two scores and Chase Brown rushed for 151 yards on the ground and Illinois dominated both halves.
