The State of College Football

The third week of college football has just concluded, and there is a lot of information to take in. From the AP Poll to the Heisman race, the College Football world is one of excitement and uncertainty. 

For starters, we need to talk about the heavy weights. Just yesterday the AP Poll Top 25 rankings were just released and there were two big shifts in my opinion. One of them being Texas jumping the Georgia Bulldogs for the number one spot. Last Saturday, the Dogs barely squeezed out a victory against the Kentucky Wildcats. In a 13-12 victory, Georgia was held by the Wildcats Defense. Kentucky’s stats overall were better than the usually dominant Georgia. Kentucky had more 1st downs, a better 3rd down completion percentage, and more total yards than Georgia. In the past five seasons, Georgia has been held below 20 points on the road three times. All of those times were against Kentucky (2020,2022,2024). Texas on the other hand, had a dominant victory over UTSA in a 56-7 victory. Worry spread after Heisman hopeful Quinn Ewers suffered an injury, but backup QB Arch Manning had no problem covering for him. Manning threw for 223 yds, went 9-12 on completions, and threw 4 tds, and he was only sacked once.

 I believe that Texas is a better team than Georgia, however, we can easily overreact to this. Two of Georgia’s first three games have been against some usually pretty decent schools. One of them being at the time, #14 ranked Clemson, and now an SEC team in Kentucky. Sure Texas beat the defending champions, Michigan Wolverines, but I don’t find that win very impressive. Michigan is clearly not the same team they were last year. They could be shaking off a championship hangover, but I do not expect Michigan to compete highly in the 12 team playoff this year. It is too early to really be sure if Texas is as dominant as they seem, they start SEC play next week. But I don’t think we will really see how legitimate Texas is until we get to the Red River Rivalry Game. If they survive that then we will have to see how they deal with Georgia the following week. 

The other major shift in the AP Poll this weekend in my opinion, was the Miami Hurricanes going from #10, to now #8. On Saturday Miami crushed opponent Ball State 62-0 in their most dominant win of the season so far. Cameron Ward’s Heisman chances have only grown after this win, and in the eyes of many, he is the Heisman favorite. I on the other hand am not as big as a believer in the Hurricanes. Yeah it may be too early to be waving the fraud flag but that’s exactly what I’m doing. In my opinion Miami doesn’t have a very hard schedule. They beat a bad Florida Gators team, and they had no trouble against FCS school Florida A&M. Miami’s only tough opponents in the coming weeks are Louisville and Georgia Tech! Virginia Tech is definitely not a hard opponent, FSU looks like hot garbage, and California is…well they are California. Usually decent, but never great. Yes Louisville is a ranked team and that could prove to be a challenge, but if we are ranking Miami at #8 then they should have no problem. I’ll go even further and say that I wouldn’t be surprised if Miami loses to Louisville. You can call me a hater but I do not believe in Miami’s legitimacy. Their schedule is not very challenging and even if they win all their games, they still haven’t played a worthy opponent. Unless Cam Ward is as good as we say he is, and unless Miami is as good as we say they are, they will get rocked in the 12 team playoff. 

Finally we need to talk about the Heisman Race. College Football has truly hopped on the trend that the NFL has been on over the past 10 years. Their biggest award is seeming to revolve only around the QB. Every Heisman ranking you’ll find has only QB’s in their top 5 rankings. Cam Ward, Carson Beck, Quinn Ewers, Dillon Gabriel and Jaxon Dart. Quarterback after quarterback. No variation, no surprises. I find it boring and frustrating. I understand that the QB is one of, if not the most valuable position on the field. But it’s also disrespectful to the other key positions on the football field. Ashton Jeanty, RB for Boise State, has been on an absolute tear to start the season. He put up 267 rushing yards in his first game, and 192 yards in his second. He has 459 yards total already, and he has only played 2 games. Another non QB, fan favorite, Travis Hunter. Hunter’s stats are also quite great. He has 5 receiving touchdowns and 342 receiving yards on 30 receptions. And that’s only his offensive game. The only thing that separates Ashton Jeanty and Travis Hunter is the fact that Jeanty showed up in his biggest game of the season vs Oregon, while Hunter didn’t perform very well in his biggest game so far vs Nebraska. Granted, neither player won those games but I would take Jeanty over Hunter. It is still an early season and there are still many more games to be played. I would love it if a non quarterback wins the Heisman this year. Sadly that doesn’t seem to be the way things are trending.