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Sep 4, 2015
1:11:14am
The sloppiest and most boring first day of college football I can remember
So, what did we learn today?

1. The majority of the teams that played today have a LOT of work to do. I was looking forward to what I thought were some good matchups, but overall it was an evening of sloppy, boring football. It's not surprising that teams are a bit rough around the edges for the first game or two of the season, but today was awful.

2. Almost every P5 team that played today has a LOT of work to do. Georgia Tech, and maybe Duke, were the only ones that played up to expectations. Even Georgia Tech's 69-6 thrashing of Alcorn State doesn't really tell us much about how good GT is. There was no power in the Power 5 today.

3. Florida International (15-14 win over Central Florida) might actually avoid being in ESPN's Bottom 10 every week this season. Or maybe the bottom fell out of UCF's football program and they're just really bad this year. Either way, Florida International actually does have the capacity to win a game.

4. The way to beat Michigan is to let their QB throw the ball to wide-open receivers. In fact, defensive backs can probably just sit down and watch. The closest the ball will get to the wide-open receivers is about 10 feet above their heads. He'll make completions to receivers in tight coverage, but if today's game is any indication, he'll leave 4 or 5 sure touchdowns rolling around for an official to pick up and toss to a ball boy. On the other hand, he might also give the other team some points by throwing the ball right to them, for a possible pick-6.

5. UConn (20-15 over Villanova) has improved. With today's win, they're already one win away from having as many wins as last year.

6. Arizona's offense can still put up points, and should put up a LOT of points once they work some of the kinks out. And Nick Wilson could be really, really good.

7. Arizona's defense really needs Scooby Wright to not get injured again. Sure, UTSA should score a lot against opponents this year, but they shouldn't out gain Arizona in total offensive yards. Rich Rod's going to be yelling at some young men (I mean more than usual) over the coming week.

8. Duke (37-7 over Tulane) might be establishing a solid football program. They've surprised people over the past couple of years, as the football program that was as bad as the basketball program is good has put up consecutive seasons of 9 or more wins, including wins over ranked teams. Tulane wasn't a tough opponent, of course, but Duke made sure that the score reflected that. If Duke had won by only a field goal, I wouldn't be writing about them.

9. We can relax, knowing that the quality of football can only go up on Friday and Saturday. Yeah, it's possible that the rest of this weekend's games could be sloppy and uninteresting as well, but the probability of that isn't very high. Today's games set the bar pretty low.

10. Sometimes FCS schools play better and more entertaining football than FBS schools from P5 conferences. Last week's North Dakota State - Montana game in smoke-filled Missoula is by far the most entertaining game I've seen this year. Yes, the college football season has just started, but considering that some of the schools that played today supposedly have good football programs, I expected a significantly better product than what I saw on field today.

P.S. The North Carolina-South Carolina game was relatively entertaining, even as sloppy as it was. And there seemed to be an abnormally high number of players getting leg cramps. They're to be expected at this time of the year, but today it seemed like every other play. Stay hydrated my friends.
Steelhammer
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Natsuo
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Steelhammer
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