Clay Travis' Starting 11: Making A Statement Edition
College football week one -- which is still not complete -- should be an incredible event each year. It's the one week when college football doesn't compete with the NFL. As a result, there should be must see games from Thursday to Monday, one monster contest after another. But at least this year, that wasn't the case. And that's a failure of the larger college football ecosystem.
Given that we are moving to a 12 team playoff next year, I hope there will be greater attention paid to the quality of the match-ups early in the year. That's especially the case since, at least in theory, losing a major out of conference game won't be debilitating to the chances a team makes the postseason.
But that's for the future.
This year there was only one single game that featured two top 25 teams.
But it was a doozy, a preseason top-ten rematch of last week's incredible game between LSU and Florida State.
It's easy to forget, but last year FSU head coach Mike Norvell entered the opening game on a scorching hot seat. Norvell went 3-6 in the covid year and then followed it up in year two with a 5-7 mark. As a result there was a significant segment of the Seminole fan base that was done with him. But then he pulled off the win in week one over LSU and that propelled the Seminoles to a 10-3 year and a pre-season top ten ranking. Meanwhile Brian Kelly, he of the widely lambasted fake Southern accent, rebounded from the week one loss to pull off the upset SEC West title, and expectations were high down on the bayou.
We expected a good game; instead we got one good half.
Then FSU absolutely obliterated LSU, running off 31 straight points in the second half and ultimately scoring a late TD instead of taking a knee to end the game that gave them a 45-17 statement lead. LSU tacked on a late touchdown, but, as we will discuss below, this was the kind of win that makes a statement. After nearly a decade wandering in the football wilderness -- the end of the Jimbo Fisher era was a mess and then Willie Taggart's tenure was a disaster -- the Noles are officially back.
As for LSU, we'll discuss things below, but this was the kind of defeat that makes you take pause and question if you're missing something bigger.
It's one thing to lose, it's another thing entirely to get run off the field.
1. I have Florida State as the number one team in the country in my Outkick rankings.
You will see that top ten below, but I don't think it's crazy at all to look at the FSU schedule now and start to daydream a bit if you are a Seminole fan.
FSU has just one current top 25 team left on its regular season schedule -- at Clemson on September 23rd.
We all know how crazy college football is, so there are certainly landmines here, but if FSU beats Clemson it's hard to see two additional losses on this schedule, especially with the Gators looking awful.
As a general rule, I say that you know if you have the right coach by year two, but Norvell taking over during the covid year may have challenged that expectation. He has things rolling in year four and I think you have to make the Seminoles a very real contender for the college football playoff.
In fact, I expect them there, which is why I picked them to make it a few weeks ago.
I think FSU will beat Clemson in three weeks and spend the entire year in the top five, but the Seminoles should be number one everywhere when the new polls come out.
2. LSU looked like an 8-4 team.
As I said above, this was an alarming loss.
Yes, Brian Kelly won the SEC West last year, but so far at LSU his teams have been blown out three times in 15 games. Tennessee won at Baton Rouge by 27, Georgia won by 20, and FSU won by 22. (Texas A&M also won by 15 last year.)
My point on these margins is this -- really good teams, and great programs, don't get blown out very often, if at all.
They may lose, but they lose like Alabama did last year, at the last second to Tennessee and LSU.
I know it's still early in Brian Kelly's tenure, but this is three, nearly four, beatdowns.
Maybe we simply expected too much too soon, but this didn't look like an LSU team that could win the SEC West this year.
Having said all this, last October Brian Kelly's team lost by 27 at home to Tennessee and then turned the corner. Let's see how the Tigers look after their game at Ole Miss on September 30th.
If they rebound and are sitting at 4-1 we may feel very different about them, but for now, this was ominous.
How ominous, LSU gave up 45 points to FSU. That's the most points allowed in week one by a top five team since 1936.
Yikes.
3. Utah smoked Florida on the lines of scrimmage -- tallying five sacks and giving up none -- and the Gators looked really bad.
I don't want to take away from what Utah did on Thursday night, but I was more alarmed by the Gators than I was impressed by the Utes.
Again, Utah should be ecstatic, the crowd was electric, the performance was solid, but Florida looked like a team that will struggle to make a bowl game. They couldn't block on the offensive line, heck they had trouble even getting lined up correctly. They gave away multiple first downs just based on self-inflicted lining up errors.
Put simply, Billy Napier's team looked awful in week one. They looked poorly coached and slow, which is a bad combo. Trust me, I know, I've watched a lot of Tennessee football games over the years.
But before we pour dirt all over Napier's team, let's see what happens when Tennessee comes to town in two weeks. The Vols should, and I stress should, beat Florida by double digits. But The Swamp has been a burial ground for lots of good Tennessee football teams. Maybe, just maybe, Napier can rally his team for a big home game and challenge the expectations from week one.
But right now I'd peg the Gators, who still have Georgia, Florida State, Tennessee and LSU on the schedule -- at 6-6 at best on the year.
Which means Billy Napier is going to be on one of the hottest seats in college football very soon.
4. North Carolina took down South Carolina too.
As a result there's been a great deal of attention foisted on the SEC, which lost three big games in week one, something that doesn't regularly happen.
So is this a significant result or an aberration?
The Florida result didn't surprise me, but the LSU and South Carolina losses, happening as they did, did surprise me. Because, again, neither game was particularly close. UNC and FSU were clearly the better teams, particularly in the second half of each game.
So where does this leave us?
Well, first, Mack Brown is the only coach who seems capable of winning at North Carolina. It really is remarkable to see. He's got the Tar Heels back at the top of the ACC and no one else has been able to do that in a generation.
As for South Carolina, Shane Beamer is recruiting well and he beat both Tennessee and Clemson last year. That upswing cancels out this disappointment by a great degree. But as I pointed out a while back, the Cocks season is front loaded. South Carolina plays both at Georgia and at Tennessee before the end of September. The schedule eases somewhat after that, but the Cocks will be favored to be 2-3 after the Tennessee game.
That's why this UNC loss stings for the Gamecocks, things aren't getting any easier at all.
5. Colorado and Deion Sanders are going to be fun.
Deion led the biggest upset in the country for week one -- a 21 point upset -- and this was his pre-game speech.
I love the swagger, but I expect many coaches -- and fans -- in college football will not. That means if Deion keeps winning the displeasure will build, but if he loses there will be a cavalcade of attacks. That's fine, this is how things work. If you call out people for not respecting you and then you lose, expect rampant disrespect.
Most college football coaches aren't as publicly cocky as Deion is.
But let's not let Deion overshadow a couple of his players. His son Shedeur passed for 510 yards and four touchdowns and Travis Hunter played 145 total snaps, posted 11 catches for 119 yards and got an interception and three pass break ups on defense. And it was 100 degrees?
That's just freakish from Hunter.
As for the Buffs, goodness, win at Nebraska and then beat Colorado State and the hype will truly be off the charts for games against Oregon and USC.
I expect losses in both of those games, but Deion has already done what he wanted to do, set a new expectation for winning at Colorado. I suspect that will rally a great deal of recruits to his side.
Because ultimately what he's selling is the future and after that week one win, the future looks very, very bright.
Has anyone forgotten how things went with Lane Kiffin
6. Tennessee is back.
I know, I know.
But I've seen enough.
Josh Heupel's building a really good, consistent winning team in Knoxville.
The Vols put up 49 on Virginia and didn't even play that well on the offensive side of the ball. But the bigger story is this, the Tennessee defense is starting to have some big time playmakers. They're still young, but this Vol defense has speed and tenacity and, stunner, may be able to win a game or two themselves this year.
Midway through the third quarter Virginia had 19 rushing attempts for -14 yards. I don't care who you are, that's impressive to do to a power five conference team.
Joe Milton was solid, if he hadn't had an 80 yard TD bomb dropped his numbers would have looked even better. Even still, he went for two passing and two rushing touchdowns.
Tennessee heads to Florida in two weeks. If the Vols win there, there's a very good chance Tennessee is 5-0 with Texas A&M coming to Knoxville in mid-October.
How rare is that? I'm 44 years old and Tennessee football has never started 5-0 in back-to-back years in my life. (Thanks, Florida).
So, yeah, Heupel has things rolling right now.
And I think the dream scenario for most Vol fans is Tennessee able to have one loss when Georgia rolls into Knoxville on November 18th. If that could happen then the SEC East would be likely to be decided in Knoxville. And I'll call my shot on this one in advance if it were to occur -- that would become the most difficult ticket in Neyland Stadium history.
7. Alabama and Ohio State broke out new quarterbacks and the early returns for the Tide are more promising.
But Bama's opponent was also not a power five team and the Tide played at home so that has to be factored into the equation.
More alarmingly for Ohio State, it appears there is a three headed monster atop the Big Ten this year: Michigan, Penn State and Ohio State. At this point in time, Ohio State has the worst quarterback of the three. And I think Drew Allar, Penn State's young quarterback, has the highest ceiling of the three.
But in the short term I expect both Bama and Ohio State to be relying on their defenses as their quarterbacks continue to develop.
The first real test for the Buckeyes will come at Notre Dame in three weeks, but for Alabama next week against Texas is the official first exam for Jalen Milroe and the new offensive system around him. Last year Texas should have probably won that game in Austin.
Can the Longhorns take the biggest step of the Steve Sarkisian era and finally win a game like this? All eyes will be on Tuscaloosa on Saturday evening to find out.
8. The Charter/ESPN battle stinks for college football fans.
Fully 15 million Charter subscribers are impacted by this lockout right now.
And if Spectrum was willing to fight this battle on opening weekend of college football and take the heat from sports fans over that, it seems like this dispute may drag on for a fairly lengthy time.
I may do a long form written analysis of how impactful this battle is in the future, but here's a video for all of you who are curious about this situation as it stands now.
The biggest takeaway here is sports fans are ultimately going to end up getting screwed. Sports fans have been tremendous beneficiaries of the cable/satellite bundle subsidizing sports fans costs. I wrote a book that discussed this in great detail -- "Republicans Buy Sneakers Too" -- but essentially sports rights became a huge bubble based on many people who never watched sports paying full cost for those sports. ESPN, which acts as a large middleman, helped drive up the costs for sports rights based on these massive cable and satellite fees they received, but now the cable and satellite bundle is collapsing -- from 100 million subscribers in 2014 to 70 million now. This decline has been so impactful for Disney's business that if you had bought Disney stock in the spring of 2014, you have lost money, even factoring in dividends simply by holding the stock.
Eventually that bill was going to come due.
And that's what's happening now.
Essentially the Charter-ESPN dispute is a fight over what the future of sports rights distributions is going to be.
And no matter who you root for, all sports fans are going to have to pay way more, probably, for way less service and convenience.
Which is why what's happening right now is going to be a big deal even if you aren't a Charter subscriber.
I'm old school in the sense that I want to sit down in front of my TV and be able to easily watch every game with just one remote and on just one cable platform. But those days are over.
On a more positive big picture perspective, I don't see any negative impact, yet, from NIL when it comes to fan interest in college football.
I know that's the fear that many keep circulating, but fans seem to care at least as much, if not more so, than they always have.
And, if anything, NIL may be spreading college football talent out more than in past years.
We're at an important turning point in college football with the big playoff expansion starting next year and the reformatted Big 12, SEC, ACC, and Big Ten set to debut next year, but I think we are actually headed for stability once the 12 team playoff starts.
At least until the ACC TV deal ends in 2036, which feels like the next big shift.
In the meantime, I feel awful for Oregon State and Washington State fans, who are the biggest losers so far in this generation of college sports.
9. My predicted college football playoff
Don't worry, I put these out before kickoff of the first game so I'm not not frontrunning the big FSU win.
ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN - OCTOBER 15: Blake Corum #2 of the Michigan Wolverines runs with the ball during the second half of a college football game against the Penn State Nittany Lions at Michigan Stadium on October 15, 2022 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The Michigan Wolverines won the game 41-17 over the Penn State Nittany Lions. (Photo by Aaron J. Thornton/Getty Images)
1. Georgia 2. Florida State 3. Michigan 4. USC
Many of you shared your own predictions as well.
10. My Outkick National Top Ten
People will lose their minds over these rankings, but for over a decade I have been ranking teams here at Outkick entirely based on what we see on the field. That is, I don't believe in rewarding teams based on what I expect to see with an artificial pre-season ranking, I rank teams based on what we actually see on the field. With that in mind, as a refresher, my rankings will swing wildly from one week to the next in early September.
But for a refresher for new readers, early in the season I give pre-eminence to two primary things: wins over power five conference teams -- with even more credence given for road or neutral venue wins against power five teams -- and the quality of those power five conference wins. That is, if you crush your opponent, I reward that win more highly than a last second win.
By the end of September our top ten will have solidified into the most reliable rankings based on actual on the field results, I believe, anywhere in the country. But until then, it's going to vary quite a bit each week.
With that in mind, here we go with Outkick's week one top ten:
1. Florida State
2. Duke
3. North Carolina
4. Utah
5. Colorado
6. Tennessee
7. Penn State
8. Ohio State
9. Minnesota
10. Fresno State
11. My SEC power rankings, 1-14:
I rank my SEC teams the same way I do my top ten, based on quality of wins.
So if you beat an FCS school, you're ranked lower than if you beat an FBS school.
Make logical sense?
Of course it does.
Yet go read the mentions the minute this publishes.
(The one thing you can quibble with is what happens if you play a decent team and lose? Well, I'm going to rank you lower than the teams that won simply because losses have major consequences in college football. Even if they are losses to good teams. But, again, by the end of September we start to have a reliable gauge on the quality of the different teams in conference and an early season loss to another power five team doesn't kill you. If you doubt this, look at LSU last year, which rebounded from an FSU loss to play for the SEC title.)
1. Tennessee
2. Alabama
3. Kentucky
4. Auburn
5. Texas A&M
6. Vanderbilt (2-0)
7. Georgia
8. Arkansas
9. Ole Miss
10. Missouri
11. Mississippi State
12. South Carolina
13. LSU
14. Florida