College football Week 0 roundup with the 5 things that matter, winners and losers, overrated and underrated parts of the weekend, and what it all means.
College Football Week 0 Roundup
Week 0 Roundup
CFN 1-130 Rankings | Bowl Projections
Week 0 Scoreboard | Week 1 Expert Picks
– The Super Seniors: One Really Big Thing
– Nebraska’s loss: Most Overrated Thing
– UCLA’s win: Most Underrated Thing
– Learn from this already: What It All Means, Week 0
– Contact/Follow @ColFootballNews & @PeteFiutak
Winners & Losers From Week 0
Winner: Bret Bielema
When we last saw Bielema as a head coach, he was in Year Five at Arkansas and it wasn’t going well. He went 4-8 overall, 1-7 in conference play, and that was it – he couldn’t replicate the Wisconsin magic. He also went winless in the SEC in his first year.
There’s no issue with getting skunked in conference play in his first season as the head man at Illinois after a 30-22 win over Nebraska.
Loser: Scott Frost
While he’s not going to get fired yet – Nebraska loves him too much and everyone is desperate for this to work – with this loss to the Fighting Illini he’s now 12-21 as the Nebraska head coach and 9-18 in the Big Ten. He really, really, really needed this win, and now there’s zero margin for error the rest of the way.
To take the Illinois win even further …
Winner: Bret Bielema vs. Illinois
Bielema’s 2012 Wisconsin team lost a 30-27 heartbreaker to Nebraska early in the season, but the two would meet again in the Big Ten Championship.
Wisconsin 70, Nebraska 31.
After the win in Champaign on Saturday, Bielema is now 3-1 against Nebraska by a combined score of 175-100, or an average of 44-25.
Loser: Nebraska vs. Illinois (lately)
Nebraska had won four in a row against Illinois and was 9-1-1 in the series since a 9-6 loss to kickoff the 1924 season, and up until last year was 12-2-1 overall with the series starting in 1903. The 2020 Fighting Illini won 41-23 in Lincoln and followed it up with the win on Saturday.
Winner: UTEP
How rare was UTEP’s 30-3 win over New Mexico State? It was the program’s largest margin of victory since beating North Texas 52-24 at the end of the 2016 season, and it was the largest road win since beating UTSA 34-0 in 2014. It’s also just the third win over an FBS team since that victory over the Mean Green in ‘16.
Loser: UConn
2020 was supposed to be UConn’s first season as an independent, but it chose not to play during a global pandemic. In its first game back, it came up with just 107 yards of total offense in a 45-0 loss to Fresno State.
– The Super Seniors: One Really Big Thing
– Nebraska’s loss: Most Overrated Thing
– UCLA’s win: Most Underrated Thing
– Learn from this already: What It All Means, Week 0
NEXT: The really big Week 0 thing was …
The Really Big Week 0 Thing Was …
Welcome to the super seniors of 2021.
Illinois didn’t beat Nebraska because of its super seniors, but it sure as shoot didn’t hurt to have them in the mix.
After the ragged 2020 season, the NCAA allowed for everyone to have one extra year of eligibility, and – shock of shocks – a whole lot of college football players chose to live the life for one more year rather than jump into the real world.
Because of the super senior ruling, few teams caught a bigger break than Illinois.
In normal times, 2021 would be about a massive rebuild for the Illini. They brought in a new head coach, and Bret Bielema would have to figure out what was in place with a team decimated by a loss of experienced depth. Instead, back came 22 grown-ass men to provide the maturity and stability during the regime change.
There were breakdowns in the win over Nebraska, and the team wasn’t able to pull away and cruise to an easy win after getting a big lead, but it held on, the rotation on the lines turned out to matter on a hot day, and having the old guys across the board helped.
And that’s going to be one of the running themes of a unique college football season. Who has the extra veterans who can make a difference?
It’s a reason why you should care about Texas Tech. It has double-digit super seniors returning around a rising young star quarterback in Oregon transfer Tyler Shough.
The MAC has six teams with more than ten super seniors – Ball State, Buffalo, Eastern Michigan, Kent State, Ohio, Toledo, and Western Michigan. The Sun Belt has seven – Appalachian State, Arkansas State, Coastal Carolina, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, Texas State, and Troy.
Who would possibly want to leave the weather and the life at Arizona, Arizona State, San Jose State or San Diego State? Close to 50 combined players are returning at those four schools.
Does that mean all of those teams are going to rock? Probably not – not all of the super seniors play or are expected to make a big impact – but again, having them sure won’t hurt a USC, or a Utah, or an Ole Miss, or a Minnesota …
– Bret, Nebraska, UTEP Winners & Losers
– Nebraska’s loss: Most Overrated Thing
– UCLA’s win: Most Underrated Thing
– Learn from this already: What It All Means, Week 0
NEXT: The most overrated thing was …
The Most Overrated Thing Was …
The Nebraska loss to Illinois wasn’t a deathblow … yet.
Outside of the team’s effort to mount a comeback after getting down big, there’s little-to-nothing positive about Nebraska’s defeat.
The Huskers were favored by 7 against a mediocre program, things were supposed to start rocking in Scott Frost’s fourth season at the helm, and now the hot seat talk around the head man has turned flaming.
This was the guy who was supposed to turn the program into a superpower again, and now Nebraska once again looks totally ordinary on the way to another losing season. However …
Let’s not do this quite yet.
Nebraska isn’t going to win the Big Ten title, and it appears to be woefully lacking in big-time playmakers, but there’s still plenty of time to turn this season around. Frost still has a shot to show there might be hope, but it’s not happening until the mega-mistakes come to a complete stop.
His first team back in 2018 couldn’t get out of its own way with bad penalty after bad penalty – and all seemingly coming at the worst possible times. Against Illinois, a mistake on a punt return led to an early safety, there were issues with the kicking game, the O gave up a scoop-and-score at the end of the first half for a 16-9 Illinois lead, and true to form, the penalties were a killer.
And that’s the biggest issue in the Frost era. His teams haven’t been talented enough or good enough to overcome the monster errors.
But the Huskers get Fordham this Saturday. They get a home game against Buffalo to follow, and they still have winnable home dates against Northwestern and Purdue along with 50/50 battles against Michigan State and Minnesota on the road.
It might seem impossible after the performance on Saturday, but there’s still a shot at pulling off a run to a bowl game. It might take a whole lot to do it, but cut out the mistakes – easier said than done so far under Frost – and there really is the potential for something decent after a rough start.
It might not be what Nebraska fans were hoping for by now, but don’t bury the 2021 team quite yet.
– Bret, Nebraska, UTEP Winners & Losers
– The Super Seniors: One Really Big Thing
– UCLA’s win: Most Underrated Thing
– Learn from this already: What It All Means, Week 0
NEXT: The most underrated thing was …
The Most Underrated Thing Was …
Ohhhhhh no. Don’t just dismiss the UCLA 44-10 win over Hawaii as a layup over an overmatched Group of Five team.
Hawaii isn’t that bad. It should show off a solid defense and more effective offense as the season goes on, and it might just have enough in the bag to make a push in the West division of the Mountain West. But the victory for UCLA was more than that.
It was the first non-conference win for Chip Kelly since he took over the Bruins in 2018.
It also means UCLA won its season opener for just the second time since 2015, and it took an epic comeback by Josh Rosen – or an epic gag by Texas A&M, depending on your view – in 2017 to get the one win.
There’s no excuse for UCLA to not have an amazing football program.
Elite school, elite city, elite weather, elite everything – but for whatever reason, it’s one of those programs that hasn’t quite been able to put it all together on a consistent basis.
It’s not time to crown the Bruins and put them in the College Football Playoff after one win over Hawaii, but as tone-setters go, yeah, this matters.
Now, all the warm fuzzies might go drifting off over the San Gabriel Mountains this Saturday after LSU comes to town, but this was the type of dominant performance – even with QB Dorian Thompson-Robinson a bit off – to serve notice of what UCLA might be capable of.
– Bret, Nebraska, UTEP Winners & Losers
– The Super Seniors: One Really Big Thing
– Nebraska’s loss: Most Overrated Thing
– Learn from this already: What It All Means, Week 0
NEXT: What It All Means: Week 0
What It All Means: Week 0
I’ve been screaming about this for over 20 years and yet it continues to fall on deaf ears.
Why in heaven’s name would you possibly schedule a game that matters to start your season?
There’s no preseason like there is in the NFL. There’s no warm-up. There’s no time to get the timing down and figure out if all the parts are working. There’s no mulligan.
Nebraska is now 0-1 in the Big Ten West and in big, big trouble before September starts. That certainly looked and played like a team that could’ve used a work-the-kinks-out Week 0 game against Central Cupcake State.
Hawaii was more than just a paycheck opponent for UCLA, but it wasn’t a Pac-12 game.
There weren’t any problems for the Bruins on the way to a 31-3 halftime lead and a 44-10 win, and they did it even though QB Dorian Thompson-Robinson was off, hitting just half of his passes for 130 yards and a score.
But that’s the point. UCLA didn’t schedule LSU first. DTR had a mediocre game, and hopefully for the team he shook off the rust and is ready to go for the mega-showdown this Saturday.
Week 0 Roundup
CFN 1-130 Rankings | Bowl Projections
Week 0 Scoreboard | Week 1 Expert Picks
Is Fresno State going to beat Oregon this week because it cranked up a 45-0 win over an overmatched UConn? Probably not, but it’s a big plus to have a whole lot of live work and reps in before making the trip to Eugene.
So now I continue to push this rock up the mountain.
College football, make the Week 0 Saturday a national holiday.
All FBS teams get a home game against an FCS team, and that’s it for the FCS games for the rest of the year.
Yeah, I know, most teams are using this coming Saturday or September 11th as the time to get that easy win in over the FCSer, but everyone should pull a San Jose State. It took out Southern Utah 45-14 in Week 0 before facing USC.
America, let’s make Week 0 a thing.
– Bret, Nebraska, UTEP Winners & Losers
– The Super Seniors: One Really Big Thing
– Nebraska’s loss: Most Overrated Thing
– UCLA’s win: Most Underrated Thing
