If you thought the first half of college football’s Labor Day Weekend Kickoff extravaganza was wild, then I hope you were buckled up for what the rest of the weekend had to offer. This was one of the most insane and unpredictable weekends of football in recent history and was so much fun to watch.
We had a 40-point fourth quarter, multiple overtime games and some curious coaching decisions. Many old faces started careers in new places that wasn’t all pretty.
The Saturday through Monday slate of games also saw the first reshuffling of prospects as some of the believed top prospects didn’t have great showings, while some lesser known ones showed their stuff.
The College Football Playoff Committee announced that the playoffs would expand to 12 teams in four years. Of course, as Wu-Tang says, “Cash rules everything around me.” So who shined in the spotlight and who wilted under pressure? Let’s take a look.
This is one of the lesser-known quarterback prospects, but he is an extremely talented player and showed out with his performance Saturday. He led SMU to a hot start last season, but they stumbled a bit at the end and it really hurt the work they did altogether. It was imperative that Mordecai and SMU start strong to put last year in the rearview mirror and that is exactly what they did. Mordecai completed 23 of 32 passes and threw for 432 yards and four touchdowns, so he not only was efficient, but he also put up big numbers. North Texas surely isn’t the best competition, but to play such a clean game in Week 1 makes a big statement. Cincinnati played a very tight game against Arkansas, but ultimately lost and quarterback play was a major reason, so the American Conference could be open for the taking. If Mordecai can keep playing this way and SMU racks up wins, they are definitely a dark-horse conference title contender.
This is a sleeper prospect at the tight end position because he hasn’t had much production at Oregon State, but is someone who sticks out when you turn on the tape. Not just for the fact that he is almost 6-foot-7, but he is a matchup nightmare for opposing defenses. He is surprisingly athletic for his size and is a very good route-runner, which catches many defenders off guard allowing Musgrave to get open. Musgrave started the year out with a bang as he led the Beavers in both receptions with six and receiving yards with89. He also added a touchdown to his performance in what was a lopsided victory over Boise State. One thing that makes Musgrave even more attractive as a prospect is his blocking ability, Oregon State runs the ball a lot so he has become a very proficient blocker. Add this to athleticism and route-running ability, so if Musgrave puts together a highly productive season then he will be someone you will hear a lot about come draft season.
In what turned out to be a defensive battle, Eichenberg was a head above the rest. He dominated the line of scrimmage and it seemed like he was the only name you heard on the broadcast. He led the Ohio State defense with nine tackles and had two game-changing sacks. He isn’t the biggest linebacker, but he is extremely tenacious and has great run-down ability. He seemed to always be around the ball at the end of every play and was imposing his will, shutting down an excellent Notre Dame run game. He is someone who may not get the press of players like Alabama’s Will Anderson, but he is the type of player who will be making an impact at the next level for a decade. It is a good sign for his season outlook that he had such an impact in a very difficult Week 1 matchup because he did it against good competition and not a weak opponent. It will be very interesting to see if he can carry over his performance next week or if he used all of his juice versus Notre Dame.
No one had as much of a meteoric rise this week as Verse for his performance in Sunday night’s wild win over LSU. This is a player that was playing for the University of Albany last season when a Florida State scout was preparing for an upcoming game against Syracuse and couldn’t stop watching the defensive end on the other team. Fast forward to this week against LSU and now the entire nation knows his name because Verse was truly dominant all game long. Though he only recorded three tackles, he had two sacks and three tackles for loss. That doesn’t represent the impact he made in the game, because he genuinely demoralized the LSU right tackle and caused havoc all night. Verse is a great indicator of how loaded college football is with talent. He went from being an unknown commodity at a smaller Division I school and is now one of the more intriguing prospects at an ACC school.
This is without a doubt the most disappointing prospect of the week. Boutte was widely thought of as the top receiver prospect in this class, but was seemingly non-existent against Florida State. He wasn’t even on the field for most of the game and it hurt his team tremendously. Not only did his absence hinder the offense, but he was also supposed to return punts and his replacement muffed two for turnovers. This didn’t seem like an injury thing either so it’s quite confusing why he got his first catch in the fourth quarter. Coming into the season Boutte was named All-America and All-SEC, yet only had two receptions for 20 yards so to see this output after only one week is concerning. Now there are rumors he will be entering the transfer portal, which if true is a very bad sign of things to come for LSU. Maybe head coach Brian Kelly’s accent didn’t possess the “southern charm” that he thought it would.
Watching Saturday night’s game against Ohio State must have given Notre Dame fans nightmares of Georgia 2019 because they had zero play from the quarterback position. The Fighting Irish came out of the gates hot and had a couple of long plays that helped them to a 10-7 halftime lead. Buchner started the game 8-for-8, which from the outside looks great, but it took some incredible plays from his receivers to make that happen. The rest of the time it looked as if the lights were too bright for him. He finished the game 10-of-18 for 177 yards and no touchdowns. He was uneasy in the pocket and held the ball way too long, then when he did throw the ball, he was so off balance that it never got to his receiver. He honestly looked scared on the field and it hurt Notre Dame’s entire game plan. They have a few more tough opponents this year, so Buchner will need to improve before they happen, or it will be time to find someone new.
Picking one player on the Ducks’ defense from this bashing seems unfair, but no one else on this unit started the season as highly ranked as Sewell. Not only did Georgia blow the door off Oregon, but Sewell recorded only three tackles. When your leading tackler has three tackles and the opposing offense racks up over 500 yards, it’s not a good look. Sewell is supposed to be a smart linebacker and a good run-stopper, but he was relatively ineffective against Georgia. Georgia is the defending national champions and was going to be a hard matchup, but they had no resistance moving the ball downfield and that is unacceptable for a team with high expectations. There will always be growing pains when a program goes through a coaching change, but looking completely unprepared is something totally different. Sewell and the rest of the Oregon program are have to do some soul searching after this one. Otherwise, the Ducks are in for a long season of being hunted.