Granted there is still a ton of football to be played, but people around the college game across the country have to be wondering if anybody can beat Alabama. The defending national champions looked to be vulnerable on Saturday when they played 6th ranked Southern California on a neutral field. After all, the Tide had 7 players selected in the first three rounds of the 2016 draft including Heisman Trophy winning RB Derrick Henry and his stablemate Kenyan Drake, along with four quality starters from the defense. Plus, Alabama was starting a true freshman at QB against the Trojans, but in the end it hardly mattered as the Tide rolled to a convincing 52-6 win. The Alabama defense, featuring veteran DE Jonathan Allen and emerging redshirt sophomore CB Marlon Humphrey looked to be as dominating as ever as they held USC to less than 200 yards of total offense and only 11 first downs. Humphrey, in particular, looks like a rising star for the 2017 draft with the potential to be the first corner off the board. Humphrey certainly got the best of USC junior WR JuJu Smith-Schuster, arguably the top receiver prospect for the upcoming draft, who was held to just one catch for a measly 9 yards.
Of course, Alabama still has to run the gauntlet of a SEC West schedule including a road date at LSU on November 5th. Like the Crimson Tide are loaded across the board, including star RB Len Fournette, arguably the best player in the country period. However, LSU could also have one of the worst QB situations in the country with mistake prone Brandon Harris running the show. Harris had a chance to rally the Tigers to a late win over Wisconsin on Saturday in Green Bay, but ultimately threw a dreadful pick with LSU knocking on the door that hung a 16-14 loss on LSU. And it wasn’t much better for a number of other national contenders. In addition to USC, Pac-12 co-favorite UCLA lost at Texas A&M in overtime, while Big XII favorite Oklahoma fell to BCS busting wanna-be Houston of the American Athletic Conference. While it won’t be much solace to Sooner fans, if we had a vote we’d have Houston as the #2 ranked team in the country behind Alabama despite not being in a power 5 league.
In addition to all the great games this weekend, the opening week of the college football season had a ‘didn’t you used to be’ comeback theme. In no particular order it was great to see:
- Georgia junior RB Nick Chubb back on the field after he missed the second half of the 2015 season with a serious knee injury. And Chubb was indeed back as he exploded for 222 yards and a couple of scores in the Dawgs held off North Carolina 33-24. And any fears that Chubb might wear down were put to rest when he scored on a 55-yard burst in the final 4 minutes with the Bulldogs nursing a 2-point lead. Of note, fellow junior UGA RB Sony Michel has still not been cleared to play because of a shoulder injury.
- Clemson junior WR Mike Williams figured to be one of the top receiver prospects at the 2016 draft, but barely played last fall after he suffered a serious neck injury when he ran into a goalpost early in the Tigers’ season opener last September. Like Chubb, though, Williams returned with a bang as he caught 9 passes for 174 yards in the Tigers’ win at Auburn. If he is indeed, healthy, the return of the 6-4, 220-pound Williams would be a big plus for this year’s WR draft class which doesn’t look to be all that strong.
- For its part, BYU got a two-fer when it comes to comebacks in the Cougars with the return of both QB Taysom Hill and RB Jamaal Williams. Hill was a three-year starter with BYU, but missed all but part of the season opener last fall with a broken foot. And with the emergence of sophomore Tanner Mangum, the expectation was that Hill would be relegated to back-up duty this fall, but ultimately won his job back and was very efficient in the Cougars 18-16 win at Arizona as he completed 21 of 29 passes for over 200 yards and a score. Meanwhile, BYU wasn’t sure what to expect from RB Williams who sat out last year because of what were described as personal issues. Needless to say, NFL types will want to know more about that during pre-draft interviews. For now, though, pro scouts just want to see more of Williams on the field after he ran for 162 yards against Arizona.
The best story of the weekend in college football, though, involved the return of Pitt RB James Conner, the ACC Player of the Year in 2014 who didn’t play last fall while he battled Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Despite going through a gruelling regimen of chemo treatments, Connor never missed a session of off-field workouts. And there weren’t many dry eyes in the stands at Pitt Stadium on Saturday when Conner returned to the field. The numbers weren’t necessarily great – Conner ran for 53 yards and a score on 17 carries – in the Panthers 28-7 win over FCS Villanova but nobody was really counting!
