Week One Recap

Pat jumps on the mic to recap the games, controversies, upsets, and this week's Campus of the Week- LSU on The Campus Report. 

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Week one of college football is officially in the books, and it wasted absolutely no time giving us some controversy, upsets, statement wins, and a few teams that already have some serious questions to answer. Michigan needed a miracle and a controversial extra second on the game to escape Western Michigan. Lane Kiffin's LSU debut turned into an absolute demolition of Clemson. Auburn survived Baylor by mere inches. Oregon had to fight off Boise State, and UMass stunned Rutgers in one of the biggest surprises of the opening weekend. So today we're going to break down everything that mattered: the winners, the losers, the controversies, the team that changed our opinions immediately, and we're heading to Baton Rouge for our campus of the week. This is the Campus Report. Welcome back to the Campus Report, presented by Campus Sports Network. I am Pat. I'm doing this recording solo today. So we're just going to get right into it. Week one in 60 seconds, biggest stories. LSU 51 to 10 over Clemson. Michigan escaping Western Michigan 13-12. Auburn beats Baylor 17-16. Oregon squeaks by Boise State at home 34-27. Ohio State dominates their matchup against Ball State 56-3. Texas beats Texas State 59-7. The defending national champion, Indiana Hoosiers, defeat North Texas 52-16. Alabama beats East Carolina 48-10. Miami dominates Stanford in a early conference matchup 45-6. University of Oklahoma blanks UTEP 51-0. USC does the same to Fresno State 39-0. Big 12 hopeful. Houston defeats Oregon State 33-20. And UMass, the big upset over Rutters, who is favored by 30 points, goes into New Jersey and wins 37 to 21. Colorado beats Georgia Tech by one point on the road. And Texas Tech beats Abilene Christian 33 to 10 at home. There were all other of plenty comfortable wins from high-ranked teams and non-ranked teams, but the games that we're going to remember from this week one are ones that gave us all something to argue and talk about. And nowhere is that more obvious than Ann Arbor, Michigan. So Michigan beats Western Michigan 13 to 12, but the final score really doesn't explain what happened. Now, Western Michigan appeared to have finished off the upset after the Hail Mary fell incomplete, and the clock on the broadcast showed zero. Now, replay officials then determined that one second should be restored. Michigan got one more snap. Bryce Underwood launches another Hail Mary, and JJ Buchanan comes down with the game-winning touchdown. Now Western Michigan had already begun celebrating the replay decision to restore one second magically. We don't know where it came from. The clock, there's a magic clock somewhere that only the Big Ten has access to. But then Michigan converts that extra second into a 47-yard game-winning Hail Mary touchdown. The Big Ten later somehow defends this ruling while Western Michigan raised questions about the transparency of the replay process. Now, where I land on this bigger issues, now, even if officials can explain why this ruling was somehow technically correct, college football definitely has a communication problem with fans. When these fans are watching the same play, can't understand how the decision is reached. And even when things like this happen across other sports and even into the NFL, officials are told to go by what the broadcast clock says. So this is where many people are going to have a problem for that. And for Michigan, this controversy is going to distract from another reality, and that that reality is the Wolverines were pushed to the absolute limit in a game that they were expected to dominate. And so for us here at CSN, that really tells us a lot about Michigan. And for me anyway, Michigan is going to struggle this year in the Big Ten. Their offense was terrible. Their defense kind of was able to hold Western Michigan in check, but again, that's not saying much. I mean, we do like Western Michigan here at CSN, but you know, for G6, you're Michigan, you're expected to take care of business against a what a non-power four opponent, and you were pushed to the brink at home. You honestly should have, and in reality, lost this game, in my opinion. So Michigan fans, sorry to say it, but strap in, you guys are in for a long season. Moving on, LSU honestly just sent a massive message. So if Michigan gave us the biggest controversy, LSU might have given us the biggest statement on the weekend. Lane Kiffin's first game as LSU's head coach ended with Clemson getting absolutely dismantled 51-10. This was not LSU sneaking out of a close win and a marquee opener. This was Lane Kiffen and LSU looking like a team that's going to be a part of the national championship conversation immediately. They scored 51 points. Clemson only managed 10 points. This loss was the worst of Dabo Sweeney's tenure and may have honestly shown the public, including us here at CSN, that the Dabo Sweeney area or era, excuse me, at Clemson is officially over. It's time to move on. They've got to try something different there at Clemson. But LSU's new era under Lane Kiffin begins with an emphatic national statement. So the question isn't whether LSU impressed us. They obviously did. The question of this is how how much of this was LSU being elite and how much of it was Clemson showing us their program may be even worse off than we all initially thought. There's also the offline off-field storyline here. Well, LSU entered the opener amid larger eligibility fight involving some former NFL players and the SEC's rules. That's a story to keep our eyes on because it could have implications well beyond Baton Rouge. Moving on to the next game, the game of inches. Auburn and Baylor. Auburn defeats Baylor 17-16. They gave us one of the most painful finishes of the weekend. Baylor scores late, pulls within one point, and decided they were going to go for two and the win not go for OT. And that conversion came up inches short, and Auburn escapes with the win 17-16. It's reminiscent of the way that the Bears won the Big 12 championship game a few years back against Oklahoma State, and it comes back on them in, I guess, a karmic retribution type of way here in week one. Now, I don't hate the decision by Dave Aranda. You're in the position to win the game right there. You have momentum going your way, and one play can finish it off. But that's also what makes this loss sting even harder for Baylor. They were one successful conversion away from turning week one into a major statement. But definitely Baylor is a team to keep your eyes on going forward in the Big 12 race. They're not going to be a pushover. So I'm looking forward to see what they can do. But to me, them going for the two-point conversion there instead of just playing to OT, it's it's Dave Aranda and his coaching way of saying, look, we got we we have nothing to lose here, guys. We can go for it all. He's coaching for his job, obviously. So they have nothing to lose, and they're gonna play like it, and that's what's gonna make Baylor scary going forward. Now for Auburn, the question is whether we're gonna call this toughness or survival. They won the game, and that matters, but there's plenty to watch with Auburn moving forward, excuse me. Now we're gonna move on to the biggest upset of the week, and that is UMass defeating Rutgers on the road. One of the biggest surprises of week one, they didn't just hang around with Rutgers, they beat them handily 37-21. UMass, that's the kind of win that can change the feeling around your program. They haven't won a football game in a long time. I know they went 0-12 last year. This was the first time since 2023 that they had beaten a Power 4 opponent in a football game. So this is huge for UMass showing improvement on their football team. Now, for Rutgers, that's the kind of loss that's gonna haunt you for the rest of the season. Now, I thought that they had great skill players and that they were gonna be able to maybe make a little noise to the bottom or mid-tier, the Big Ten. You lose like that in a game that you were supposed to win by 30 at home. Wow, there's there's something that could be seriously wrong at Rutgers, and that's that's the big question. Are we watching the beginning of real progress at Massachusetts, or did Rutgers just give us an early season warning sign that something is is not right there? Now, for who survived week one, the team that we're gonna highlight is Oregon. And this was our national champion favorite. It's our Big Ten favorite. Oregon got the win, uh, but Boise State sure made the Ducks work for it all. Now Oregon eventually rallied for a 34-27 victory, and quarterback Dante Moore put up big numbers, but this was not the comfortable opener that you expect from the number two team in the country. They were favored by 25 points, and that doesn't mean that Oregon should panic. Good teams are allowed to win ugly, but Boise State also shows that it's going to be at the top of the G6 playoff conversation going forward. I mean, you just went toe-to-toe with arguably the best team in the country on their home field and could have walked out of there with a win for the G6 race. It's clear to me now it is it's Boise State, and everyone else is going to try to catch them. And now Boise State has a huge opportunity with Memphis coming up this next week, and that game is going to matter a ton in the G6 playoff rate. Now let's go ahead to a couple of teams that made some statements. Ohio State beat Ball State 56-3. Julian Saiyan did what he does, threw for 320 yards and three touchdowns. Jeremiah Smith does what he does, put up 151 receiving yards and two scores. And that's exactly what the number one team is supposed to look like against an overmatched opponent. Now, Texas, they handle Texas State 59-7. Again, take care of business, stay healthy, and move on. Their real measuring sticks are still ahead, namely Ohio State in week two when they visit Austin. So there's a game that we at CSN are definitely going to keep our eyes on. Now, Miami, they crushed Stanford in a conference game 45-6. The offense immediately gave us Heisman level numbers. Darien Minsa throws for 401 and five touchdowns, and Malachi Tony absolutely explodes onto the scene. 234 receiving yards and three scores. I mean, to me, Malachi Tony and Darien Minsa are going to be both in the Heisman Trophy discussion at the end of this season. And I'm actually going to pick Darien Minsa to be my winner after week one. Now, Texas Tech, obviously, I'm biased on them. Now they opened up with a 33 to 10 win over Abilene Christian. They handled the job, they beat the opponent in front of you, and you move on. Offense obviously was a little discouraging to the fan base. You want to score more points, but after listening to the press conference there with quarterback Will Hammond and Joey McGuire, it was very clear that they wanted to make this game as vanilla as possible, not open up the playbook a lot. You got a real good look at their three-headed monster at running back between Quentin Joyner, Cam Dickey, and Jacoba, Jacoby Williams. You're integrating a whole bunch of new skill players at wide receiver and tight end. You're rotating them in and out. And so we will take the big win in Lubbock. Looking forward to a much improved Oregon State team next week for the Red Raiders. And that'll be really telling how they compete on the road. So the Heisman Stock Report, the stock is up, as previously mentioned for Malachi Tony and Darien Minsa, but also Julian Saiyan and Jeremiah Smith. Obviously, nobody's winning the Heisman Trophy today, but the performances that those four guys put up, they start building the weekly conversation. But the most eye-catching offensive statement from this whole group for me is Miami's passing game. Now cover a little bit of the week one controversies. Again, I went into it earlier. The big officiating story is obvious with Michigan's extra second. The ruling can quote unquote be explained by the rule book, but the replay process and the difference between the officials' synchronized views and what the audience saw created a massive transparency problem, and this is not something that's going to go away anytime soon. And we will we will see what goes on from there, but Michigan definitely did not win that game, and that is our opinion here at CSN. LSU, they're still they're still in the middle of that eligibility fight with the two NFL players. They did decide to keep the former NFL signees off the opening game roster, and that put a spotlight on a much larger question is what should college football eligibility look like in this new era and where should the line be drawn once a player has signed a contract moving forward. But the coaching heat is starting immediately. It's only one week, but that's that's the name of the beast in in college football. Clemson gets absolutely blown out, and major questions around Dabo Sweeney get louder. It's obvious to me you gotta move on. It's time he he just does not have what you're looking for in this new NIL transfer portal era of college football. Also, some pressure is gonna be put on Ruchter's head coach after a massive loss at home to UMass. And one Saturday can change the tone around an entire program. Mike Norvell, obviously, they'll play SMU tonight, and that's Monday night as we're recording this. So we'll see how that game goes. He's still under massive pressure to get wins for Florida State. And Luke Fickle will talk a little bit about Wisconsin here. First half against Notre Dame, they competed, they fought hard, they were in it with Notre Dame. Second half comes around, Notre Dame, Notre Dame gets two quick scores, and it looks like I mean it they just took it from there. Yeah, Wisconsin. There's some hope going forward if you're Wisconsin fans, showing that they were able to compete. They had something going there on offense, but that's still going to be a coaching hot seat that we are going to monitor moving forward. So winners and losers are winners of the weekend. LSU statement win of the weekend. UMass gets a program changing upset. Miami absolutely shows how explosive their offense is and gets out of their all-stars. Ohio State looked every bit of the team that they're expected to be, and Michigan survived, even if the entire country is debating on how. Biggest losers, Clemson, just absolutely disastrous opening statement of a weekend. Rutgers, that loss is going to be difficult to shake. Baylor inches away from a major road win, but I wouldn't consider this a major loser. This should give Baylor some good momentum going forward into conference play. Now, Western Michigan, one second away from a historic upset, and you really hope that for a team that is expected to compete for the top of the Mac and maybe squeak into the playoff conversation in the G6, that losing in that fashion doesn't completely demoralize you going forward. And so we'll keep an eye on the Broncos moving forward. And that's going to bring us to our campus of the week segment. And after what LSU did on the field, we're going to go to Baton Rouge to talk about why the place surrounding LSU football is a much larger part of the story. So Campus of the Week, LSU, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Saturday night in Death Valley. There's nothing like it in college football. LSU is one of college football's clearest examples of a university, an entire state, and a football program that shares one strong identity. And that story is Tiger Stadium at night. The Golden Band, Victory Hill, Mike the Tiger, Louisiana food, and generations of families building Saturdays around LSU. So every week we're going to spotlight a campus and explain what makes that place matter beyond the final score. And after LSU's week one, there's not a better place to go this week than Baton Rouge. LSU's football is not just a three-hour game in Louisiana. It's an all-day experience. Tailgating, food, the band Victory Hill, Mike the Tiger, and more than a hundred thousand people packed into Tiger Stadium. So taking a little bit here, uh look at LSU's roots, the Old War Skull. LSU traces its institutional roots to the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy, which opened in 1860. And that military heritage helped produce the Old War Skull identity. And you can still feel that sense of ceremony and the pageantry of LSU today. The marching, the uniforms, the band, and the pregame traditions all reinforce the idea that Game Day is an event, not just simply a kickoff. Tiger Stadium, the stadium, opens in 1924 and now holds more than 102,000 people. But the number doesn't fully explain its reputation. The LSU experience is especially tied to a night game in Death Valley. Night games became part of the tradition early. LSU played its first night game in Tiger Stadium in 1931, and those later kickoffs helped fans from around Louisiana make the trip to Baton Rouge after the workday. And what began partly as practicality became part of their identity. If you need one story to explain Death Valley's reputation, we go back to 1988. LSU beat Auburn on a 7-6 on a late touchdown, and the crowd reaction registered on a seismograph in LSU's geoscience complex. And that is how the earthquake game became part of college football lore. The crowd doesn't just sound loud. The celebration literally shows up on seismic equipment. Let's talk a little bit about Victory Hill. Before home games, fans line the route towards Tiger Stadium for the team's walk down Victory Hill. The golden band from Tigerland also comes down the hill, and the crowd essentially funnels the entire pregame atmosphere towards the stadium. And at LSU, kickoff almost feels like the final stage of a pregame experience that's been building for hours. Now, LSU's marching band tradition, the golden band from Tigerland, stretches back more than 130 years. They're not background music, they are a central component of game day in Baton Rouge. And it also fits Louisiana. Music is part of their state identity, and so the sound of the band connects football to something bigger than football. And then there's Mike the Tiger. LSU's live mascot tradition began with Mike the First in 1936 when students helped raise money for the original Tiger. And the current mascot is Mike the Seventh. And Mike's habitat sits near Tiger Stadium, which makes the live tiger part of the physical campus landscape. And today LSU emphasizes Mike's care and habitat. And while the costume mascot Handles many of the in stadium and community appearances. They're also one of the only teams that wears white jerseys at home. So they're famous at wearing the white jerseys at home. Very unusual throughout college football. And this tradition is associated with the 1958 national championship season under Paul Detzel. Purple and gold are the school colors, but the white jersey under the lights in Death Valley immediately signify LSU. And we can't do a campus of the week segment on LSU without talking about the food. Tailgating and Baton Rouge is inseparable from Louisiana's Cajun and Creole influences, family recipes, hospitality, and large groups gathering across campus hours before kickoff. At LSU, asking what's cooking can almost be as important as asking who they're playing. And that's what makes this different. Food isn't just an accessory to game day, it tells you something about the people and the place. And this is some this is a place that us at CSN, really me, I cannot wait until I finally get the opportunity to go visit Baton Rouge for a football weekend and really see all of this in its full pageantry in person and not just the bits and pieces that we get on television and social media. But moving on here, a little bit about their homecoming and campus life. LSU's homecoming traditions also go back generations. Some of the details have changed over time, but the purpose is familiar. Bring students, alumni, and the community back together around campus life and athletics. So that's a theme we keep finding in campus of the week. Football becomes a gathering point for people whose connection to the university goes far beyond what's going on on the athletic field, court, swimming pool, whatever you name it. Why LSU is going to be this week's campus of the week, LSU dominates Clemson 51 to 10. They were our top game of week one, and they absolutely dominated. So Death Valley, they had a night game. That gives us the reason. Tiger Stadium at night, Victory Hill, Golden Band, Mike the Tiger, White Jerseys, Louisiana food, just over a century of history. And LSU football makes more sense when you understand the place surrounding it. And that's what this segment is supposed to do. We're not just trying to cover the one team. We're covering the place that makes people care about this team. So that's this week's Campus of the Week's Louisiana State University, a place where college football, Louisiana culture, and campus tradition all collide. That's Baton Rouge, that's LSU, and that's this week's campus of the week. Now, here's our campus report takeaway of the week. Now, college football has never been more chaotic. Week one reminded us why college football is different. You can watch the number one team win by more than 50 points and then turn around and see another national brand survive because one second magically gets put back on the clock. You can watch LSU dismantle Clemson, then watch UMass shock Ruptors. The rankings matter, the rivalries matter. But every Saturday, somebody writes a story that none of us saw coming, that nobody predicted. And that's why we're not going to overreact to every result, but we're going to pay attention to all of it. Now, a little bit about the week two look ahead. Ohio State, Texas, that is 100% going to be our game of the week for week two. It's a massive early national test. There is no hiding the playbook for either of these teams on either side of the ball. Could be an early season, early season possible playoff match. And they could rematch in the playoffs if things go right later on down the road. But the loser of this game definitely has to keep it tighter in their in their season going forward. Not a lot more room for error for the loser of this one. And especially with Texas, given the strength of schedule that the Longhorns have, having to play AM, Oklahoma, and LSU. This almost feels like a more must-win game for Texas because you're at home and your schedule is not as forgiving. But moving the another game, can LSU carry that momentum forward after demolishing Clemson? How is Clemson going to respond after the worst loss of the Dabo Sweeney era? Can Michigan stabilize after that scare? Can Western Michigan stabilize after just an absolute demoralizing defeat? We get Boise State in Memphis. This is going to be a major early point in the group of six playoff race. And can Baylor recover after coming inches short? So week one gave us a look at some first answers, and week two is where we're going to start finding out where those answers are real. So week one is in the books. College football wasted absolutely no time giving us chaos, statement wins, massive upsets, controversial finishes, and plenty of teams with serious questions. We made our campus of the week stop in Baton Rouge because LSU is a perfect reminder that college football is about more than the result. It's the campus, the traditions, the people, and the culture surrounding the team. For Campus Sports Network, I'm Pat. Thank you for listening to this edition of the Campus Report. And remember, if it's on campus, it's on CSN.