Overreaction to Week 1 of college and the prep recap

Since FSU played last night, the Noles are front of mind. Loved the energy pre game and was super excited. Not crazy about the uniforms, especially the helmets, but I guess that is me getting old. The Seminoles have more – far more – of the 4 and 5 star recruits than Virginia Tech, but no one would have guessed that last night, as the Hokies DEFENSE just dominated the FSU offensive line. It looked like a number One D, playing against their 3rd team offense at practice, but only worse. We have terrific skill position players at RB, TE and WR. Francios has a great arm and if given time, will absolutely pick apart any secondary. Half the time last night, defensive lineman raced him back to his drop back spot and beat him! Unopposed, most college d linemen can hurt a QB! FSU defense was mostly heroic, but could not withstand the offensive ineptitude that kept going 3 and out and losing field position. A couple of horrible calls by the refs hurt too, but FSU was WAY too sloppy to beat a decent team last night. The texting between myself, Roger and cousin Mark reflected our disappointment.

Coach Taggert has a lot of work to do. Even if we get things straight, the ACC belongs to Clemson, much like it did FSU for decades. And give Miami’s performance against LSU, I think VA TECH will be the team to face Clemson in the ACC title game – I know it is just one week!

Tennessee got whipped by a very good West Virginia team. I think that says more about WV than it does the Vols. Coach Pruitt will get UT to improve, the only problem is a MURDEROUS schedule – wow. I did see improvement with Guarrantano, so that is a positive. The biggest upset was Texas losing to Maryland. Bama, Georgia and Ohio State did what the top teams are supposed to do – rout. LSU looked much better than expected. Hawaii beat Navy, one week after routing Colorado State on the road. Safe to say the Rainbow Warriors are pretty dang good this year. Ole Miss looked good beating Texas Tech. UCF rolled UCONN. UCLA fell to Cincinnati and Arizona lost to BYU, so new coaches had struggles all across the country. Penn State SURVIVED App State in OT. Michigan State survived somebody they were expected to rout, so we can back off this “Big 10 East rules the world” stuff. The best big game was Auburn’s win over Washington. Both team brought big time defenses to Atlanta, but the beagles managed to get the W. Auburn did beat both Georgia and Alabama in the regular season last year, so they really are “that” good. Notre Dame beat a good Michigan team for a quality win, dang it. The Gators looked great against Charleston Southern, as well they should. Franks looked good – or improved I should say.

Florida plays Kentucky this week to open SEC play and that leads me into the list of what we can look forward to the rest of the weekend: UCLA and Oklahoma means it doesn’t get easier for Chip Kelly. USC and Stanford in a real meaningful Pac xx game. Clemson goes to A&M and so does GameDay. FSU gets a cupcake. Georgia at South Carolina should be fun and meaningful in the SEC East. Nebraska and Colorado in a throw back to big 8 days. Duke and Northwestern in the academic bowl this week, Navy and Memphis, yikes…So, a good weekend coming up.

As for the high school action, I sat through Crestview’s close win over St Martin, Miss. Bulldogs did not play with the hunger and fire that they should have, and their opponent was pretty good. It was a lucky escape with a W kind of night. This is a team that CHS routed 32-0 last year…Now, the show down with Navarre is on deck. This game, along with Niceville and West Florida, really does help determine the king of the hill for the panhandle (although Escambia already beat WF, so I should include them). We will see. On paper I like Crestview’s chance, but not if they play like they did in Mississippi. The picture of Navarre playing Tate, reminds me to mention - not only was cousin Bryan a star at Tate before Vandy, my mom also went to Tate for a while! Just for balance sake, cousin Frank is a renowned teacher at Navarre these days!

Wekiva, still a fairly new school, beat a good team from Georgia. Deerfield Beach also held up the Sunshine State pride, beating Buford GA. Hoover, fresh off a rout of one of the best team in Alabama, got SPANKED by St John’s of DC. I did not see that coming! Most of the other top team wons, but Bergan Catholic, NJ whipped Grayson Georgia pretty soundly. Two solid wins by easten/yankee teams over southern powers. One game last week that I failed to mention is where Maryville beat Oakland in a very close game. These are considered the top two public school teams in Tennessee. Brentwood Academy keeps rolling and we need a cage match at the end of the year between them and Maryville!