Saturday's Stories

The first Saturday of the college football season is in the books. There were a bevy of nauseatingly boring games with which to choose from. As week 1 draws nearer to it's close, I would like to take a look at the top stories from Saturday.


Injured RB's.









A few teams had their opening season victories dampened by injuries to their top tailbacks. Ohio St. throttled Youngstown St. In a game that should have been headlined by Terrelle Pryor's first touchdown, Beanie Well's injury stole the show. Well's went down with a foot injury in the third quarter while attempting to score on the vaunted Penguin defense.

Georgia's Knowshon Moreno was also hit with the injury bug. Moreno left the game after grabbing his hamstring during a touchdown run against Georgia Southern. Moreno's injury does not seem to be very serious and he should be back in the lineup by next week.

Ohio St. will most likely sit Wells out of next week's historic match up vs. in state rival Ohio. This should give Beanie enough time to recoup before the USC game.



Upsets










While there were no monumental upsets like Appalachian St. over Michigan this week. There were a few games that turned some heads and caused a general "huh?" reaction from fans.

East Carolina pulled off probably the biggest upset of the week by knocking off 17th ranked Virginia Tech in Charlotte. ECU scored the go ahead touchdown by, ironically enough, blocking a Va Tech punt and returning it for a touchdown. I think Skip Holtz just bought himself a better job this off season.

Bowling Green also drank from the upset kool-aid Saturday. The Falcons defeated Dave Wannstedt's Pittsburgh team. The Panthers seem to be battling with Clemson for the title of most overly hyped underperfoming team in America. After Clemson's loss to Alabama, it's a toss up.

Most people didn't see the Texas A&M loss to Arkansas St. late Saturday night. The Red Wolves spoiled TAMU's new head coach Mike Sherman's debut. I don't care how big a rebuilding year this is for the Aggies, there's no way they should ever lose to Arkansas. St.

Mississippi St. became the first SEC team of the season to lose. Louisiana Tech won the battle of the Bulldogs Saturday night. The win was the first one for La Tech over a BCS opponent in Ruston ever. I hope this doesn't start a trend for Sly Croom's bunch.

I would include Utah over Michigan, but I don't consider that an upset. The Utes proved they were a superior team with superior players in Ann Arbor. RichRod has a lot of work to do with his bunch. On the bright side, I think the Wolverines have found their starting QB in Steven Threet.


Coaching Debuts














I've already talked about the losing debuts of Mike Sherman at Texas A&M and Rich Rodriguez at Michigan, respectively. A few other coaches made their debut with their teams on Saturday. Here's how they fared:

Greg McMackin, Hawaii - Got stomped by the Gators 56-10.

Bill Stewart, West Virginia - Defeated Villanova with the best passing performance of Pat White's career.


Paul Wulff, Wasshington St. - Lost to Oklahoma St. in Seattle. Wazzou fans are already booing the new regime.

Ken Niumatalolo, Navy - His Midshipmen throttled Towson in Annapolis.

Bobby Petrino, Arkansas - Barely won against 1-aa Western Illinois. I was hoping for the upset all the way through. If Arkansas continues that level of play, they will be horrendous this season.

Jerry Kill, Northern Illinois - Almost pulled off the mild upset against the worst BCS team in the nation, Minnesota.

Houston Nutt, Ole Miss - The Rebels manhandled rival Memphis in a game that I thought would be a lot closer.

David Cutcliffe, Duke - Defeated James Madison. Hey, at Duke, a win's a win.

Bo Pelini, Nebraska - Destroyed Western Michigan at home.

Kevin Sumlin, Houston - Won big against Southern. His Cougars are looking very sharp.

Larry Fedora, Southern Miss - Defeated Louisiana-Lafayette. Real test comes next week.

Terrelle Pryor commits to Ohio State.

The New Face of Buckeye Football.



Terrelle Pryor finally ended the saga that was his recruiting process by selecting the Ohio St. Buckeyes over rivals Michigan and Penn St. Needless to say this was a huge land for Jim Tressel. Ohio State now has a building block upon which a team that can compete with the upper echelon of the SEC, PAC 10 and Big 12 can be developed.

As it pertains to the upcoming year, Terrelle Pryor will not have a tremendous impact on the Buckeyes on the field. Todd Boeckman has firmly entrenched himself as the starter at Ohio St. With nearly the entire receiving corps returning from last year, look for Boeckman to continue the surprising success he achieved last year. I'm sure the Buckeye coaching staff will be able to develop a few trick plays in which they can utilize Pryor's talents as a dual-threat quarterback. I look for Tressel to find a way to establish some offensive sets that will allow Pryor to play similar to Juice Williams of Illinois. However, Beyond a few trick plays and special offensive sets, do not look for Pryor to start and dominate at the onset.


At 6'6" 220 Lbs, Terrelle Pryor is a much bigger and more athletic version of Troy Smith. As great as Troy Smith was for OSU, he doesn't have nearly the same skill set as Pryor. That means buckeye fans probably won't be seeing too much of this in the near future:



By reeling in Terrelle Pryor, Jim Tressel was once again able to get the best of rival Michigan. Rich Rodriguez made no secret of his desire to land Pryor to run his spread attack from the get go. Rodriguez pushed hard, but in the end Pryor chose Ohio St. because he felt they gave him the best chance to prepare himself for the NFL. Pryor is absolutely correct in this assumption. If Tressel can turn Troy Smith into a NFL QB, look for Pryor to be gracing the halls of Canton when all is said and done. Sorry Michigan fans, but it looks like your misery will be continuing for at least 7 or 8 more years.

The successful recruitment of Terrelle Pryor to Columbus also paves the way for future athletic QB's to look Ohio St.'s way come signing day. In the past, if you were a dual threat QB coming out of high school, you were almost exclusively destined to play in the SEC, PAC-10 or Big 12. Surely every Big Ten(Eleven) school that even attempted to recruit you, would not even crack your top ten list of schools. Now, in the future, dual threat QB's being recruited by Ohio St. can say "Hey, Terrelle Pryor went there a few years back, they must have something to offer to players like me."

As I have said earlier, whichever school landed Terrelle Pryor would be considered a contender for the National Championship in the near future. Now that it's the Buckeyes, I feel even more confident in making that statement.

The downside to all of this is that I have to listen to all of my friends that like Ohio St. talk endlessly about how great they are and how every other school should just bow before them. Most OSU fans are pretty obnoxious now, can you imagine how bad they will get with one or two championships in the near future? It's a great possibility.