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LSU DESTROYS Clemson, Michigan Escapes & Oregon Survives | Week 1 CFB Reactions · Game Day Collective

• Josh Mahler: Forget easing into week one, because week one gave us all kinds of chaos, including LSU making sure to put the entire country on notice. Very impressed with the LSU win, 51 to 10, Lane Kiffin's debut. I I really don't think it could have made a bigger statement. So LSU came out very strong in week one. That's gonna be our biggest story of the week. We'll also get to winners and losers, whether teams' stocks went up and whose team's stocks went down. We'll get to the Michigan win, which was one of the most controversial that I think I've ever seen, and what we've learned from week one. All of this and much more here on the Game Day Collective College Football Show. Make sure to hit that like button, subscribe, and comment down below what your biggest takeaway from week one was. Let me know, and we'll get to some of those comments throughout the week as well. so please join in and help us keep on growing. Like, subscribe, comment down below. But let's get into it because I think the biggest story without a doubt is the LSU Tigers and how strong they came out in week one. I think a lot of people kind of predicted, most people predicted LSU would come out and be a strong team this year in week one. Most people predicted LSU to win. I think overall we thought that they would win here in week one, but to come out and do it in the fashion that they did here in week one was just really impressive. and and and I thought it was shocking. maybe some people thought, yeah, we expected this. Look at the talent on their roster and look what everything they've got. They've got Lane Kiffin now. I understand that. And and no doubt did I think that they would be a tough team this year. I did think that it would take a little bit of time, and I think I was probably wrong on that because I think this was the biggest showing in week one. And you can come up with all the excuses as of why you know, why Clemson was so poor and all that and why maybe this game went the way it w did. But this was just Lane Kiffin doing what he does best. All the spotlight is on Lane Kiffin and LSU, all the the news, the media is talking and distracting L SU from everything, or trying to. I don't know if that's really the intention, but d you would think that all of this news with any other team, with any other head coach that all of this would would distract. But I mentioned this on our preview that we released on Friday about LSU and about Lane Kiffin was that Lane Kiffin just has a way about him to completely shove all those distractions out the door and leave him on the outside. He did this with Ole Miss. How long was it with Ole Miss last season that he was expected to have left Ole Miss and go to either Florida or LSU whenever those jobs opened up and he kept on pushing his team to perform Each and every week, and you with you kept on thinking, well, all the noise is getting really loud. It's gonna affect him this week. Well, it's even louder this week. It's it's surely gonna affect them. But it never did. And Lane Kiffin does it again here at LSU in week one with all of the noise, and he kind of gives little jabs. Imagine if we had f pro football players. I I j I d I don't care how much you hate Lane Kiffin, and I don't hate him. there there are aspects of of the way he goes about things that I question and but You have to respect him as a head coach and what he's able to do by getting his players up and ready on game day and and able to go out and and perform the way that they were. Man, this LSU team, I I really think that they're very dangerous. And and we're gonna get to more about LSU and I'm sure we're gonna talk about them plenty throughout that season because I thought they were probably one of real I I I think no most most definitely they were the most pr the most impressive team here in week one and seeing what they did, embarrassing LSU fifty one to ten. I I don't think that Lane Kiffin could have scripted this any better than he did. I I think the way that this game turned out and you see what he was able to do. with all the expectations and how enormous this was w again with all the the noise on the outside from the the whole pro football players coming into college football and all of that that LSU brought upon themselves with the the the lawsuits and all of this, you you you take that and you take the fact that there were all these expectations that LSU built up this great transfer portal roster, Lane Kiffin's coming in and look what he's done along his way and how he's just improved with every step. Some people picking LSU to you know make it to or even win the national championship, let alone just making it to the playoffs. But somehow they overcome all of these expectations. They immediately looked explosive and aggressive. I think the first play was kind of like a a tone set or a really quick slant that got things going. And then of course the interception, which was a bad pass, no doubt, but it was kind of a fluky interception, bounced weird off the receiver's hands and threw his hands behind him to the defender. Great play by D by Clemson's defense. Don't want to take that away from them at all at all. But since that point, it was nothing but LSU the rest of the way. And it was just an incredible performance. y y you think of of how impressive they were on offense, totaling ninety-four offensive plays and accumulated six hundred and forty-four total yards against the Clemson defense. I mean th this isn't a a total walkover team. and and I do want to kind of make a little bit of of a connection here and I I didn't put the score down in front of me because this is just something that that kind of comes off the top of my head here. But when you think of teams, and I want to use Ohio State as an example, just because Ohio State, I don't think anyone doubts that Ohio State is arguably the number one team in the nation right now. They are currently ranked number one, but I I think most people would agree with that ranking currently. Ohio State went against Ball State, and they won 56-3. Now, LSU does almost the same, 51 to 10, against Clemson. Now let's compare Clemson and Ball State. I'm not I'm not trying to compare LSU and Ohio State because I think Ohio State is still very much deserving of that number one spot. I think they performed extremely well and as well as you would expect a number one team in the nation to come out in week one and perform against Ball State. No, no complaints about how they perform. I'm just making this comparison for us to kind of enlighten ourselves because the game day collective rankings will kind of shine light on this, and we're gonna talk about this throughout the week. But in week one, when you come out and perform similar to how number one performed over Ball State, and you perform that similar to that performance to Clemson, Clemson may be bad, but are we saying that Clemson would be beat or maybe just as good as Ball State? I don't think so. That's my that's my really quick take here. And just because I'm thinking ahead, we're we haven't r even started on the rankings yet, but I've been thinking about them. And I don't know, it's really hard for me not to put LSU further up there than I think most people would care for. And that's just my defense before I even get there. but anyways, let's get to Sam Levitt just a little bit because I think that he made a big difference in this game. I think he looks like the difference maker that we thought he might be able to. I had some questions about him. How is he gonna come off off of some of the injuries and and he had a little bit of a down performance has the last time that we saw him really performing i in a a regular game. But he looked like he didn't skip a beat from what we saw in Arizona State a few years back when they performed really well. Forget what bowl game that was, was w against Texas a couple years back. That's when Sam Levitt really jumped off the page to everyone, like, hey, he's a real contender. And of course, coming over to LSU, we knew that Lane Kiffin was gonna be able to get his quarterback in the right direction, but to go two hundred and thirty th passing yards, 113 rushing yards. Two rushing touchdowns and a passing touchdown to go on the day. Just a crazy good stat line for week one. And again, against a Clemson defense, that's not a walk all over team. So I really impressed with what I saw from this offense overall. The interception, I'm not really putting on Sam Levitt too much. Still has to go on a stat line. And I do think ones like that where it's, man, that sucks that it goes on your stat line, but he did have a bad pass. So, you know, it it should have been intercepted based on where the placement was. Probably not. Kind of a fluky interception, but still goes on the stat line. Nonetheless, outside of that, almost a a perfect performance from him. So I think with all the preseason Heisman hype behind Sam Levitt, very deservingly so, after seeing how he performed here in week one. obviously a lot of season ahead of us, so I don't want to get too high on LSU. I just think you have to take for what we've seen out of the rest of the field right now, LSU, man, extremely, extremely impressive so far this season here in in week one. Of course, I think we should be worried about Clemson quite a bit, only getting 145 total yards, three yards of carry, or sorry, three yards per play. I mean, this was a team that just they they couldn't even get 50 rushing yards. just pathetic showing overall for the Clemson Tigers. So I think that this could be A a very dangerous spiral for this Clemson program if they don't get some answers very quickly. So I think the national championship stock goes up quite a bit, which we'll get to for for LSU. And and the funny thing is, week one games like this, non-conference games, we look at them and we say, you don't have to worry too much if you lose this game because it doesn't really affect you in the 12-team era, the 12-team playoff era, it doesn't affect you too much going forward. Because you can drop a non-conference game and still get into the 12-team playoff just fine. For Clemson, I don't know, very dangerous spot for them. Let's get to some of our winners and losers real quick. So, first winner of the game or of the week, I think we have to mention LSU. LSU, I I think it would just be a disservice not to put them on this list, even though we just mentioned them, just because I think they are the biggest winners of week one, no doubt in my mind. I like I said, when I when I start thinking Forward to I I have to wait for some of the games that are happening today and tomorrow before I really crank down and and really start to place teams on the top 25 that we're gonna release this week, but I have to start to think and wonder how far up do I put LSU because this was just an a very impressive week one performance. And I have to go with what I've seen compared to the rest of the field. And like I said, I'm already kind of comparing two teams like Ohio State. Oklahoma had a really good performance. you know, y compared to to Oregon. Now, d I don't know. Typically, now this is preseason before we really know anything, truly know anything about teams, but where do you rank Clemson to Boise State? Now, Oregon compared to LSU and how their performances were against those two opponents. Now, I I don't know. and I'm not saying that Boise State won't be a better team than Clemson. I'm not saying that Boise State wouldn't beat Clemson this year. I think they probably would. I'm just saying when we look at the grand scheme of things and we look at the scope that we're working with, man, it's really hard not to put LSU very high on that rankings list because of what they've done. So first winner of the week absolutely has to be LSU. All right, let's go on to the second winner, a team that I actually just mentioned here too is Boise State. I know they lost, but despite their loss, I think you have to look at Boise State and kind of feel like they kind of Their stock goes up. I I put a little bit i I think their stock went up after that performance overall. They lost to Oregon 34 to 27, but Boise State, even though they didn't get the upset, this was more really just about as as much of an encouragement as it could be coming off of a loss. And you know, you you think about it, they went into Audson Stadium against the number two team in the nation. They led 17 to 14 at halftime. They led for a a majority of this game really. And they had the game even tied at 27 all going into the fourth quarter with under 10 minutes to go. So you you think about this before Oregon finally pulled away there really late in the game, this was all Boise State. They were controlling this game from for most of the game. They performed extremely well. I don't think you can look at this game. Obviously, you might be able to look at the stats in some ways and and try to say that, this isn't This isn't the performance that would what get your stock to rise whenever you compare to Oregon, because you know, look look at Oregon. Okay, so Oregon put up 497 total yards of offense compared to Boise State's 274. Boise State's t total time of possession, though, was 3248. So I you look at this and they they even kind of won the turnover battle too. Not even kind of, they did. They won the turnover battle. you you you look at at what they were able to do. They only had three penalties. They played a really clean game. That's kind of where they really won in this game. And you look at Maddox Madison and what he was able to do going fifteen to twenty-nine, hundred and eighty-one yards, three touchdowns, really helping this Boise State team. So y you look at the the the stats and all the numbers, they show Oregon was clearly in the mo more explosive team. And I don't think Oregon's stock really goes down much from this. And I'm not speaking too much to Oregon. I think this was a tougher matchup than we were giving it credit for, is what I think this was. And Boise State proved that. So, with Oregon, I mean they they averaged nearly eight yards per play, where Boise was just over four yards a k a play. So i Boise State they kept themselves in this game, avoiding any kind of turnovers. They were controlling the time of possession, and they were making Oregon really work for this one. So I think after this, Boise State can absolutely put themselves in the contention for the playoffs. You you think of that group group of five team, I Boise State is up there. and and I I really think they've they've made enough noise to to be able to put themselves in that mix. All right, going on to winner number three has to be Miami. Another team that, man, if if LSU wasn't the most impressive team, I think Miami was probably the second most impressive team on the weekend. Because you look at what they were able to do against Stanford, winning forty five to six, I I think that this was about as good of a performance as you could expect. and just for for keeping track too, I I took you know we we made the the game day collective. My my lock of the week was Miami covering that 24 and a half. I thought that was extremely disrespectful. I thought maybe maybe Vegas knows more than I do. Maybe I'm stupid for picking this but man that 24 and a half just seems so disrespectful. They ended up winning by 39. So it was disrespectful. Sorry, Vegas, but you were wrong on this one. Very wrong. And there were a few over the weekend that Vegas was very wrong on. This was one for sure. Darien Mensa looked amazing, 27-30, 401 yards total, and and five touchdowns. You look at Malachi Tony with 12 catches, 234 yards, one of the most impressive players on the the entire weekend. Malachi Tony also had three touchdowns. So this was one where I Malakai Tony as well to c while we're talking about him broke Miami's single game receiving yards record, while Darien Mensa ended up setting a school record for passing yards in a Miami debut. So just a huge overall game for them where they were only 25 point favorites, ended up walking away, hanging, you know, nearly a 40 point victory over Stanford. So this was really big. I think that this was a huge stock rise for Miami. I mean, you can't really go too far up. I think they are ranked somewhere s number seven, something like that. so they can't they can't go up too far, but they they definitely need to be kind of cemented up there towards the top. They looked very dominant. They looked like they didn't skip a beat coming off the offseason, looked really good. So big time winners in Miami. winner number four. We have to talk about the defending national champs. Winner number four was definitely Indiana. this is the team that I was looking at. I was wondering how they would really respond af off of the championship hangover. Now with the current longest winning streak in college football, they're sitting at 17-0 currently. If you really can't count this entire streak, 17-game win streak. Josh Hoover looked flawless, which was my biggest concern. I thought, you know, Josh Hoover, I think he's got a lot of potential. He shows a lot of promise. He really does. He's got the talent, and I knew that coming into this season, but the turnovers are what kind of concerned me about Josh Hoover, just a little bit. And He didn't he didn't show any of those concerns at all here in Indiana's opener. 13 to 16, 231 yards and four touchdowns. Just incredible. national champs. They didn't look like they were interested in kind of this little rebuilding period at all. they ended up, you know, extending that that win streak and doing it in fashion, winning total of 52 to 16. So really good stuff. I I I don't know how many people were really I think a lot of people finally just realized you don't count Indiana out. And I wasn't counting Indiana out, but I just kind of was, again, more concerned about the quarterback continuity, trying to find some kind of rhythm there. I I do feel like that they had some work to be done. But when you have some when you can can walk away from a win thinking, hey, I see a lot of things that we can fix on film. And in that in that victory, you are able to fix some things on film after winning 52 to 16. Hey, I think that that's an all right place to be in. So Indiana, stock rise for Indiana. So maybe a little bit disrespected and underrated going into the season, regardless of what LSU fans were chanting there on College Game Day. Maybe not overrated at all. And quite the opposite. I think that they're here to stick around for sure. Let's go on to some of the losers of the weekend. And I think we're gonna start off with one that we already talked about a little bit, but I want to talk about just a little bit more because Man, you just you can't come away from week one losing like this. I I I think that you see everything, I mean, just not being able to I think at halftime they were negative four or five rushing yards total for Clemson. They could not run the ball, and that's an understatement. That they couldn't they couldn't get to the line of scrimmage, let alone get past the line of scrimmage in in the run game. Their offensive line looked confused. They looked there there's literally a clip out there where the offensive line looked like they were a glitch in a video game. They th guys are just standing up and and turning around and looking confused as if they don't know where they're at, that they as if they don't know that it's a run play. We're supposed to go forward and hit somebody. Just total utter disaster for Clemson. This looked like one of the worst teams in college football, and it's Clemson. So I mean it was just it was a very bad performance. I think that you look at them, I I don't think that that you need to say much more about them, but I think that their reputation might have become bigger than who they actually are as a football team in this offseason. I I squeezed them into my top 25 here at Game Day Collective for the preseason top 25 because I felt like Dabo Sweeney finally did some things here in the offseason that he's not usually comfortable doing by going into the transfer portal. He added some pieces that they needed there. I kind of liked what I saw from the offseason, but wrong there. there's been a few things that I've been wrong on, and I'm willing to admit where I'm wrong. Clemson was one of them. This was just a pathetic showing here in week one. Let's go on to loser number two. And this is one that I do want to spend a little bit of time on, and that's Michigan. looked absolutely pathetic. They were ranked up there in the top 20 this season and and a lot of hype around what you know this team could be, but Bryce Underwood and and a lot of hype around Bryce Bryce Underwood as well. But Bryce Underwood comes away with this. Yes, they won. th they won the game, okay? We c we can't argue that because there's already been a statement. They won the game. But for those of you who missed it, which I don't know what you're doing, if you're watching college football media right now, I don't know how you missed this story. But for what happened here was Michigan down by what was it? they're down by five points. Five points because they were down by two and western Michigan marches down, kicks a field goal, goes up by five. There's less than a minute left on the clock. And they're forced to have to march down there with less than a minute and and score a touchdown or you lose the game. They get down there, and I think it was a 48 yards to go to the end zone. And they try a Hail Mary. It goes sailing through the back of the end zone. And and I have to give Bryce Underwood some credit. He does have a cannon. Didn't look very accurate or anything like that in this game, but he does have a cannon. Fired it through the back of the end zone from being 50 plus yards back. And Time was expired. Time was expired. And they go back to review it to make sure. Good thing that they did that, but they go back to review it and they say that there was still a second left on the clock. NBC jumps on there, the rules official, whatever his title is, he gets on there and t says, I just confirmed with with everybody that the the time that we have here on the on the the the screen, this in inset the clock that we have on the screen is the game clock there in the stadium. It's it is the game clock. In the stadium, and it clicks to zero, and you can see the ball a good five feet away from any player's hands. Now the ruling ends up being that the player that that touched it first was out of bounds, jumped up and touched the ball, therefore the play's dead as soon as it hits his hands. Now the Big Ten and and you know, all the officiating, they released this video showing this is what we see, this is what we saw. I don't know what went on there, all I know is. Everything's very contradictory. Everything's very scandalous. This is also the biggest scandalous school in in college football right now. And this happens. very, very questionable. But regardless, all right, Michigan is one and Let's just give that to them. Let's move on and act as if that's the case. We can we can talk about this all day. I'm furious about it. I think there needs to be more investigation going on here. I I I do not agree with this whatsoever. This was pathetic and more pathetic was that Michigan fans were running onto the field and storming the field. You beat Western Michigan and you did it by way of Hail Mary. And all not only that, I know you probably didn't know this that i in the game, so I'm gonna give you some credit for this, but it was a second, an extra second that was put up on the clock that you should have never been granted. So just very, very pathetic behavior from Michigan fans, from Michigan fans who are trying to defend this right now. For those of you Michigan fans who aren't defending it, I applaud you and I I'm sorry that we have to talk negative about your team. but I feel like this can't go unnoticed. I feel like this this is for for Michigan fans who who don't defend this win or don't defend anything that's happened and you know, the rest of the horbaugh and all that, for those fans who are very realistic about a lot of this this these scandals that go on, I feel bad for you. And and and I I I also feel very you know, I I I have to commend you because you still stick behind your team, even though you don't approve of some of this stuff. So I do commend you. And I j I just feel bad for for Michigan fans that have to listen to people like myself talk bad about their team. But regardless, let's just move away. Let's act as if that second was justified. Let's let's act as if everything was fine and dandy, nothing was to look let's just push all that aside, okay? Michigan had to come back with less than a minute. And hit a Hail Mary to beat Western Michigan. Put all the scandal aside, that is that is a loss on the season, you know, or on the week. That's a that's a loss. because you you didn't perform to to the Michigan standard. Bryce Underwood looked terrible. They had three turnovers in this game. They had nine penalties for 80 yards. You had to to throw up a 47, 48 yard Hail Mary to win the game just to survive against Western Michigan. You only had 276 total yards on offense. You only possessed the ball for less than 20 minutes. Western Michigan possessed the ball for more than 40 minutes in this game. They they just they completely controlled Michigan. I thought Michigan was the bigger and and the big 10 offensive and defensive lines are big and tough and strong dudes. They're gonna push you around. You know what I saw a lot of? I saw Western Michigan being able to hit the edge and beat Michigan in speed. What is going on here, Michigan? This is not a win to be proud of. Congratulations, you're one and You better move on and fix some things because you got a really tough defense in in Oklahoma coming to Ann Arbor in in a week. And it's it's this was a disaster. A complete disaster. So stock goes down. Michigan is a loser on the week. But they they're one and okay, they're one and I'm gonna give that to them. and we'll go on. I I do think that we'll have to talk about this Oklahoma matchup here in just a little bit as well. But let's go on to one more, and I wanted to maybe pick up on a on a loser, but I'm gonna mo I'm gonna give Auburn a little bit of credit here, okay? I'm gonna give Auburn some credit because they are s a survivor. We could have put them in the loser category. If they ended up losing this game, they would have been in the losing category. But I think that they just deserve a little bit of credit. And I want to lift the spirits of some Auburn fans who are quite upset about this. Because it it does show that your team is able to fight through adversity. And fight through there at the at the end when all everything was going wrong, everything was going against Auburn. I felt like that for much of the game, it just felt like Auburn was given opportunity after g of after opportunity early in the game, the turnovers that they they kept on forcing, that that which was a lot of DJ Lagway just not performing well. there was so many things that I just felt like were given to Auburn and they could not capitalize. And there there was just so much wrong with with what went on in this game. Byron Brown 259 passing yards, no touchdowns to prove for it. Three interceptions. So I I think that Auburn fans should feel good about this win, not because of how close it was. I think you should be concerned about your team, no doubt. But you you do have to step back for a second and say, first game as a head coach, and I I do want to give Golish some some props here because He could have been overtaken with the emotions. He could have been. He could have been overtaken with all the emotions, getting your first win as an SEC head coach and just go out there and talk about how proud he was of his of his team. But instead he goes to the the post-game interview there, whoever it was on the field interviewing him, and and he says he was disappointed in in the performance. There was a lot of things that he wanted to fix. There there was a lot of things that they did wrong. That was what he pointed out. And he said, We're gonna we're gonna celebrate this one just for a little bit and we're gonna get back to the to to fixing things. So I think that's where I say you you're a survivor. You're not a winner, you're not a loser, but you're a survivor this week because I do think that they were a winner on the scoreboard, they a question mark everywhere else, but I do think you have to give your team a little bit of credit and just say, you know what, we were able to win one that we've not been able to win in the past. This was the type of game that Auburn loses. So congratulations, you won one, okay? Just take that win for what it is. There's plenty of things to c critique. There's plenty of things to fix. But congratulations, Auburn. You won a a really tight and grimy game. Now, the rest of the qu the rest of the season, I I don't know what to tell you. we'll we'll keep an eye on them and and hopefully they can turn things around. lots of concerns, no doubt, but you have to give yourself some credit. You were able to survive a tough and grimy game. All right, let's go on to some things that we learned throughout this this week one. because I think we we learned quite a bit. This was finally a week, you know, unlike week zero, where I do think that we learned some things from f some of these teams. Starting off with LSU that we've talked about already, I I do think that LSU might very well be along the way to to joining the the national championship title contender circle. Now, I'm not giving them anything too soon. I'm not trying to shove them up there and give them too many flowers. I I'm really trying to stay as reasonable as I can with can with them, but I don't think that they're just a playoff contender. I think that they show that they're actually a championship contender after beating Clemson 51 to zero or sorry, fifty one to ten. So I mean right now I want to hear from you guys in the comments. Where do you rank LSU? If if you had to create a brand new week one, forget the preseason rankings, because that's what we're gonna do here on on the Game Day Collective. We'll we'll consider them, but they're gonna be a very low score in in our scoring system. We actually have a an algorithm that we kind of plug everything in for each team and try to see what averages go towards the top. A very ex extensive model that that that we've got. And so I do want to hear from you guys though, where do you rank LSU after week one in in all of college football? Because I think they rank really high up towards the top. So what we learned there is that they are truly a contender, a a championship contender, and they're a team to watch out for, no doubt. Number two, Going on to Clemson. I think that they've got a serious identity identity problem. It's it's a team that it's it's just one loss and it doesn't end a season, but 51 to 10 isn't just one loss. It's a disaster to begin your season. so is this fixable or did LSU just completely expose a fundamental problem with Clemson? And is Clemson going to start to spiral down from here? I also question, is Dabo Sweeney finally on a a real hot seat? Like a a serious discussion. What are we doing here, Dabbo? Because we can't keep on doing this. There was once a time when you are a national championship contention coach. We're not getting that out of you anymore. What's going on here? Do we need to do something? Or is this just all you? So serious discussions needing to needing to be happened there at Clemson. All right, also number three, I think that Oregon has championship talent, but Boise definitely exposed some some vulnerabilities that they've got, no doubt. they did have 500, you know, nearly 500 total yards, but they trailed at halftime to Boise State. They committed 10 penalties for 90 yards. They were the less disciplined team. They turned the ball over too much. They they needed the fourth quarter to finally escape in this game. So I do think that Dante Moore looked very excellent. I think that Decarrian Moore also looked very very good as well. so I I think that their ceiling rene remains enormous. I think they're still a championship contender, but their execution needs a lot of work. So a a few questions arose for Oregon. On to Michigan, because like I said, d despite the scandal, this was still a very scary game for Michigan and one that you've got to be very disappointed in your team for how you opened up in week one. And this isn't the first season here in the last couple of seasons that this has happened with your star quarterback, your your projected Heisman ty style quarterback not performing well. Your offense looked very suspect in many ways. Not even rushing the ball was you know they couldn't even run the ball very well, which is kind of where you expect them to do well. but but then you know, you you couldn't get anything going. You couldn't s you couldn't really get off the field on defense. You allowed Western Michigan to to run up nearly forty minutes. off the clock from you. so I think that that this one, you look at it, I I think that that Michigan barely surviving Western Michigan is very concerning when you see that that Oak Oklahoma opened up with a fifty one to zero shutout over UTEP, with John Matir throwing three touchdowns, and Brent Venables was pissed off that the defense didn't do good enough. The defense, that the players themselves were coming out in press conferences saying, We gave up nine points because they really gave UTEP three opportunities for field goals and they just missed them. So that was the mentality that Oklahoma had coming away from a 51 to zero shutout where while Michigan, it kind of feels like they're just happy and excited about walking away with a very questionable and and and last second, an extra second win over Western Michigan. It's two very different mentalities and two very different week, week one performances for these two teams. So you've got to get some things straight. Before Oklahoma rolls into the big house here in week two. All right, another thing that we learned here in week one was Miami. I think that we may have found one of the America's most dangerous quarterback wide receiver combinations, and we knew that it was coming. It's not like this was any kind of surprise, but with Darien Mensa and Malachi Tony, there was 401 passing yards for Darien Mensa, 234 rush receiving yards for Malachi Tony, and man, like this was just a very eye-opening. performance for these two. I know it's just Stanford, so so don't just crown them from that, but I think that Miami suddenly has something that defenses really have to be terrified about. And it's not like we didn't see their offense being a very high performing offense, but this this quarterback wide receiver duo is way more dangerous than than I think that people were giving them full credit for. So definitely something that we learned here from week one. Another thing that we learned is that the defending champs aren't going anywhere too soon. I think that that there's gonna be some skepticism overall about Indiana kind of reproducing this championship coming off of that that hangover, losing Fernando Mendoza. But I think Josh Hoover performed very well in the game, in their their their opening game here of the season, throwing four touchdowns in his first start. it's not gonna answer every question, but it does answer one, and it's that Indiana still has a serious contention here in in 2026. So very excited to see. how Indiana performs here moving on. All right, let's go on and look at the game day collective card. This is kind of incomplete right now, so we gotta take it for what it's worth. But the upset alert and this wasn't one that I picked Ole Miss to lose, but it was one that I think Ole Miss is gonna have a very close game. So we'll get a grading on that. I get a bipartisan person to grade these for me each week. And right now we've got two that are still pending although that that lowest confident winner is a little low right now but ultimately we do have the upset alert olmus keeping it close the lock of the week which totally got screwed up here on the graphics so apologies for that lock of the week was an a plus because we we hit that one it was miami to cover the 24 and a half spread and they they ended up covering that no problem so forget what's on the screen there we're moving on we got a c minus given to us on the game of the week prediction because we didn't get a bad grade, a terrible grade. It was still barely passing, just because we did pick LSU to to win, right? And and and I knew they I felt pretty confident that they would win, but I did not think that they were just gonna completely dominate the way they did. So got the score prediction wrong. Was much higher in Clemson than I thought and I I probably really should have been. got a B minus on The after dark game of the week here, UCLA versus Cal did predict UCLA to win this one. but thought that maybe Cal would have kept it a little bit closer. So I think it was something like 3727 was the prediction. but ultimately ended up being much higher scoring than that and UCLA ended up dominating in that game. got a B plus there on the highest confidence winners with Oregon and LSU. B plus I think was mainly given, mainly just because Of that Oregon performance. It just wasn't as dominant as we would have thought it would have been, but we felt confident that they would win. It was a little scarier than than we were giving it credit for. And then, of course, LSU. Some of that grade probably comes down because we thought that this was going to be a close game with LSU, but we were very confident that LSU would win that one. Therefore, the grade looks pretty good there on paper. Still loading for the Florida State game, which is going to be played tomorrow against SMU, but Oklahoma State. Totally wrong on on Oklahoma State. This is another one where I gotta call myself out when I'm wrong and this was one that just dead wrong on. I thought maybe maybe Oklahoma State. I felt really good. and I think I bought into a lot of kind of preseason hype for Oklahoma State in many ways. I was hearing people talk about it and I do like the addition of Eric Morris with Drew Mestemaker, but none of that showed at all against Tulsa. This looked man, o almost as disappointing, pr prob maybe even more disappointing than than Clemson and you know, just Very bad performance for Oklahoma State. They did not look good at all. So, man, it's it's it's definitely one that we're questioning. But anyways, that's all we got there on the Game Day Collective card right now. We'll update that and post it here after the games here, I guess tomorrow when the the get the Florida State SMU game wraps up, that'll get updated and put out there as well. So not doing too bad. the the pick'em, I think we were somewhere where I think we only picked two of wrong on the pick'em. We'll get the updated record for that as well after tomorrow. We'll also get some rankings put out and display those rankings. We'll probably have to bring the rankings out. I don't know. It's it's gonna be tough 'cause of that Monday game. But regardless, we'll get our rankings out and give you our new top twenty five. I think it's gonna look drastically different and it will be drastically different than the preseason top twenty five that we produced because the top twenty fives that we're doing starting week one, we're kind of throwing that preseason one out the window. Like That was just our prediction of how good we thought teams were. There were some teams that we were wrong on. There were some teams that we were right on. We're throwing that out the window. We're re-ranking them as if we're we're just looking at the production that we were given. That's kind of how this algorithm that we've got set up is is gonna kind of produce for us, or I guess this this model. It's gonna produce based on what we see across the field. So stay tuned for rankings and all of that, much more here. on the Game Day col Game Day Collective College Football Show. And of course we'll have episodes released on Tuesday for kind of that analysis and opinion from kind of that in-between stage and then of course Friday as our game previews. So stay tuned this week for all that and much more. But of course this will do it for this edition of the Game Day Collective College Football Show. Appreciate everybody so much for joining in and make sure to hit that like button, hit that subscribe button. And you know that it doesn't start right here or it doesn't stop right here when the video ends. But of course you you are now joined into the collective. We appreciate everybody so much. Hit that like button, hit that subscribe button, comment down below. It helps us beat the algorithms. And of course, you can follow us on social media, x, Instagram, Facebook, all those fun stuff. Visit the website over at gamedaycollective.media for more football coverage and much more there on the website. You can find out everything that we do here at Game Day Collective. 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