College Football 2019: Studs, duds and thuds from Week 1

The first full Saturday of the college football season is in the books, and we learned a lot. Who shined and who stuttered?

Fans have been waiting for college football to be on their screens since January, and they finally got their wish. The opening week for the 2019 season did not disappoint. Despite there only being one game with two ranked opponents, there was still plenty of intrigue.

The top teams all took care of business, but they weren’t all perfect. Clemson won convincingly, but their star quarterback Trevor Lawrence didn’t live up to the expectations. He will still likely get Clemson rolling this season, but it didn’t happen tonight.

Alabama sputtered early, but they played well and still managed to win convincingly. Throughout the adversity, Tua Tagovailoa looked great in the passing game.

There were some upsets, but not against any huge teams. Most of the losses were just teams that didn’t have a lot to fight for this season anyway. This includes losses by South Carolina, Tennessee, and Florida State.

The game of the week saw a poor performance by Auburn, but they managed to rally around the freshman quarterback late in the game. With an opening loss to Oregon, their hopes to make the College Football Playoff are all but shot.

So, who looked as if they were in midseason form? Who left more to be desired? Who just didn’t look good at all? These questions will be answered in this week’s installment of studs, duds, and thuds.

To clarify: Studs are players or things that went well, duds are things that didn’t go as well as hoped and thuds are disappointments altogether.