College Football 2021: Week 2 thoughts from around the nation

The College Football Playoff race received a major shakeup in Week 2.

• We have to start with the colossal matchup between Oregon and Ohio State. The Ducks went into Columbus endnote only defeated the Buckeyes but did so in a pretty impressive fashion.

But even though it was impressive, you can’t say it was a dominant win. Ohio State actually outgained Oregon by over 100 yards. Unfortunately, the Ohio State defense was torched all day, allowing 505 yards.

Oregon going across the country to defeat a national championship contender is definitely an upset, but in no way is it as shocking as some are making it out to be.

If you watched the Ohio State versus Minnesota game in Week 1, you saw that the Gophers outlined the blueprint of how to defeat the Buckeyes: a solid run game and a defense that can rattle CJ Stroud. Oregon’s run game was lights out with 269 yards, averaging an eye-popping 7.1 yards per carry. Oregon’s CJ Verdell ran for 161 yards and two touchdowns while leading the team with three catches, 34 yards, and another touchdown.

Stroud looked shaky at times but had an overall solid game — 35-for-54 with 484 yards and three touchdowns is great no matter how you look at it. Unfortunately, the defense didn’t give much assistance.

So where do we go from here?

• For Ohio State, it’s not totally back to the drawing board, but the Buckeyes have tons of work to do on defense. There’s a lot of time between now and November but if Ohio State cant clean up their act against the rush, they’re in for a world of surprise against Michigan State and Michigan. But the Ohio State talent is far superior to both of those schools, so while an upset might not be likely, a close call might be headed their way.

If Stroud can eliminate those occasional jitters where he looks uncomfortable in the pocket. he can turn himself into a Heisman candidate. It looks like that issue comes down to confidence, almost at times like he’s not totally confident in his abilities. Once Stroud can get over that, he’s going to excel well beyond the high quality we saw last week.

Ohio State plays two cupcakes over the next two weeks: Tulsa and Akron. Those will be great chances to make some adjustments and figure things out before Big Ten play begins. They have to be considered the favorites in the conference and hosting Penn State is huge in those hopes.

• As for Oregon, talk about conference favorites. They appear to be far superior to (almost) everyone else in the conference and the only team that might have something to say about that is a team that the Ducks won’t see until Oct. 23, and that’s the UCLA Bruins.

That bleeds into the rest of the Pac-12 and what a disaster they’ve been. That, in addition to the talent of Oregon, plays into why the Ducks are such big favorites now. Washington, thought to be Oregon’s biggest threat in the division, is absolutely atrocious on offense. The offensive line is terrible, allowing quarterback Dylan Morris to be sacked seven times across two games. Morris has also thrown three picks to just one touchdown. The run game is non-existent, running for 115 yards across two games.

USC completely fell apart in a 42-24 loss to a Stanford team that couldn’t move the ball against Kansas State. Washington State has a loss to Utah State, Oregon State is in a rebuild, Cal is 0-2, and Arizona isn’t winning anything.

Oregon is the only team in the North capable of winning the division, while it looks like it might be a three-horse race in the South between Arizona State, UCLA, and Colorado. Colorado played Texas A&M tough on Saturday, but I don’t think they’re quite as strong as Arizona State or UCLA.

• Even in taking a beating, you can tell that Kansas football is heading in the right direction. I know that losing by 27 to a Sun Belt team isn’t exactly progress, but this is Kansas we’re talking about. And besides, this game was closer than 27 points.

The Jayhawks put up a fight like we haven’t seen in quite a while. On the road against a top 25 team, Kansas was as close as 28-22 in the third quarter before Coastal Carolina hammered the gas, led by Coastal running back Reese White’s two touchdowns over the final two quarters.

Kansas played with heart and determination, and never once appeared to give up, That’s something that hasn’t been said on a consistent basis about the Jayhawks in over 10 years.

You can’t expect Kansas coach Lance Leipold to work miracles, but he’s a proven winner. Even making Kansas competitive again is a good start for a program that’s in desperate need of a complete reboot.

Coastal is a legitimate New Year’s Six contender. Up next for the Chanticleers is a trip to Leipold’s former team, Buffalo. It’s a game that should be a win for Coastal Carolina, but don’t sleep on this Bulls team.

• How about Arkansas? The Razorbacks won against former and future conference rival Texas in a game that was never really in question.

Arkansas only won three games last year, but you could see flashes of what head coach Sam Pittman was going to do with this Hogs program. Winning three was big when most expected one win, the Georgia game was closer than it looked, they had Auburn, LSU, and Missouri on the ropes and played a good game against Texas A&M.

But that was last year. This year, some of that strong play of 2020 has led to a great start in 2021.

Even last week against Rice, things looked tough for a minute. Recent Arkansas teams might have folded in that moment with such a big game ahead. Instead, they finished strong.

Arkansas beat down Texas in every way: outgained the Longhorns 471-256, had six more first downs and held Texas to just 4-of-13 on third downs. In fact, Arkansas’ 333 rush yards were more than Texas’ total offense. The Razorbacks sacked Hudson Card three times, holding him to just 61 passing yards.

Arkansas’ newfound confidence will be a major boost to a team that’s still just learning to win. Arkansas has Georgia Southern next: a triple-option team that has tricky potential. That game precedes a four-week gauntlet thats as tough as any stretch in college football: vs. No. 7 Texas A&M, at No. 2 Georgia, at No. 17 Ole Miss, and vs. No. 22 Auburn. If Arkansas can win just two of those games, we could be looking at an eight-plus win Razorbacks team for the first time since 2015.

• One of the things I said on Twitter over the weekend is that Randy Edsall wasn’t the problem at UConn and I stand by that. He’s definitely not the solution, but he’s not the problem. UConn hadn’t played in almost two years. They won 14 games in four years prior to his arrival.

And even with that, this goes well past the football field.

The university leadership abandoned the football program in the wild that is FBS Independence to save the basketball program. What did they think was going to happen? The administration couldn’t care less about the football program as long as the cash cow returned to the Big East.

The Huskies moved to 0-3 on the season after a 49-0 drubbing at the hands of Purdue. They’ve been outscored 132-28 and haven’t scored a single point against an FBS school this season. There are no signs of a win on the schedule. There’s no reason to be convinced they can defeat Yale in October.

So with the Huskies out of a coach, now what? A move to the FCS might serve them well, but they’ve even been adamant that they don’t want that. There’s literally zero attraction to the school at the FBS level. You go in pretty much knowing you’re gonna get your head kicked in week after week. Recruits aren’t going to come. You’ll win two, maybe three games a year.

The school would make money scheduling “paid beatings” from the likes of Clemson, Michigan, and NC State. Taking that job would be career suicide. It’s officially the worst job in the FBS.

If UConn is serious about playing at the FBS level, they need an older coach that can come in and bring new stability and culture while laying the grounds for basic fundamental football. I’m not even sure who that guy is that would be interested, but this UConn rebuild is going to take a very, very long time.