The first weekend of college football did not disappoint. We saw teams like Notre Dame and San Diego State impress with wins but in different fashions.
In fact, Notre Dame handled Navy with no problem while San Diego State held on despite a late surge from Ohio to begin the season 1-0. Other teams like USC and Vanderbilt struggled with lesser opponents.
Brady Hoke and the Aztecs looked to be on their way to a relatively stress-free win in the opener, building a 20-6 lead and then picking off an Ohio pass in the end zone and returning it all the way for a huge touchdown to extend the lead to 26-6. But it was called back and Ohio turned around and scored almost immediately.
San Diego State was able to hold on in the end thanks to another pick.
But that wasn’t even the most shocking play of the game.
San Diego State QB drills ref in face with a pass
While the game-sealing interception was the play of the game, the most memorable (or forgettable, if you’re the ref) play was San Diego State Jalen Mayden drilling a referee in the face with a pass from just a few feet away.
This looked like it hurt.
https://twitter.com/SInow/status/1695581105783521413?s=20
Mayden had a really solid game with just 10 incompletions but one of those may have knocked out a referee or at least made him forget where he was for a second.
Hopefully the referee is OK because that’s not something that a lot of people walk away from unscathed. He took the point of a line-drive pass from just feet away to the side of his face.
Ouch.