The path to the 12-team College Football Playoff Week 1: Georgia sets the standard

Last week was a dress rehearsal, but Week 1 was the real thing. With two head-to-head Top 25 matchups and every College Football Playoff contender in action, even the ones we don't recognize yet, Labor Day Weekend may give college students a long weekend, but it's our best opportunity to learn the lay of the land in college football.

No. 23 USC and No. 13 LSU still have a showdown on Sunday out in Las Vegas, and the week isn't over until Florida State and Boston College say it is on Monday night in Tallahassee, but so far, this is what we know and these are the 12 most important things that happened in college football through Saturday.

The Statements

The biggest wins of Week 1

1. Georgia dominates and Kirby Smart is king

A new era has begun in college football, not just with the 12-team College Football Playoff, but with the transfer portal, but nobody told Dabo Swinney. In the 2024 offseason, four FBS college football programs accepted zero incoming transfers, Air Force, Army, Navy, and Clemson. That came after the Tigers failed to win 10 games for the first time since 2010, Swinney’s second season at the helm. 

Now, after Georgia’s commanding 34-3 victory, it’s clear that Swinney is no longer running a premier program in college football. 

No. 14 Clemson played No. 1 Georgia to a relative stalemate through one half, just trailing 6-0 at the break. Then, Georgia’s transfer wide receiver Colbie Young put it out of reach with a third-quarter touchdown grab. A 13-point lead was immediately insurmountable and was the springboard for Carson Beck and the Bulldog’s offense. 

When Nick Saban retired in January, he left Smart and Swinney as two of three active head coaches with national championships on their resumes. Well, if Week 1’s Aflac Kickoff Game in Atlanta was a contest to determine the king of college football, Smart, with his 40th consecutive regular-season victory, just snatched the crown. 

The second half was utter dominance on the scoreboard, but Georgia was in control from the start. The Bulldogs outgained the Tigers 447-188 and against what was considered to be a quality defense, Beck’s unit averaged 7.5 yards per play, without either of its top two running backs. 

Last season, Georgia missed out on the four-team CFP, but Smart’s team entered the year at No. 1 in the country for a reason. Clemson still has an opportunity to rebound and win the ACC to claim a top-four seed in the new CFP, but there are levels to this. Georgia is on an entirely different tier than Clemson, and I’m not so sure how many teams are there with the Dawgs. 

If Swinney had continued his run of identifying and developing elite quarterbacks at Clemson, maybe he would’ve continued to win without the transfer portal, but from D.J. Uiagalelei to Cade Klubnik, Swinney is 0-for-his-last-2. On Saturday, Klubnik went 18/29 for 142 yards and an interception. He isn’t close to the playmaker that Clemson needs, especially against a defense like Georgia’s. 

2. Penn State unlocked Drew Allar

For James Franklin’s perenially 10-win Penn State Nittany Lions to climb up to the top rung of the Big Ten ladder in 2024, it’s about big games and big plays. As a road-favorite in Morgantown West Virginia, the No. 8 Nittany Lions checked off one of those boxes in Week 1. 

Former five-star quarterback Drew Allar finished 2023 with 25 touchdowns to just two interceptions but was hesitant to push the ball downfield under former offensive coordinator Mike Yurich. That led Franklin to pursue new OC Andy Kotelnicki this offseason who seemingly unlocked Allar in the 34-12 win. 

The Allar-led passing offense that finished 109th in 20+ yard passing plays last season produced three such plays on Saturday and two that went for over 50 yards. Allar had Penn State fans nervous, missing his first throw badly, but then he came alive, connecting on three straight throws to new No. 1 wide receiver Harrison Wallace III including a 50-yard touchdown. 

The run game took over late, so Allar finished 11/17 for 216 yards and three touchdowns, averaging 12.7 yards per attempt. A road trip to Morgantown isn’t the type of big game that Franklin needs to win to prove the doubters wrong and establish the Nittany Lions as true national championship contenders, but Franklin’s quarterback and his new offensive coordinator made a huge statement in Week 1. 

Penn State’s defense was predictably dominant, holding a West Virginia team that was the No. 4 rushing offense in the country last season and returned three 750-yard rushers to 85 yards on the ground. With home games against Bowling Green, Kent State, Illinois, and UCLA over the next five weeks, this team won’t be tested until an October 12 trip to LA. If Allar is truly ready to live up to his blue-chip status in the 2022 recruiting class, then he and Kotelnicki might be able to trade blows with Miller Moss and Lincoln Riley. 

It’s not that Allar has to be perfect, and with increased aggressiveness will come a few more turnovers. However, the threat of explosiveness created a fluidity for the offense on the ground and in the short passing game where Kotelnicki is a master of creating mismatches with pre-snap motion, so attacking the defense vertically is worth the added risk. 

3. A new ACC favorite has emerged

The state of Georgia has wreaked havoc on the top of the ACC. Florida State and Clemson came into the year as the favorites to win the conference title, but the Seminoles fell to Georgia Tech in Week 0 and Dabo Swinney’s Tigers were bludgeoned by Georgia in the Noon slate of Week 1. Vanderbilt even took care of one of the primary dark-horse picks, Virginia Tech. 

The conference is wide-open for the taking and, with Cam Ward, Mario Cristobal’s No. 19 Miami Hurricanes are in the perfect position to take it. 

Ward was one of the nation’s leading passers at Washington State last year, but now he has a team capable of winning the national title, and Miami’s roster which was a ready-made winner, has a quarterback capable of carrying them there. 

In Week 1, while the rest of the ACC faltered, Ward led Miami into Gainesville and made quick work of the Gators. Ward didn’t just beat his new in-state rivals, he handed Florida the type of 41-17 loss that could cost Billy Napier his job. The ACC preseason Player of the Year, now meshing his air-raid roots with a powerful offensive line, threw for 385 yards and three touchdowns with one interception and completed 26 of 35 passes. 

While Ward made it look easy for Miami to rack up 529 yards, more than doubling Florida’s offensive output, it wasn’t. 

Between his 385 passing yards and 33 on the ground, Ward, who was sacked just once, produced 10.6 yards per dropback, which puts him in elite company. In his 2023 Heisman Trophy campaign, Jayden Daniels averaged 10.9 yards per dropback. 

There are a lot of reasons that Miami should be the favorite to win the ACC, Cristobal’s roster has finally coalesced in Year 3, but the biggest is the quarterback position. Ward is a real Heisman Trophy contender, capable of making every single throw and sometimes that arm arrogance brings on unwanted turnovers. Still, Florida State and Clemson fans would give up their former five-star recruits for the veteran who began his collegiate career at Incarnate Word in a second. 

Mike Norvell has already proven that he doesn’t trust Uiagalelei to throw downfield, though at least he has the talent for it. Klubnik doesn’t even have the arm to be arrogant with. 

The Canes made their statement, so now it’s time for me to make mine. If Miami stays healthy, the Hurricanes are winning the ACC and will be the No. 3 seed in the College Football Playoff. 

The death penalty

They may not be mathematically eliminated, but with a loss this week, these teams are no longer CFP contenders. 

4. Virginia Tech is done as an ACC dark-horse

There was real hype entering Year 3 of the Brent Pry era in Blacksburg, even after a 7-6 season in 2023, but it all hinged on the development of Virginia Tech’s dual-threat quarterback Kyron Drones. Then, in a 34-27 overtime loss to Vanderbilt in Week 1, Drones was outplayed by New Mexico State transfer Diego Pavia. 

Drones threw for 322 yards and two touchdowns, but an early interception led to a touchdown drive and a 10-point Vandy lead, and he sacks three times and held to just 19 yards on 16 carries. Drones ran for 642 yards and four touchdowns last season to lead the Hokies to 23rd in the country in rushing offense at 189 yards a game. In Week 1 of 2024, the team that finished 131st total defense last year held Drones’s offense to 75 yards on the ground. 

Pavia countered with 190 yards and two touchdowns through the air and more importantly 26 carries for 104 yards and the game-winning score in overtime. 

The ACC is still wide open, especially after Georgia Tech knocked off Florida State in Week 0, but if Pry’s team couldn’t dictate the terms as a two-touchdown road favorite against a program with a lame-duck head coach and active construction at its stadium, you can write off Virginia Tech from ACC and CFP contention. 

And the Week 1 Heisman Trophy goes to…

5. Travis Hunter, the wide receiver

No, Coach Prime’s Colorado Buffaloes won’t be in the mix for the 12-team CFP, especially not after narrowly escaping at home in Week 1 against FCS North Dakota State, but that’s what makes Travis Hunter that much more important to talk about. 

Hunter is the best player in college football, a true two-way player that the sport has not seen in over a half-century. Sure, there have been Champ Bailey and Charles Woodson who both did it at a high level, and more recently Jabrill Peppers and Myles Jack took snaps on the offensive side, but in Woodson’s best offensive season, he caught 11 passes for 231 yards and two touchdowns in 1997. Hunter caught three touchdowns on Thursday night. 

Hunter finished Thursday night’s 31-26 Colorado with seven catches for 132 yards and three scores, along with three tackles, and he missed just two snaps the entire game. 

Bailey came the closest to preparing us for a full season of Travis Hunter, catching 47 passes for 744 yards and five touchdowns in 1998 while recording 52 tackles and three interceptions. Still, Hunter’s production, if he can stay healthy as a full-time starter at wide receiver and cornerback, will dwarf that legendary season and regardless of Colorado’s record by year’s end, the voters will be forced to send him to New York as a Heisman Trophy finalist. 

The last time the Heisman Trophy winner’s team played to a .500 clip was 1935 when Jay Berwanger was the very first recipient of the award. The player to win the Heisman on a losing team was Paul Hornung who led the 1956 Notre Dame Fighting Irish to a 2-8 record. 

Cupcake eaters

Not every game starts on equal footing, but these CFP contenders took care of business against the cupcake on their schedule

6. With Nico Iamaleava, Tennessee is terrifying

Nico Iamleava, the eight-million-dollar-man, made his first collegiate start in Tennessee’s 35-0 Citrus Bowl win over Iowa last season. Now, after a casual 69-3 win over Chattanooga in Week 1, the Volunteers have a point differential of 104-3 in two games with Iamaleava at quarterback. 

Again, it’s only a cupcake contest, but the former five-star looks like a bonafide Heisman Trophy contender. Iamleava set a school record throwing for 313 yards in the first half on 22/28 passing with three touchdowns. Most importantly with a young starting QB throwing darts all over the field, Tennessee cruised to a drama-free win. 

The Vols took a step back with Joe Milton operating Josh Heupel’s offense in 2023, but right now, the rest of the SEC has to be terrified of Tennessee. 

7. Texas’s dominant defense and an Arch Manning sighting

Steve Sarkisian has Quinn Ewers back at Texas, so it’s not a surprise that the Longhorns hung 52 points on Colorado State in Week 1, but Texas’s defense pitching a shutout was surprising. 

Even with the 116th-ranked passing defense, the Longhorns won the Big 12 and nearly pulled off a comeback against Washington in the CFP semifinal. Then, Sark saw Byron Murphy and T’Vondre Sweat leave for the NFL draft, so the defense becomes an even bigger question mark in 2024. It’s a Week 1 cupcake, but a shutout giving up just 74 yards passing yards is still a great start for Pete Kiatkowski’s unit. 

Plus, Arch Manning threw his first career touchdown in garbage time. 

Play the fight song!

Whether by a great play-call or just a great play, the week’s most exciting and important touchdowns

8. Cam Rising’s first touchdown toss of 2024

Utah’s 50-0 demolition of Southern Utah in Week 1 of the college football season would be wholly unremarkable if it weren’t for the triumphant return of one of the sport’s great super seniors, Cam Rising. Rising missed all of 2023 after suffering a devastating knee injury in the 2022 Rose Bowl, but he didn’t seem to miss a beat in his return to the field, throwing for 254 yards and five touchdowns on just 10 completions. 

In recent years, Kyle Whittingham has simply relied on his program’s toughness to scratch and claw its way to the top of the Pac-12, but in the new Big 12, that may not cut it. The No. 12 Utes are the conference favorites, but that’s because Whittingham was proactive in the transfer portal, adding wide receiver Dorian Singer from USC and Taeshaun Lyons from Washington to complement Rising and veteran tight end Brant Kuithe who also returned from injury on Thursday. 

With its newfound offensive firepower, Utah was able to create constant mismatches against Southern Utah, and when a linebacker is forced to cover sophomore running back Dijon Stanley, who might be the most dynamic of all Rising’s weapons, you can play the fight song be Rising even catches the snap. 

9. Jeremiah Smith is already a superstar

Ultimately the No. 2 Ohio State Buckeyes pulled away from Akron for a 52-6 win in Columbus, but it took a while for Chip Kelly and Ryan Day to break in transfer quarterback Will Howard. Ultimately the veteran, on a roster littered with returning talent and bonafide superstar transfers, leaned on a true freshman to jumpstart the offense. 

Smith scored the Buckeye's first two touchdowns of the season. 

And set up the third with a one-handed grab. 

The 6-foot-3 215-pound five-star freshman finished a team-high six grabs for 92 yards and two scores. It may be hard to believe, but he’s the best player on the Ohio State offense, not Howard, or Emeka Egbuka, or TreVeyon Henderson, or even QuinShon Judkins. Even harder to believe, the Buckeyes won’t miss Marvin Harrison Jr. very much because that’s how good this kid is. 

In Week 1, Smith made it clear, if you leave him one-on-one, the Ohio State band can play the fight song. 

Some love for the big men

10. The Fighting Irish steal one in College Station

The storyline for the ABC primetime game in College Station was the Mike Elko-Riley Leonard head-to-head. Both departed Duke this offseason, Elko now leading the Texas A&M Aggies and Leonard Marcus Freeman’s quarterback at Notre Dame. Leonard got the best of his former coach, the No. 7 Fighting Irish escaping with a 23-13 win over No. 20 Texas A&M, but more interestingly was the matchup in the trenches. 

After Jimbo Fisher was fired, the Aggies shed plenty of talent from their legendary recruiting classes to the transfer portal, but Elko still entered the season with an elite defensive line, adding Nic Scourton Jr. from Purdue, a former three-star recruit and Texas native that A&M passed on when Elko was the program’s defensive coordinator in 2021. 

Scourton recorded 42 pressures and 8 sacks for the Boilermakers in 2023 with an elite pass-rush win rate of 21.2% which was 12th best in the country, according to PFF. Tasked with slowing him down and protecting Leonard was true freshman left tackle Anthonie Knapp, who has plenty of potential but is certainly not Joe Alt. Charles Jagusah was projected to be Alt’s replacement on the left side of the line, but he was lost for the season to an injury during fall camp. 

The veteran pass-rusher had some resounding wins in both the run and the pass games, recording multiple tackles for a loss, swatting a pass, and generally disrupting OC Mike Denbrock’s plans for Leonard on offense. 

However, in the second half, the Irish leaned on a talented, but thin A&M D-line and started to spring Leonard who finished with 63 yards on 12 carries, Jeremiyah Love, and Jadarian Price. With the game tied at 13 out of the two-minute timeout (yeah I’ll follow the rules and call it that), the Notre Dame O-line broke open a massive hole for Love to score the game-winning 21-yard touchdown with Knapp (No. 54) working to the second level. 

The young guy had his baptism by fire in front of 100,000+ at Kyle Field, but he acquitted himself well against one of the best in the game and now Notre Dame’s biggest weakness has time to develop into a strength. 

The Irish, who at this point will never join a conference, have a favorable schedule that doesn’t feature a ranked opponent again until Florida State on November 9 (unless Georgia Tech climbs into the Top 25) and includes only two more true road games, at Purdue and at USC. 

We’re baaaaack…

It may look like it, but Texas wasn’t back when Sam Ehlinger said it and these teams aren’t back either.

https://x.com/espn/status/1080338729615671296

11. Nebraska has a quarterback

Nebraska hasn’t made a bowl game since 2016, and in Matt Rhule’s first year, the Cornhuskers went 5-7. Though, there are reasons for optimism in 2024. 

First, five of Nebraska’s seven losses last year came by just one score, and second, Dylan Raiola. The five-star quarterback and Patrick Mahomes look-alike is billed as the program’s savior, but all he has to do in 2024 as a true freshman starter, is protect the football. 

With Jeff Sims and Henrich Haarberg at quarterback last season, Nebraska finished 132nd of 133 teams in the country in turnover margin at -1.4 per game. 

In Week 1, Raiola led Nebraska to a 40-7 win over UTEP with 238 passing yards, two touchdowns, and most importantly, zero turnovers. Nebraska did fumble the ball away once but won the turnover battle 2-1. 

The Huskers have a favorable schedule and should get back to a bowl game, but if Rhule’s team gets off to a 7-0 start with wins over UTEP, Colorado, Northern Illinois, Illinois, Purdue, Rutgers, and Indiana, it means they’re back to competence, not back to the 90s. 

UCF 2017 National Championship Memorial Group of Five Team of the Week

12. QB controversy? Who cares?

The Boise State Broncos are the favorites to win the Mountain West Conference and thus are one of the top contenders for the Group of Five’s College Football Playoff participation trophy and pity auto-bid. 

This offseason, Spencer Danielson added former five-star quarterback Malachi Nelson from USC, but in his continued fall from grace, Nelson lost a fall camp battle to Maddux Madsen. All the QB controversy may have overshadowed the fact that, with Ashton Jeanty in the backfield, the Broncos barely need a quarterback. 

Jeanty led Boise State to a 56-45 win over Georgia Southern with 267 yards on 20 carries and six, I repeat, six touchdowns. Whoever is at quarterback, Ashton Jeanty is the type of player who makes the Group of Five, the Group of Fun.