Trent's Touchdown: Six Week 1 College Football Games to Watch

College Football is finally here! While my wife may be giving the sarcastic “that’s great” response, I couldn’t be happier. After enduring the most disheartening off-season in memory, we can finally start seeing games. Not only that, but there are a lot of quality games early, but more on that later. For now, let’s get to the Touchdown:

1) No. 3 Oregon vs. No. 4 LSU – 8:00 PM on ABC (in Arlington, TX)

Oh boy, a battle between two top 5 teams to open the season. I’m getting giddy just thinking about it. We are going to answer some big questions in regards to both of these teams.

Last year, when breaking down a LSU game, I said that deciding between Jarrett Lee and Jordan Jefferson was like trying to decide whether to drink spoiled milk or eat rotted meat. Well, a bar room brawl made Les Miles’ decision that much easier and Lee gets the start (LSU fans may cringe now).

LSU is going to try and limit the mistakes that Lee will make. This means, offensively, they will run the ball and use short, high percentage passes to move the ball. They will slow down the game and grind it out. The easiest way to stop the Oregon offense is to keep them off the field.

Oregon, on the other hand, is all about the run and gun. You’ll see Darron Thomas throwing all over the field and use LaMichael James to soften up the LSU defense. This Oregon team needs to prove that they can move the ball against tough SEC defenses, especially after last season’s National Championship Game.

Last year Oregon proved they could hang with the big boys of the SEC, just not beat them. As long as they don’t get too full of themselves, they should be able to turn the tables, starting Saturday night. Look for Oregon to roll and look for Lee to throw 3 interceptions.

2) No. 5 Boise State vs. No. 19 Georgia – 8:00 PM on ESPN (in Atlanta, GA)

Just last week, I had written how Boise State still had some magic left in the tank, but the more I think about it, the more I’m beginning to wonder.

Let’s be straight, Kellen Moore is still one of the best quarterbacks in the country. His career numbers are absolutely gaudy and he could crack the 50 win mark if everything breaks right for BSU this season. However, Moore’s numbers usually come against bad teams.

BSU has a tendency to give up too many points to moderately good teams and have thirties in points. They faced four good teams last year, beating Virginia Tech and Utah on neutral fields, beating Oregon State at home, and losing on the road to Nevada. They scored a total of 127 points, while giving up 91 points. While that seems like a good spread, the remaining totals are 459 points scored versus 75 points surrendered. Yeah, not so pretty now.

Georgia is a rebound team. After going a dismal 6-7 last season, they are back with moderate expectations. Aaron Murray has a serviceable season last year and fans are expecting big things this year. If he gets time, he can tear up this BSU team and make people sit up and notice them.

This will be a close game. BSU will get out on top first, but Georgia will battle back. I think Georgia pulls it out late.

3) South Florida at No. 16 Notre Dame – 3:30 PM on NBC

The Dayne Crist era begins again! The only one more excited that Crist about this is probably his surgeon. The kid has already had two knee surgeries, let’s see if he can stay upright for a full season.

With Crist back at the helm (after competent stewardship by Tommy Rees), Brian Kelly is more confident to take the reins off and let his offense go. As Crist has a year of the spread offense under his belt, he will be more confident and have more plays at his disposal this year than he did starting the season last year. Look to see Crist air out the ball and really challenge the USF defense.

However, the eight returning starters for the Irish will have their hands full with B.J. Daniels. While his numbers last year weren’t mind blowing, he kept them close in all their games with his ability to run and throw. The Achilles heel of the Irish the last handful of years has been the defense. If they can contain and control Daniels, that will give them a good confidence boost to start the season.

Unlike last year, Crist and the Irish will not find a way to blow the game in the final two minutes. Look for them to come out primed and ready and beat up on South Florida.

4) Tulsa at No. 1 Oklahoma – 8:00 PM on FX

The next couple of games will be fun to watch only if you are interested to see how teams respond to adversity. I’m going to start with the number 1 team in the land.

Normally, I don’t like Oklahoma. Nothing has changed, but for once I’m not going to complain about them being number 1. They’ll find some way to screw it up, they usually do. While Oklahoma has a lot of talent returning on both sides (as well as Heisman candidate Landry Jones), they have to deal with injury to Travis Lewis and the death of Austin Box.

Tulsa, on the other hand, is missing their big playmaker in Damaris Johnson, although he’ll be out due to stupidity. He is being investigated on a felony embezzlement charge. Tulsa was already going to have enough issues trying to break Oklahoma’s 36 game winning streak without being dealt this blow.

This game will give us all some insight in how well Oklahoma can cope with the death of Box. Strong emotions have been shown to both help and hurt teams. It will also give us a window in the type of team that will be playing Florida State in two weeks. Oklahoma rolls in this game.

5) No. 14 TCU at Baylor – 8:00 PM on ESPN (on 9/2)

It seemed like Andy Dalton has been in college for the past 10 years. Now, we get to see how TCU is going to replace the 4 year starter and all-around leader of the team.

TCU will be turning to Casey Pachall to take over for Dalton under center. Not only that, TCU also lost about half its starters from last year, so their final season in the Mountain West should be fun. Pachall will have help on the offensive side, with a veteran crew of receivers and running backs to make his life a little easier.

Baylor will be sporting the dangerous Robert Griffin III, who will start turning heads if you can lead Baylor to some wins in the Big 12. While Griffin has a quality crew of receivers, the big question is in the backfield and who will fill the shoes of Jay Finley. Expect Griffin to try and attack the TCU defense through the air and test out some of the new starters.

I think this will be a close game, but Pachall should be able to squeeze out a win on the road. As long as he stays calm and listens to his coach, he should be fine.

6) Akron at No. 18 Ohio State – 12:00 PM on ESPN

Dan Herron, DeVier Posey, Mike Adams, and Solomon Thomas are all suspended for the first five games of the season. Jordan Hall, Corey Brown, and Travis Howard are all suspended for this game. Terrelle Pryor left for the NFL and Jim Tressel resigned in disgrace. If all that wasn’t bad enough, Ohio State has Joe Bauserman as the starting quarterback. Things don’t look pretty in Columbus.

Extra Point:

I’ve always been one to complain about the marshmallow feel of early season games. However, in recent years, the trend has been toward tougher schedule strength. This season is a perfect example, when four of the top six teams play each other in the first three weeks of the season (Oregon/LSU in week 1 and Oklahoma/FSU in week 3).

I think teams are starting to realize that going undefeated isn’t enough these days. Two years ago, Cincinnati went undefeated yet got no higher than 4th in the rankings. The reason is that they rolled through a sub-par Big East Conference and their non-conference schedule was Southeast Missouri State, Oregon State, Fresno State, Miami (OH), and Illinois. That wasn’t exactly a Murderers Row. They showed their stripes when they got waxed by Florida in the Sugar Bowl by 27 points.

Boise State has been facing the same criticism over the last couple of years, though they have been making strides with non-conference games against Oregon (2009), Virginia Tech (2010), and Georgia (2011). Their problem is they are willing to face one big team, but that’s it. After Georgia this year, there other non-conference games are Toledo, Tulsa, Nevada, and Fresno State. No team is punching their ticket by playing two mid-level ranked teams and a bunch of unranked teams nobody knew played football.

On the other hand, you have a team like LSU, who is not only in the toughest division in the toughest conference in college football, but two of their four non-conference games are against ranked opponents (Oregon and West Virginia). Should LSU lose a close game early (say against Oregon), then run the table, I think the BCS will look lightly on that loss.

The point is that tougher schedules are slowly becoming the norm in college football. Going undefeated is no longer enough. I think this is probably the one valid argument against a playoff system in college football. With a playoff system, teams will be playing to be ranked in the top 8 (or however the system is set up), so they can easily schedule cupcake teams and coast into that ranking.

With the BCS, you have to be the top 2 to have your shot at the National Championship. Of course, if you give the fans a playoff, I don’t think they’ll care if the first two weeks is the equivalent of pre-season. I know I wouldn’t.