NCAAF Week 2's Biggest Takeaways

Sports Opinion by Josh Blatt

My three biggest takeaways from Week 2 of the College Football season:

#10 Arkansas is the REAL DEAL:

I've been extremely high on quarterback KJ Jefferson and the Arkansas Razorbacks since last season, so much so that I even predicted Jefferson to win the Heisman Trophy in the first betting article on this site. Arkansas has a long, tough, and downright difficult road ahead, but they have the weapons to get it done. They have a full schedule which includes; #24 Texas A&M, who even with the loss to Appalachian State, has immense talent, #2 Alabama, who with a close win against Texas-- showed they are very much beatable, #20 Ole Miss, who tends to underperform, and #12 BYU-- who doesn't impress me as much as others. The offensive line is legitimately one of the best in the SEC, the defense looks incredible when linebacker Bumper Pool is on the field leading them, and the team as a whole seems to be incredibly well coached by football veteran Sam Pittman. Pittman has been coaching football in some capacity since 1984 as a Graduate Assistant at his Alma Mater of Pittsburgh State, where he played defensive end from 1980-1983. The guy knows football, especially offense-- as he's been an offensive line coach for 12 different programs, and an assistant head coach at FIVE schools, including Georgia, until he finally netted his first NCAA head coaching gig with Arkansas in 2020. The immense knowledge of the old school coach will easily be a benefit for the Razorbacks going forward, as they continue their third campaign under Pittman.

#17 Baylor are pretenders-- But so are #12 BYU:

    To say I was impressed with Saturday's late game would be overstatement. An early missed extra point from Baylor technically lost them the game-- and I, my parlay. BYU's kicker is also to blame, he had two chances to win by 3 points on a Baylor +3.5 spread that looked too enticing not to take. It's hard to say that a whole game came down to one extra point, considering BYU could've gone for two to tie the contest up at some point, but Baylor's offense also underperformed. Quarterback Blake Shapen completed 18 out of 28 attempts for just 137 yards with a touchdown, and Baylor was forced to lean into the run game. Running backs Craig "Squirrel" Williams (who has one of the best nicknames in the country) and Qualan Jones did the best that they could to carry the sluggish offense, with a combined 33 (17 and 16) carries for 68 and 67 yards respectively. BYU's quarterback, Jaren Hall is incredibly talented-- however the defense for Utah's highest ranked football program could hardly stop the run. I see them running into a proverbial buzzsaw on October 15th, when Arkansas comes to town. If they struggle to stop the run against the Razorbacks-- I smell a blowout, and CFB Playoff hopes dying.

Notre Dame may not even make a bowl game.. What's going?:

    What a sad turn of events for the Irish, even though I know a large majority of the country doesn't enjoy seeing them succeed, I hoped for better under Marcus Freeman. A brutal and demoralizing Week 2 loss to unranked Marshall 26-21, the Irish look lost-- and we don't know if they have the ability to win six games, especially if they can't beat MARSHALL. This isn't 2014, and the Thundering Herd didn't have Rakeem Cato playing quarterback, they had a game managing quarterback, named Henry Columbi-- who threw for 145 yards on 21 attempts. Marshall running back Khalan Laborn looked good-- but I couldn't tell if that was a testament to his team, or due to Notre Dame playing poorly. Notre Dame plays some good running backs this season and if they can't stop that run game, I'm not sure that they can make a bowl game. They have Cal, UNC, #12 BYU, Stanford, #5 Clemson, and #7 USC on the schedule amongst others, they'll have to win two of those games listed to make a bowl game, and I don't see that happening.