Brian’s College Football Top 5: Week 1

Photo from Gators FB

As I’ve said before, people who think college football isn’t worth watching outside of the big schools don’t actually like college football.

What an awesome week 1 it was.

Here is this weeks top 5.

5. Me

I drove to Pittsburgh Thursday morning, went to the Backyard Brawl which was painful, then had to listen to Iowa vs South Dakota State (a game which ended 7-3 with the total points being two field goals and two safeties) while driving on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

The fact that I am still (mostly) sane after that is a miracle.

Good job, me.

4. UTSA Roadrunners

UTSA lost. Which is a bummer.

But Saturday was an awakening for me.

UTSA’s football program started in 2011.

And no, I do not mean when they joined FBS. I mean when they started playing organized football. It was 11 years ago.

And last season, UTSA almost went undefeated which was super cool but it was a pretty easy schedule.

This year, a very talented Houston team came to the Alamodome to open the season. And it was packed.

But not with Houston fans. With UTSA fans.

This 11 year old football program has become a G5 darling and is filling out the Alamodome with their own fans.

The game was amazing as Houston prevailed in 3 OT, but I finished that game astounded with how quickly UTSA has become a really good football program.

3. Syracuse Orange

We spent an entire offseason talking about Louisville recruiting and how Dino Babers was likely going to get fired from Syracuse because the offense had completely stagnated and it was time for a change.

Oops!

Garrett Shrader and Sean Tucker gave Syracuse a new look offense which absolutely tore Louisville to shreds.

Dino’s job might have new life, and we should probably just starting digging the grave for Scott Satterfield’s time at Louisville.

2. Florida Gators

Billy Napier, a great coach, went to a school that has a lot of great talent and made it work instantaneously.

Sometimes it really is that simple.

Anthony Richardson looked incredible, and the Florida defense shut down Utah quarterback Cam Rising to pull off the upset win at The Swamp.

As I said in my conference preview, this may not be the greatest season of Florida football ever, but those who thought they’d be bottom dwellers were always going to look foolish.

1. Old Dominion Monarchs

ODU moved to the Sun Belt this season.

The Sun Belt is a harder conference than Conference USA which they just came from, so I think it was safe to assume Old Dominion would have a weak first season. Especially considering their non conference schedule involved Virginia Tech, ECU and Virginia. Three very hard non conference games.

Or so we thought.

I know it’s a year 0 for Virginia Tech and there’s a lot of turnover and things that need to get fixed, but it doesn’t matter. Virginia Tech should not lose to Old Dominion.

But here we are. Old Dominion now has won 2 straight against Virginia Tech, and even if the rest of the season goes as we expected it to originally, they have a marquee victory to build off of in their new Fun Belt era.

Also, as mentioned above, I had a difficult weekend. So I’m going to enjoy Virginia Tech using a Marshall quarterback and losing a winnable game.