10 Biggest Takeaways from the First Month of the College Football Season
The first five weeks of college football season have taught us many things. The SEC is really, really good. The Big Ten…not so much. This sport is still the best in the world.
But some takeaways are bigger than others. To wit, there are things we didn't know before the season that are driving the national narrative through September. They're the most important things that we—the unbiased college football fan—have learned.
To make this list accessible to the greatest number of people, an effort has been made to skew broad. "Penn State's offensive line is even worse than we thought," for example, is an important takeaway for fans of the Nittany Lions, but it doesn't carry much weight beyond them. Takeaways in that vein have not been included.
Instead, this list focused on takeaways of national import: lessons that would register for a football fan with no team allegiance. Whether it's a national-title contender looking sluggish, a Power-Five conference looking strong or a powerhouse program looking for answers, these are lessons from the first five weeks that affect all of us.
Sound off below to let me know what you would add.
Florida State Is Not the National Title Favorite
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Florida State's regression through four games has been palpable.
The Seminoles are undefeated, but they could easily be 3-1, 2-2 or even 1-3. They led Oklahoma State by three points with five minutes left in the season opener. They trailed Clemson by seven points with six minutes (and change) left in Week 4. And they trailed N.C. State by 17 points after the first quarter in Week 5.
A big part of their regression could have been predicted. Karlos Williams is great, but you don't lose Devonta Freeman and James Wilder Jr. without taking a step back at running back. Rashad Greene is great, but you don't lose Kelvin Benjamin and Kenny Shaw without taking a step back at receiver. Eddie Goldman is great, but you don't lose Timmy Jernigan without taking a step back in the middle of the defense.
All of those things were mentioned as question areas before the season, making FSU's struggles at each spot feel more like a surprise than a shock. The regression of the offensive line, however, is 100 percent the opposite. Tackle Cameron Erving and guard Tre' Jackson were supposed to be first-team All-America candidates.
Thus far, they have been two of the worst players on the team.
"It’s become abundantly clear, even after a 56-point output, that Florida State will see its unblemished streak come to an end at some point this season," wrote Bleacher Report's Adam Kramer after the comeback win over N.C. State.
This is no longer the team to beat.
The SEC West Is the Best Division Since…Ever?
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The SEC West is making history.
Its seven members are 28-3 for the season and 25-0 against teams outside the SEC West. LSU lost to Mississippi State and Arkansas lost to Auburn and Texas A&M, but otherwise it's been perfect.
Here is how those teams stack up nationally, per the Associated Press Poll and the Amway Coaches Poll:
| Associated Press | Amway Coaches | |
| Alabama | 3 | 1 |
| Auburn | 5 | 5 |
| Texas A&M | 6 | 7 |
| Ole Miss | 11 | 11 |
| Mississippi State | 12 | 14 |
| LSU | 15 | 15 |
| Arkansas | 33 | 36 |
Six teams from the SEC West rank inside the national Top 15. The Pac-12 is the closest conference to that mark with six teams inside the Top 29, and the ACC somehow managed to squeeze six teams inside the AP Top 40 (despite only placing Florida State in the Top 25). The Big Ten and Big 12 do not even have six teams receiving votes.
Earlier this month, Michael Bird of SB Nation took a look at the best divisions of all-time and found that this year's SEC West is on pace to surpass all of them. Funny enough, the division it must beat to claim that throne is…the 2009 SEC West.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Michigan and Florida Need New Head Coaches ASAP
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Michigan head coach Brady Hoke and Florida head coach Will Muschamp entered the year on the hot seat. The really hot seat. The compete-for-a-conference-title-in-2014-or-you're-gone hot seat.
And neither is competing for a conference title.
Michigan has made that plainer than Florida, checking in at 2-3 after five games. The offense has somehow gotten worse under Doug Nussmeier than it was under Al Borges, although a big part of that has to do with replacing two good offensive linemen (Taylor Lewan and Michael Schofield) with either true freshmen or Borges-developed players.
Things went from bad to worse against Minnesota last week, when quarterback Shane Morris took an ugly hit to the head, could barely stand up afterward—but wasn't subbed out of the game. Hoke bungled basic concussion protocol when he was already under the microscope, putting his young quarterback at a greater risk of encephalic damage. And his tone-deaf statement on the matter did nothing to help his case.
Muschamp, meanwhile, frittered away whatever support he still had left in Gainesville during a 42-21 loss at Alabama that was 10 times uglier than the final score indicates. Alabama outgained the Gators by 445 yards in Florida's biggest game of the season, combining the worst elements of Muschamp's 4-8 disaster last year (bad QB play, unimaginative playcalling) with a newfound plague of coverage breakdowns.
Michigan and Florida are two of the 10 most desirable jobs in the country. They both place in the top six of athletic department revenue, per USA Today, and they both have an esteemed football history. If this is what the product looks like after four respective seasons, there is nothing the head coach can say to keep his job.
His product has done all the talking for him.
.jpg?w=256 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
We Were Right About the Top Five Teams in the Country
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Technically, Ohio State began the season No. 5 in the AP poll, leading Auburn by one spot. But those rankings came out before Braxton Miller had season-ending shoulder surgery in August, and it's safe to assume the Tigers would have passed the Buckeyes with that news.
Allowing for that one bit of gerrymandering, the Top Five teams in the preseason remain the Top Five teams after five weeks. The order has been shuffled a bit (see: Slide No. 1) but Florida State, Oregon, Alabama, Oklahoma and Auburn have combined to go 20-0.
Compare this with the previous 10 seasons:
| Preseason AP Top 5 | Losses After Week 5 | |
| 2014 | AUB*, OU, ORE, ALA, FSU | 0 |
| 2013 | UGA, STAN, ORE, OSU, ALA | 1 |
| 2012 | ORE, OU, LSU, ALA, USC | 2 |
| 2011 | BSU, LSU, ORE, ALA, OU | 1 |
| 2010 | TEX, FLA, BSU, OSU, ALA | 2 |
| 2009 | ALA, USC, OU, TEX, FLA | 3 |
| 2008 | FLA, OU, USC, OSU, UGA | 4 |
| 2007 | MICH, TEX, WVU, LSU, USC | 4 |
| 2006 | WVU, AUB, TEX, ND, OSU | 2 |
| 2005 | LSU, MICH, TEN, TEX, USC | 4 |
| 2004 | FSU, LSU, UGA, OU, USC | 2 |
Florida State deserved to lose against Clemson, and Auburn deserved to lose at Kansas State. In a normal year, at least one (and maybe both) of those upsets would have happened. In a normal year, Oregon might not have come back to beat Michigan State.
But thus far, this has not been a normal year.
We've yet to see a heavyweight go down.
*subbing Auburn for Ohio State because of Miller injury
Never Judge a Coach by His First Year at a School
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Sonny Dykes went 1-11 last year in his first season at Cal. Mark Stoops went 2-10 in his first year at Kentucky, Bret Bielema went 3-9 in his first year at Arkansas, and Dave Doeren went 3-9 in his first year at N.C. State. Combined, their teams went 0-33 in conference play.
Zero and 33!
Five weeks into the season, though, all of those teams have a winning record. Cal is 4-1, just got its first conference win against Colorado and lost its only game on a Hail Mary at Arizona. Kentucky is 3-1 with a competitive loss to Florida, N.C. State is 4-1 with a competitive loss to Florida State and Arkansas is 3-2 with competitive losses to Auburn and Texas A&M. Three of the four teams they have lost to are undefeated.
The takeaway here being that you can't judge a coach on the basis of his first season. Sometimes, he doesn't turn it around (see: Darrell Hazell at Purdue) but quite often they do. There's a reason Dykes, Stoops, Doeren and Bielema landed power-five jobs in the first place.
They know how to coach a football team.
Remember this if and when you struggle this season, Texas fans, Vanderbilt fans and Wake Forest fans: It's not always a one-year fix.
Not every first-year head coach is Gus Malzahn.
And not every first-year head coach has to be.
Penn State Will Be "Back" Sooner Than Expected
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This has almost nothing to do with what's happened on the field. Despite the 4-1 record, Penn State has looked well below average most weeks, sneaking by Central Florida, Akron and Rutgers before getting drilled on its home field by Northwestern in Week 5.
Instead, this takeaway concerns itself with things that have happened off the field—specifically, the NCAA's surprising decision to grant Penn State immediate bowl eligibility and restore its full scholarship quota. Considering the way James Franklin had been recruiting without those benefits, getting them back is a massive boon.
On a lesser note, this takeaway also concerns itself with the state of affairs at Vanderbilt. Franklin left his old program at the perfect time, following a historically productive class of seniors out the door. But he was also a big reason for that senior class' productiveness in the first place. He took subpar athletes to three consecutive bowls.
Watching the Commodores regress to incompetence without Franklin speaks well of his ability to coach. Any worries Penn State fans have about the state of their team this season can be chalked up to depth concerns and a shaky offensive line—both of which are residuals of the since-lifted sanctions. Franklin has everything he needs to turn Penn State into a power, and he's exactly the right coach to do it.
All of that was true before the season, too. But back then, Franklin was working on a piecemeal schedule.
Now, Penn State might be "back" by 2015.
Spring-Game Quarterback Performance Means Nothing
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Blake Sims completed 13-of-30 passes for 178 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions in Alabama's spring game.
Trevor Knight completed five-of-14 passes for 53 yards, no touchdowns and one interception in Oklahoma's spring game.
Malik Zaire sufficiently outplayed Everett Golson in Notre Dame's spring game, and Deshaun Watson watched from the sideline with an injury as Cole Stoudt won the starting job in Clemson's spring game.
Is is safe to say that none of this stuff matters?
Sims, Knight and Golson are Heisman candidates after five weeks, combining for a 12-0 record. Watson, a true freshman who just threw six touchdowns in his first career start, looks like a future Heisman candidate himself. All four players saw their "stock" go down after a glorified scrimmage, and all four are no worse because of it.
Of course, there are some spring-game QB performances that do matter. Brandon Harris outplaying Anthony Jennings at LSU comes to mind. But that helps the point of this slide more than it hurts it. Because of the watered-down playbook and the decidedly lax environment, the results of the spring game are random.
"In games like today we really limit what we do on offense, we really limit what we do on defense, and we really don't try to feature players," Alabama head coach Nick Saban said after A-Day, per the Associated Press. "That may be a little bit of a disadvantage to our players. Blake Sims did some things at quarterback that we really don't feature."
Let's all try to keep that in mind come April.
The Big 12 Is the Third-Best Conference
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The SEC is the best conference in college football. The Pac-12 is a fairly close second. After that, there's a pretty steep drop-off.
The other power-five conferences—the ACC, Big Ten and Big 12—entered the year in a jumble. They all had their reasons for optimism, and they all had their reasons for doubt. A strong case could have been made for any of them at No. 3, No. 4 or No. 5.
Five weeks into the season, however, the rankings have gained some clarity. The Big Ten has improved after a calamitous start, but it's still less than a month removed from reading its own obituary. The ACC has the No. 1 team in the AP poll, Florida State, but none of its 13 other members are in the Top 25. The American (East Carolina) has the same number of Top 25 teams as the ACC right now. The FBS Independents (BYU and Notre Dame) have 100 percent more.
The Big 12, meanwhile, is quietly humming along. Oklahoma and Baylor have been as good as advertised, and behind them, the second tier has overachieved. Kansas State nearly upset Auburn, Oklahoma State nearly upset Florida State and TCU just snuck into the AP Poll.
All five of those teams are ranked this week, which means half of the Big 12 is rated among the Top 25 teams in America. Only the SEC, which has eight of its 14 teams ranked this week, can rightfully make the same claim. The Big 12 also joins the Pac-12 and the SEC with multiple teams in the national Top 10.
It's starting to leave the ACC and Big Ten in its dust.
Never Trust a Career-Backup Quarterback
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Blake Sims is an obvious exception, but for the most part, this year's crop of career-backup quarterbacks has underperformed.
Hutson Mason was supposed to be a small drop-off from Aaron Murray at Georgia. Dylan Thompson was supposed to be a small drop-off from Connor Shaw at South Carolina. Cole Stoudt was supposed to be a small drop-off from Tajh Boyd at Clemson.
All three of those falls have been massive. Mason and Thompson have been up-and-down, and Stoudt has already been benched.
In many ways, this is a corollary to the "Spring-Game Quarterback Performance Means Nothing" takeaway. Mason and Stoudt were the stars of their respective spring games, using their knowledge and experience to pick apart a young, confused defense.
But game experience and practice experience are different. Very different. And learning a system for four or five years cannot mask a talent deficiency. If you aren't very good, you just aren't very good.
It's difficult to stomach, but it's true.
Ideally, every senior career backup could play as well as Sims has, but cases such as that are few and far between. More often than not, it's smarter to ignore all those glowing reports from offseason camp and take a wait-and-see approach until the real football begins.
Even then, you should temper expectations.
This Having-a-Playoff Thing Is Fun
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The shadow of the College Football Playoff has not yet been a burden on the season. Excepting Pat Haden's sideline outburst during the USC-Stanford game, it's been a blessing more than a curse. It's early, but so far hell remains unfrozen, and college football remains fun.
Why is it so fun? Simple: More teams than usual are alive. We knew that would be the case coming into the season, but now that we have real-life avatars instead of hypotheticals, the concept of having four title-eligible spots instead of two seems even more apt.
Should Michigan State really be out of the national title discussion after losing at Oregon in Week 2? It led one of the best teams in the country by nine points in the third quarter, shriveling in the second half against a high-tempo offense on a 100-degree day. Under those circumstances, pretty much any college football team would lose.
That doesn't mean its season should be over.
In previous years, it might have felt like Sparty was playing for a spot in the Rose Bowl. In 2014, it feels like it's playing for more. The same can be said about Stanford and LSU, and the same will be said about whoever loses this week's big games in the SEC West.
More teams in the championship picture means more games with championship implications. More games with championship implications means more must-see games. More must-see games means more pleasure for the college football viewer.
The math isn't that hard to understand.
.jpg?w=480 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
