12 Most Astonishing Stats from Week 1 of 2015 College Football Season
With a clean slate for every team and a full weekend of games, Week 1 of the college football season featured quite a number of eye-popping stats.
Some were more expected than others, like the nation's No. 1 offense in points and yardage two years running leading the nation in yards per play—or a back from a big-play rushing attack lighting up a FCS opponent with just a small number of carries.
But a lot of other numbers from the opening weekend were quite surprising. One of the biggest long shots in the last decade knocked off a Power Five opponent. Two of the nation's longest active winning streaks came to an end on the same day. Big names faltered on offense while a pair of little-known defenders recorded a rare feat.
Here are a dozen of the most astonishing stats from the first weekend of the college football season. These range from the record breaking to the head scratching, covering powerhouse schools and small-school underdogs.
Of course, there were more astonishing stats to be found in the box scores and the fresh national leaderboards in Week 1. Post your surprising statistical nuggets in the comments below.
0: Points Scored by Georgia Southern
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Only one of the 124 FBS teams in action during Week 1 did not record a single point—and it was one of the teams least expected to put a goose egg on the scoreboard.
Defending Sun Belt champion Georgia Southern was a sizable underdog on the road at West Virginia, but the Eagles were coming off a fantastic offensive debut in the FBS ranks. In 2014, Georgia Southern was No. 10 nationally with 39.1 points per game, most of which were due to a No. 1 rushing offense that averaged a massive 379.92 yards per contest.
But Georgia Southern struggled mightily in Morgantown on Saturday night, averaging only 3.42 yards on 57 carries against the Mountaineers. When the Eagles went to the air with quarterback Favian Upshaw, who had to start for a suspended Kevin Ellison, the results were disastrous.
In a game filled with astonishing stats, Upshaw completed only two of his 13 passes for 29 yards. Add four interceptions, three of which were nabbed by WVU safety Karl Joseph in just the third quarter, and the junior finished the game with a QB efficiency rating of minus-27.41.
Of course, give a ton of credit to an experienced and improved West Virginia defense, because shutouts against the Eagles don't come often. According to John Antonik of WVUSports.com, Georgia Southern's last scoreless performance prior to Saturday night came on Dec. 2, 1995.
2: Number of Players Who Recorded Two Pick-Sixes
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Last season, from the first kickoff of the year all the way through the bowl games, 11 different players in college football had two interception returns for touchdowns. According to CFBStats, none of them scored their respective pick-sixes in the same game.
But this weekend, two different players from the "Group of Five" conferences pulled off the rare feat of returning a pair of interceptions for touchdowns in one day of work.
San Diego State linebacker Calvin Munson recorded two of the Aztecs' five interceptions against in-city FCS foe San Diego and scored on both. Munson was rewarded for his unbelievable stat line Sunday morning by being named the defensive national player of the week by the Walter Camp Foundation.
But the voters for the foundation might have wanted to wait at least a few hours before handing out that honor. In Sunday's only FBS game, Marshall defensive back Tiquan Lang recorded his own pair of pick-sixes—one on the first play of the contest and the other to seal a victory over Purdue—while racking up the second-biggest tackle count of Week 1.
A rare bolt of statistical lightning struck college football twice this weekend. It's unlikely that we'll see the two pick-six feat repeated again this season, especially by two players in one weekend.
2.4: Percent Chance of Portland State Upsetting Washington State
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Portland State is a bad FCS team—or at least it was a bad FCS team heading into last Saturday.
The Vikings went just 3-9 last season, winning their only games against a pair of two-win FCS schools and a Division II opponent. Due to last year's underwhelming record, a brand-new head coach and a first-year quarterback, Portland State entered a road game against Washington State as a 31-point underdog.
According to ESPN, Portland State had a 2.4 percent chance of beating the Cougars in Week 1, which made for the third-most unlikely upset of the past 10 seasons.
So, naturally, the Vikings weathered an early storm and scored all of their points in the second half for an unbelievable 24-17 win over Wazzu. Even though Portland State had 117 fewer yards than its host, it made the most of its chances to record the upset.
And perhaps the game's best number came from somewhere other than the box score. According to the Associated Press (via USA Today), Washington State paid Portland State $525,000 to come to Pullman—and later beat the Cougars—on Saturday.
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10.48: Baylor's Yards Per Play vs. SMU
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With a brand-new starting quarterback in charge of what was the nation's best offense in the last two seasons, there may have been some minor concerns about how Baylor would open 2015 offensively.
But junior quarterback Seth Russell blew away any question marks Friday night against SMU. Russell led the Bears to touchdowns on their first four drives of the game and a remarkable average of 10.48 yards per play in the 56-21 victory over the Mustangs.
"I feel like we haven’t taken a step back," Russell said afterward, per Tim Griffin of the Houston Chronicle. "If anything, we’ve taken a step forward."
In terms of yards per play, Russell is 100 percent correct. That 10.48-yard clip the Bears offense fired with Friday night was the best Baylor has averaged in one game under head coach Art Briles.
Sure, SMU is coming off of one of the worst seasons in recent college football history, but Baylor didn't play with that same level of offensive explosion in routs over FCS teams such as Northwestern State in 2014 or Wofford in 2013. That's scary.
23: Marcus Marshall's Yards Per Carry vs. Alcorn State
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On the subject of outstanding debuts, take a look at what Georgia Tech freshman running back Marcus Marshall did against hapless Alcorn State on Thursday night.
As a reserve B-back behind Stanford transfer Patrick Skov in Tech's option attack, Marshall ran for 184 yards and two touchdowns on just eight carries. His first career carry went for a 49-yard touchdown, and his second career score was a 64-yarder.
Marshall's 23-yard average on the ground was by far the best nationally in Week 1, which featured plenty of high numbers from big-play running backs. (His older brother, Keith, also scored twice this weekend for rival Georgia.)
"It’s good to see [Marshall] really get out there and put some good stuff on film and really show what he can do," Skov said, per Doug Roberson of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "He’s a talented kid, and I think he’s only going to keep getting better."
Marshall probably won't have a YPC mark as high as this one again this season, but the Georgia Tech freshman already has a great head start for the nation's best in that category.
29: Consecutive Openers Won by Nebraska (prior to Saturday)
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Two of the nation's longest active winning streaks—both featuring Big Ten teams—fell Saturday afternoon in crushing fashion.
The first was Nebraska's run of 29 straight victories in season-opening games. The Cornhuskers had a tougher matchup in Week 1 of 2015 than they've had in recent seasons, but they led visiting BYU 28-24 heading into the fourth quarter in Lincoln.
BYU cut Nebraska's lead down to one midway through the fourth quarter and then pulled off the most unbelievable play of Week 1. Backup quarterback Tanner Mangum heaved a 42-yard Hail Mary—or Hail Joseph, as SB Nation's Matt Brown aptly called it—and teammate Mitch Matthews came down with it in the end zone as time expired to bring Nebraska's season-opening win streak to an end.
Prior to the 33-28 loss to BYU on Saturday, Nebraska hadn't lost a season opener since a 1985 defeat to Florida State, per Sean Merriman of the Big Ten Network.
Now the nation's longest active winning streak in season openers belongs to Florida, which smacked New Mexico State by a score of 61-13 on Saturday. The Gators have now won their first game in 26 straight seasons.
39: Consecutive Wins by Penn State over Temple (prior to Saturday)
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Meanwhile, up in Pennsylvania, Temple recorded a simply historic 27-10 victory over in-state foe Penn State.
While the two teams aren't traditional rivals, the Nittany Lions had won 39 straight games over the Owls heading into Saturday, which was the nation's longest active winning streak over one team. Prior to this past weekend, Temple hadn't beaten Penn State since 1941.
The game itself featured some eyebrow-raising stats, and most of them were quite bad for Penn State. Quarterback Christian Hackenberg almost had as many sacks as he did completions—the attack-minded Owls got to him a painful 10 times as he only finished 11-of-25 passing.
Penn State had 13 completed offensive drives against Temple, and six of them were three-and-outs. The Nittany Lions scored twice in the opening 8:26 of the contest and did not put up another point for the rest of the game.
And a few days after Temple buried Penn State's lengthy win streak, the Nittany Lions literally buried the game tape from the poor offensive showing against the Owls. It's probably for the best.
40: Percent of AP Top 25 Teams That Are from the SEC
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Arizona State and Wisconsin fell out of the AP Top 25 via losses to SEC opponents, and the conference reaped the rewards by getting two additional teams for a record 10 in this week's poll.
One of those teams, Texas A&M, jumped from the second-highest preseason vote-getter outside the Top 25 all the way to No. 16 with its big win over Arizona State. Mississippi State, on the other hand, slid from the "No. 26" spot in the preseason up to No. 25 after Wisconsin's loss to Alabama and Stanford's upset defeat to Northwestern.
As statistician Scott Scroggins noted on Twitter, this now means two-fifths of the AP Top 25 is represented by teams in the SEC, even though the conference makes up less than 11 percent of the FBS.
The conference's record placement in the AP poll was a topic of discussion in Wednesday morning's SEC coaches teleconference. According to Bleacher Report's Barrett Sallee, LSU head coach Les Miles thinks the SEC "should have 25 teams in the top 25."
Unfortunately for Miles and some SEC fans, the conference won't have 10 teams in the poll for long. No. 14 LSU plays No. 25 Mississippi State on Saturday, and the loser will almost definitely drop out.
95: Teams That Had Fewer PR Yards in 2014 Than Maryland's Will Likely in Week 1
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Maryland's Will Likely made Big Ten history Saturday by returning eight punts for 233 yards in the Terrapins' home victory over FCS opponent Richmond.
Likely stood out with 97 more yards than the second-best punt returner in Week 1—West Virginia's Andrew Rodriguez, who also had eight returns—and he broke a conference record set by Iowa legend Nile Kinnick way back in 1939. He had returns of 67, 47 and 35 in the Terrapins' 50-21 home win over the Spiders.
But even more impressive than that is the fact Likely had more punt return yardage Saturday against Richmond than 95 of the nation's 128 FBS teams had in all of 2014. That's right, Likely had a much better day that most of the country gets in an entire season.
As Pete Volk of SB Nation's Testudo Times writes, Likely is now on pace to break the all-time FBS record for punt return yardage in a single season in less than four full games.
Of course, like Volk also notes, his monumental day probably means that none of Maryland's opponents are going to want to kick the ball at Likely for the rest of the season.
100: Percent of Leonte Carroo Third-Quarter Receptions That Went for TDs
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When it comes to the wide receiver position, it's harder to have a better quarter of football than Rutgers' Leonte Carroo had on Saturday against Norfolk State.
After sitting out the first half due to a suspension, Carroo checked into the game and recorded three third-quarter receptions in the blowout victory. All three of them went for touchdowns.
"I was talking to (quarterback Chris Laviano) and said, 'Hey, we did something dumb together. We're suspended. Let's go in the second half and show the fans how truly sorry we are by making plays. Let's go out there and just compete our butts off and play hard,'" Carroo said, per Keith Sargeant of NJ.com. "He had the confidence to throw me a deep ball on the second play that we were in, and I was just going to go up and make a play."
Carroo's short and efficient day of work moved him into first place all time in the Rutgers record book for career receiving touchdowns. The big-play target now has 22 touchdowns and counting during his time with the Scarlet Knights.
Baylor's Jay Lee also had three touchdowns on three receptions in Week 1, but they didn't come as quick as Carroo. In just eight minutes of play, Carroo took over a game in which he had missed the entire half.
124: Texas' FBS Offensive Rank
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Of the 124 FBS teams that were in action this weekend, Texas ranked dead last in total offense.
Even after seeing the Longhorns struggle for just 59 total yards in last season's humiliating bowl loss to Arkansas—and the improvement Notre Dame has made on a veteran defense—that first sentence is still surprising to type.
Texas, which has the richest athletic department in the entire country and sits in one of the best states for producing football talent, is in full meltdown mode offensively after a 38-3 loss at Notre Dame. The blue-blood program's lack of offensive production is astounding.
"In Texas' past three games...this offense was outscored 117-20 and outgained by more than 730 yards," Max Olson of ESPN.com wrote. "Texas failed to gain positive yards on 47 percent of its plays. No first downs on 65 percent of its drives. Three-and-outs on more than half of them. They ran 165 plays yet spent only one in the red zone."
Texas head coach Charlie Strong shook things up Tuesday by promoting receivers coach Jay Norvell to offensive play-caller and demoting co-offensive coordinators Shawn Watson and Joe Wickline. As Norvell takes the reins for the Longhorns, there is now nowhere to go but up.
321.44: Jeff Driskel's Pass Efficiency Rating vs. Southern
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Forgive the dated photo on this slide, as former 5-star quarterback Jeff Driskel is now at Louisiana Tech instead of Florida.
But in his Louisiana Tech debut Saturday, Driskel had the most-efficient game of any passer in the country. Against FCS opponent Southern, Driskel surprised most anyone paying any attention to the stat sheets by completing 12 of his 15 passes for 274 yards and four touchdowns for a rating of 321.44.
As SB Nation's Andy Hutchins wrote, the fact Jeff Driskel did this is quite astounding.
"[This is] the same Jeff Driskel who, er, 'led' Florida's offense for most of Will Muschamp's tenure in Gainesville, who threw more interceptions than touchdowns in both 2013 and 2014, who was committing a turnover about once every 20 plays over the last two years, who threw three picks (and four touchdowns, to be fair) in his new team's spring game," Hutchins wrote.
Despite all the bad performances he posted and all the negativity he received at Florida, Jeff Driskel is leading the nation in pass efficiency. What a time to be alive.
All stats courtesy of CFBStats.com. Recruit rankings courtesy of 247Sports.
Justin Ferguson is a college football writer at Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @JFergusonBR.
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