College Football Blitz, Week Zero: Hello there, Colorado State
By Jack Crosby
The 2017 college football season kicked off this weekend with “Week Zero” action and Colorado State announced themselves as a potential national threat right out of the gate.
While all the attention is being paid to this coming weekend and the official Week 1 of college football action for the 2017 season, the truth is the FBS season kicked off this past weekend with five games on the slate. Hawaii and UMass gave us a thriller, BYU struggled their way to an opening win over Portland State, South Florida got the Charlie Strong era off to a successful start with a victory over San Jose State and the Stanford Cardinal — a Pac-12 favorite to some — beat the snot out of Rice as Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather were putting on their spectacle inside a boxing ring in Las Vegas.
But there was maybe no team on Saturday who made a bigger statement to start the season in Week Zero than the Colorado State Rams. We’ll start with the boys from Fort Collins, as we take a look at a few of the stories from the limited action we saw this past weekend.
*As referenced in the preview edition, the College Football Blitz weekly will generally cover one topic from each conference. But with only a handful of games being played in “Week Zero,” we’re going to just touch on a couple things from this past weekend*
Hello there, G5 New Year’s Six contender Colorado State
Head coach Mike Bobo’s team was scheduled to open up the year against the Oregon State Beavers of the Pac-12, and after falling behind 10-7 by the time the first quarter came to an end, they turned it on and made it abundantly clear they have their sights set on being the Group of 5 representative for a New Year’s Six bowl later in the season. When it was all said and done in Fort Collins on Saturday, the Rams pummeled their Pac-12 foe, 58-27.
Josh Allen of Wyoming is the quarterback getting all the talk from the Group of 5, but it was evident on Saturday that you’ll want to start talking about Nick Stevens a little more. The senior Colorado State signal-caller went an efficient 26-of-39 for 334 yards with three touchdowns, although, if those New Year’s Six aspirations want to remain intact, let’s maybe stop doing this.
Tim Tebow impressions aside, though, Stevens was excellent in the opener and it was also no secret who his main weapon will be this year on the offensive side of the ball, as senior wide receiver Michael Gallup pulled in 11 of Stevens’ passes for 134 yards. These two seniors paired with fellow senior Dalyn Dawkins and freshman — and candidate for best running back name in college football — Rashaad Boddie in the backfield are set to make life a living hell on turf for opposing defenses throughout the year.
So, even after just one game, how realistic are the New Year’s Six dreams for Colorado State? Well, there are three games you have to immediately point to. They have a chance to really open everyone’s eyes this Friday night when they take on rival and defending Pac-12 South Champion Colorado — a game they can certainly win with this Colorado team re-tooling. Two weeks later on Sep. 16, though, they go on the road to Tuscaloosa to face off against the Alabama Crimson Tide, who will be great, and maybe a little pissed-off following a potential Week 1 loss to Florida State. Then, as the season gets set to come to a close, they take on the Boise State Broncos — but that game, thankfully for the Rams, takes place in Fort Collins.
Crazy things, of course, can happen throughout the rest of the regular season, but this is certainly an experienced team that could make a run at the big time come the end of December/early January.
Not very encouraging, BYU
The BYU Cougars opened up their 2017 season this past Saturday and, well, they pretty much had everyone in Provo in panic mode. Before they get set to take on the LSU Tigers in Week 1 — which has become an entirely different story unto itself — BYU scheduled a nice tuneup game in Week Zero against Portland State of the FCS. Well, this turned out to be anything but a “gimme” for head coach Kalani Sitake and the Cougars.
BYU did ultimately come away with the win in Provo, 20-6, but it was far from encouraging. The defensive side of the ball did what they needed to do in stalling the Portland State offense — the Vikings crossed the 50-yard line just twice — but the offense was mistake-prone and downright sloppy at times. The main highlight of the BYU offense was the performance from running back Squally Canada who, aside from being another All-Name Team contender, rushed for 90 yards on 13 carries.
Quarterback Tanner Mangum and the BYU coaching staff need to get this offense together, though, and in a hurry. They already have to head off to New Orleans where LSU will be playing a glorified home game in the Superdome, and against an LSU defense which should once again deliver — it could be a long, miserable night for the Cougars if they put on an offensive showing the likes of which they did in their “Week Zero” win.
South Florida … WYD?!?
This was a question posed by virtually every college football fan in some form or fashion on Saturday night when the Charlie Strong era got started with the South Florida Bulls. Heading into the 2017 season, when the topic of Group of 5 New Year’s Six contenders is discussed, one of the programs you will hear brought up ad nauseam is Strong’s Bulls.
During the opener on Saturday night against the San Jose State Spartans, though, this USF team had everyone thinking for a bit that the “Best team in the Group of 5” talk was just a bit off. San Jose State raced out to a 16-0 first quarter lead, leading us to believe we were on our way to the first upset of the season.
But after the shakiest first quarter the Bulls could have asked for to open the season, Strong’s offense flipped the switch in the second quarter, scoring 28 unanswered points. And none of those 28 points were more incredible than six of the last seven that were scored by running back D’Ernest Johnson on this insane 50-yard scamper which started with Johnson lost in the middle, then scampering to the left sideline and finally diving into the end zone for the touchdown.
South Florida secured the 42-22 victory on Saturday night, and senior quarterback Quinton Flowers was his spectacular self, throwing for 212 yards and two touchdowns while amassing 70 yards rushing and another score.
From the second quarter on the Bulls showed they could be the team everyone thought they’d be this year, but hopefully that first-quarter mishap was just a case of opening game jitters. If it becomes some sort of habit, then they may dig themselves a hole they won’t be able to climb themselves out of as they did on Saturday against San Jose State.
Stanford beats up Rice in Australia
Stanford beats up Rice in Australia. There’s not really more that needs to be said about this 62-7 drubbing at the hands of David Shaw’s crew. We knew it was coming, it happened, so now we can get set for the Sep. 9 showdown the Cardinal have with the No. 4 USC Trojans.
Roc Thomas, still a beast running the football
I am, admittedly, an NFL fan and I do watch on Sundays as I’m recovering from a full day of Saturday college football action. However, I sometimes have a problem remembering players that have joined a new team in the offseason. This can occasionally be the case when it comes to college football transfers, as was the case this weekend when I was reminded former 5-star Auburn running back Roc Thomas now plays for Jacksonville State in the FCS.
Thomas was lauded as one of the best prospects in the country when he signed with Auburn in 2014, but in two years with the program, things just didn’t work out for the Oxford, Alabama native. He decided to head off to Jacksonville State of the FCS, and he made his debut for the Gamecocks on Saturday against Chattanooga. And it was a successful debut, as Thomas ran for 122 yards on 19 carries, including this 76-yard scamper that reminded us just how explosive he can be.
Thomas may not have found his groove with Auburn, but the future is not lost for this former top prospect. A monster year with Jacksonville State including performances such as this will have the eyes of NFL scouts watching.
Highlight of the Week
As will usually be the case, we’ll finish off the weekly Blitz column with a highlight from the weekend that had most of us in awe. Now most said coming out of the weekend that the amazing, 50-yard run by South Florida’s D’Ernest Johnson, spoken about above, was the unquestioned play of “Week Zero” in college football.
While very much an impressive rushing effort, nah, we’re going to go back to talking about Colorado State quarterback Nick Stevens.
Early in the game when it still looked like Oregon State maybe had things in hand, Stevens’ body was literally folded in half on this hit by the Beavers’ Andrzej Hughes-Murray. So not only did it appear as if Colorado State might be in trouble in the game, potentially hampering some of those New Year’s Six hopes, some thought they might be without their star signal-caller for a little bit following this Goldberg-like spear.
Yet, instead of Stevens sitting on the bench the rest of the game, he would return and put on that aforementioned amazing performance in the Rams’ opening game, while also solidifying himself early as one of the toughest players college football has to offer this year.