Two weeks into the college football season, Saturday was a day of massive matchups and even more massive upsets. As always, there were clear winners and losers, as well as a team that lost without even playing. Once again, it's time for Contenders and Pretenders.
Contender - South Carolina (17-6 over Georgia). We praised the Gamecocks last week after their shellacking of Southern Miss, but reserved judgment on USC East until they faced the Georgia Bulldogs. Carolina defeated the Dawgs in convincing fashion, pounding them into submission with powerful running back Marcus Lattimore (37 car., 182 yds., 2 TD). The Gamecocks proved that they can compete with the upper echelon of the SEC East. Now they have to prove that they can sustain success.
Pretender - Boise State (Idle). After defeating #10 Virginia Tech 33-30 last Monday night, Boise State was the talk of the nation. Should they be allowed into the BCS Championship Game? Were they the number one team in the country? Did it matter that their conference is terrible if they have proven themselves over and over again? Shouldn't defeating a great Virginia Tech team in what was more or less a home game for the Hokies be enough to prove their worth? The question that every one should have been asking was, 'What if Virginia Tech isn't very good?' After FCS (that's I-AA to you and me) squad James Madison defeated the Hokies 21-16 at HOME on Saturday, it's clear that Virginia Tech is not a Top 25 caliber team, and now Boise State has no quality win to hang their little blue hat on. If the Broncos played in a good league, that wouldn't be the end of the world. But since they don't, the same process that could have vaulted them into the championship game with only one quality win will almost surely keep them out of it without one.
Contenders - Former Champs. One of the storylines going in to Saturday was that the three marquee matchups of the day featured rematches of former national championship game pairings from the past - #1 Alabama - #18 Penn State (1979 Sugar Bowl); #2 Ohio State - #12 Miami (2003 BCS Championship Game); and #10 Oklahoma - #17 Florida State (2001 BCS Championship Game). At the end of the day, all three games finished with the same three winners as those championships - Alabama, Ohio State, and Oklahoma. Other common factors were that none of the games were really close, with the higher-ranked home teams romping in each contest.
Pretenders - The ACC. The Atlantic Coast Conference has had a bad couple of years in football, finishing 2-6 in bowl games in 2008 and 3-4 in 2009. The conference suffered through an off-season that exposed the weak position it faces vis-a-vis television contracts and conference re-alignment. It hasn't placed a representative in the BCS national championship game in ten years, and it has been nearly that long since it had a serious contender. And it generally suffers from the characterization that its fans tolerate football season until basketball tips off. The 2010 season was supposed to be the one where the ACC started re-asserting itself, but the first two weeks have been abysmal. Virginia Tech, the highest-ranked ACC team preseason, suffered the aforementioned devastating losses to Boise State and James Madison. North Carolina lost part of its team to NCAA violations, then dropped a heartbreaker to an average LSU team. The defending ACC champ Georgia Tech fell to Kansas Saturday, who lost to FCS-level North Dakota State the previous week. Miami and Florida were both crushed in big matchups. It is entirely possible that no ACC team will remain in the top 20 when polls come out Monday. A lot is riding on Clemson's matchup with Auburn next week. The Tigers are the only upper-tier ACC team still undefeated after week two.
TossUp - The FCS. Nobody except the NCAA and the folks at the Worldwide Leader even seem to know what the FCS is. Regular Joes still call them I-AA. (For the record, the NCAA now calls that the Football Championship Subdivision.) That doesn't mean that FCS schools aren't getting a lot of notice though. Through two weeks of football, six FCS teams have defeated FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision) teams. And although Kansas and Ole Miss gave the Big 12 and SEC a black eye last week, the Big Ten (Minnesota) and the ACC (Va. Tech) felt the wrath in week two. There were only five losses by FBS teams to FCS teams in all of 2009. The separation between the two subdivisions is as fuzzy as it has ever been.
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