No Need to Panic Just Yet

Like many of you, I have been waiting since the moment the final gun sounded at the Rose Bowl last year to get a look at how this year would shape up. Whether your team won or lost I would like to give you a bit of knowledge that my college football coach gave me, "you are never as good as you look, nor are you as bad as you look, reality falls somewhere in the middle." It is hard to gauge teams in the opening week because the coordinators have had 6 plus months to game plan for the first game. We will get a better look next week of how teams respond and get ready in just one week for their opponent. So Notre Dame fans I wouldn't fret just yet. Yes Brady Quinn had a bad game. He was not accurate with his passing and looked a little flustered when Georgia Tech applied the pressure. But the positive is that the Irish won an away game where they did not play their best. Maybe it was a little bit of looking ahead to this week's match up with Penn State. Tennessee made me eat a little crow as they really put the hammer to California. Erik Ainge had 4 touchdown passes, just one shy of the total he had for the entire year last year. If Cal is one of the top 3 teams in the Pac 10 this year, then the Pac 10 is really weak. Tennessee was thought to be maybe the 3rd or 4th best team in their half of the SEC. That just shows how strong the SEC is. West Virginia and Steve Slaton picked up where they left off last season. Slaton made his early arguement for Heisman consideration when he had over 200 yards rushing against Marshall. My other National Title team, Auburn, had some trouble early but lead by 183 yards by Kenny Irons they put away Washington State in the second half. Vince Young who? I'm kidding but Colt McCoy did have a good game in his first start with Texas. It will be interesting to see how he holds up next week when Ohio State comes to town. It will be a flip-flop from last year as Ohio State will have the mobile, experienced QB for this important matchup. Speaking of Ohio State they had a relatively easy time with Northern Illinois but their defense gave up 285 yards to ONE player. Jim Tressel better work on that defense between now and 8pm next Saturday. A few other players that caught my eye were Michael Hart, Tyler Palko, and Ben Olson. Olson lead the Bruins to a 31-10 victory over the Utah Utes and had over 300 yards passing in the game. Palko had 3 TD passes and erased some of the hurt from last year as he let Pitt to a decisive victory over Virginia. Hart ran for 137 yards on 31 carries as he helped lead the Wolverines to a 27-7 victory over Vanderbilt.