OU vs. UCF in the Big 12 title game?
It wasn't an amazing first weekend for the Big 12. TCU lost to future conference mate Colorado. Texas Tech and Baylor suffered upset losses to Wyoming (which happens) and transfer-heavy Texas State (which never had). West Virginia got thumped by Penn State. Iowa State, BYU and Oklahoma State all looked somewhere between stagnant and moribund on offense in buy-game wins.
Granted, the top two teams in the Big 12 preseason poll, Texas and Kansas State, looked fine in wins over Rice and SE Missouri State, even if it took the Longhorns a little while to get rolling. They might still be your conference favorites. But in Overreaction Land, the Big 12 title goes through Orlando and Norman. Holy smokes, were the Knights and Sooners sharp this weekend.
UCF took on Kent State on Thursday night, and while the Golden Flashes are admittedly quite dire -- they rank last in FBS in returning production and were projected 132nd out of 133 teams in SP+ -- Gus Malzahn's Knights were devastating, tripling the Flashes' yardage (723-240) and more than doubling their first downs (32-15). The 56-6 final score was almost kind to Kent State: Only a minus-2 turnover margin kept the game within 50 points. John Rhys Plumlee did have two interceptions but still threw for 281 yards and rushed for 90 more.
Arkansas State might be pretty bad, too; it certainly has been thus far under Butch Jones. But to date, the Red Wolves' worst loss under Jones had been by a 52-3 margin to Washington. Oklahoma topped that scoring margin by 24 points. The Sooners scored twice in the first three minutes of the game, Dillon Gabriel threw for 308 yards in one half and the Sooners rolled. We're used to Gabriel and the OU offense looking good, but the defense did its part, too, holding ASU to 208 total yards and allowing only a pair of missed field goal attempts. As always, you can learn only so much about a team when it's playing an overwhelmed opponent. But anything we learned about the Sooners on Saturday was excellent.
It wasn't an amazing first weekend for the Big 12. TCU lost to future conference mate Colorado. Texas Tech and Baylor suffered upset losses to Wyoming (which happens) and transfer-heavy Texas State (which never had). West Virginia got thumped by Penn State. Iowa State, BYU and Oklahoma State all looked somewhere between stagnant and moribund on offense in buy-game wins.
Granted, the top two teams in the Big 12 preseason poll, Texas and Kansas State, looked fine in wins over Rice and SE Missouri State, even if it took the Longhorns a little while to get rolling. They might still be your conference favorites. But in Overreaction Land, the Big 12 title goes through Orlando and Norman. Holy smokes, were the Knights and Sooners sharp this weekend.
UCF took on Kent State on Thursday night, and while the Golden Flashes are admittedly quite dire -- they rank last in FBS in returning production and were projected 132nd out of 133 teams in SP+ -- Gus Malzahn's Knights were devastating, tripling the Flashes' yardage (723-240) and more than doubling their first downs (32-15). The 56-6 final score was almost kind to Kent State: Only a minus-2 turnover margin kept the game within 50 points. John Rhys Plumlee did have two interceptions but still threw for 281 yards and rushed for 90 more.
Arkansas State might be pretty bad, too; it certainly has been thus far under Butch Jones. But to date, the Red Wolves' worst loss under Jones had been by a 52-3 margin to Washington. Oklahoma topped that scoring margin by 24 points. The Sooners scored twice in the first three minutes of the game, Dillon Gabriel threw for 308 yards in one half and the Sooners rolled. We're used to Gabriel and the OU offense looking good, but the defense did its part, too, holding ASU to 208 total yards and allowing only a pair of missed field goal attempts. As always, you can learn only so much about a team when it's playing an overwhelmed opponent. But anything we learned about the Sooners on Saturday was excellent.
