The first week of every football season, is always informative. You meet new people, the quiet guy in the back of the room starts to get more vocal and new cliques emerge. I learned that after Pat White and Steve Slaton move on to promising NFL careers, the future of Rich Rodriguez's spread offense is in good hands and legs with Jarrett Brown behind center and their Barry Sanders reincarnate Noel Devine(see pic above) in the backfield. Throw away ESPN's 150's rankings and real football fans know that it was Devine and not USC's Joe McKnight that was the real #1 high school prospect in the Class of 2007.. Oh Yeah, Steve Slaton and Pat White's 8 touchdown's between them was pretty impressive too. With USC's crowded backfield, one has to wonder though, where is Joe McKnight?
While Tim Tebow, Matthew Stafford, and Percy Harvin were becoming household names on a national stage last season as true freshman, hordes of other talented freshman, were hidden in the shadows of practice squads, and learning the playbooks for the opponents on scout teams. Particularly for Washington's Jake Locker, Texas Tech's Michael Crabtree, or Oklahoma's dynamic duo of DeMarco Murray and Sam Bradford Saturday was the day for these [so called] freshman to have their day in the sun.
Texas Tech which spreads the field and lights up the scoreboard with five wideouts and a pass heavy offense. will utilize Crabtree, who missed 2006 due to academic issues extensively. Crabtree might be the most talented receiver Leach has ever brought in, so look for him to explode onto the scene. Texas Tech fans have been salivating over this guy for a year, now it's time for the rest of the Big 12 to learn the name Michael Crabtree. In his Red Raider debut, Crabtree caught 12 passes for 106 yards and 3 touchdowns including a 42 yard catch and run.
Forget Reggie Bush, remember DeMarco Murray, the redshirt freshman that Mike Stoops brought in to replace Adrian Peterson wowed coaches all spring with his exciting running style and absolutely embarrassed the defense in spring practices but nobody could have anticipated his 5 touchdown 87 yard performance against North "not quite the Longhorns" Texas "maybe not so" Mean Green"eggs and ham in your face".
In a 42-12 victory over Syracuse at the onset of what generally is viewed as the nation's toughest schedule, Washington's redshirt freshman quarterback Jake Locker rushed 10 times for 83 yards with two touchdowns and completed 14 of 19 passes for 142 yards in 3 quarters of work. Locker runs a 4.5-second 40-yard dash at 6-foot-3, 230 pounds and has the same penchant for taking punishing hits as Florida's Tim Tebow instead of simply sliding. Tyrone Willingham's recruiting coup of Locker could be the impetus to revive the Huskers downtrodden Pac-10 powerhouse.
After watching Bill Callahan's potent passing attack led by Sam Keller I find myself missing the option at Nebraska, wondering how Wake Forest's starting quarterback last season, Ben Mauck, is already starting for the Cincinatti Bearcats, and if Appalachian State will be ranked in college football's Top 25 poll. Somehow, after a 416 yard, 6 touchdown 1st half performance ESPN.com's college football braintrusts had Colt Brennan 6th in their projected Heisman race behind John David Booty's who amassed 263 yards 3 touchdowns and 1 interception in an afternoon's work against Idaho.
Yet, it was after he left the game that one truly could appreciate Brennan's worth. After accounting for every single one of Hawaii's offensive yards in the 1st half, June June's Run & Shoot offense sputtered abit with backup Tyler Graunke under center in the 2nd half. After Brennan led the Rainbow Warriors to 42 second half points, Graunke came in and coughed up two interceptions and only completed 46 percent of his passes. Hawaii fans savor your Colt legend while you can.
Speaking Hawaii how would the Run & Shoot fare in a contest against the Spread Offense? For years, West Virginia has been the model for the spread, however, now teams across the country like Oregon, Florida, Louisville and Louisville have implemented varying degrees of the spread into their offenses. Minnesota's new offensive coordinator has even tinkered with the offense and created his innovative but mysterious spread coast offense.
When conference games begin next month across the nation, fans will be introduced to a few rising stars. Vanderbilt features two, young under the radar quality SEC players in dual threat quarterback Chris Nickson and wide receiver Earl Bennett. Bennett a junior from Birmingham, Alabama has quietly caught more passes in his first two seasons than any receiver in SEC history.
After his flawless 42 yards, 1 touchdown passing performance in Houston Nutt's "Wildhogs" formation will Darren McFadden finish the season with the highest passer rating in the country?
Week 2
It's become painfully transparent across the nation that Michigan-- or the Big 10 as a whole for that matter, does not have the team speed to defend the spread offense. In the past two weeks against Oregon and Appalachian State, both of which utilized the spread as well as lightning quick dual threat quarterbacks, Michigan's defense has looked especially putrid and has now lost 4 consecutive games.
Mental lapses and poor game management rued the day for the Michigan offense and should only tighten the noose and rev up the guillotine on Carr's rocky tenure in Michigan.
Ironically while Week 1 was the welcoming party for 2006's freshman scout teamers, Week 2 gave us an early glimpse of 2007's elite freshman class and the youth movement has begun.
Virginia Tech, which has finally pulled the plug on Sean Glennnon's reign as starting quarterback, a little earlier than I expected, and has now decided to start Tyrod Taylor as the first true freshman at quarterback under Frank Beamer and I couldn't be more excited. I honestly expected Ike Whitaker to be next in line but Tyrod Taylor is an incredible talent. Following his senior season, Taylor was rated as the #2 quarterback in the nation and the #1 dual threat and against LSU Taylor was surprisingly effective in his first college football action, passing for 72 yards and rushing for 44 yards and 1 touchdown in limited action.
With highly touted freshman Ryan Mallett, set to make his first start at quarterback versus Notre Dame because of Chad Henne's injury, it seems surreal that it has come to this for Hart and Henne, the one time freshman sensations who were destined to bring back a national championship to the Big House. Instead on Saturday September 15, we'll be forced to bare witness to the Clausen-Mallett Bowl between two proud, national championship winning but now woeful and winless football programs.
However, Georgia's SEC East woes continue after a spurious loss to Spurriers Gamecocks. After the offense looked offensively anemic against a Steve Spurrier coached defense(pause and ponder that fr a moment), I have to take my
After the emergence of energetic dynamo Knowshon Moreno, where does true freshman, Caleb King fit into the equation next season?
I'm as big of a Steve Slaton supporter as anyone considering 3 years he was already a Terrapin in spirit before having scholarship snatched away, however, is it beginning to seem like Devine may already be the best running back in the Mountaineers backfield? The coaches have already promised to give Devine more carries and essentially hindering Steve Slaton's Heisman hopes.
Excuse me if I sound a little biased because I have picked West Virginia to win the national championship over the California and Pat White as my favrite to win the Heisman trophy but watching Devine shimmy, shake and plow past defenders for 146 yards and 1 touchdown, it seems as if he's defied the odds with his small stature and continued his old high school shenanigans. With Pat White's brother likely to become a West Virginia Mountaineer(or Louisville Cardinal), in the near future, the White patriarch will continue at West Virginia and leaves the program in dependable hands for the future.
Meanwhile in Gator country Tim Tebow has become college football's Rick Ankiel(without the HGH, but then again have you seen his head) , after a successful stint as a fullback turned quarterback and has succinctly launched his Heisman campaign with guns ablazin'. In less than two games of work, Tebow has Gator chomped opponents for 536 yards, 6 TD's and 0 interceptions , and earned the 2nd best passing efficiency rating in the nation. Tebow hasn't abandoned all of his scrambling tendencies by also rushing for 131 yards and two touchdowns. ESPN.com's projects Tebow passing for 3,600 yards, 36 touchdowns and 0 interceptions in addition to 800 rushing yards plus 15 touchdowns this season. Though it's early that sounds like a Heisman invitation to me. But then again it took Michael Vick 30 games before he threw his first career interception.
.For all of the ballyhoo surrounding Texas quarterback Colt McCoy, Texas A&M's Stephen McGee has gotten lost in the shuffle. McGee, a versatile junior passed for 2,300 yards, 12 touchdown's and only 2 interception in 2006 but rushed for 600 additional yards as well as an impressive 62% completion rate. He famously drove his team down the field to score the winning touchdown against Texas last year. Oddly enough McGee has begun 2007 with an interesting stat line of 235 rushing yards in only 25 carries, however he has thrown for only 191 passing yards in two games which were both wins this season.
--D.J. Dunson Jr.
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