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TiK's Ten: Week One Thoughts on College Football & Mizzou

With the exception of the Miami-Louisville game this evening, Week 1 of college football has come and gone. What struck me the most about this year's inaugural week was the fact that no one seemed truly dominant, at least among those who faced solid competition. Georgia might be a bit of an exception to that but Florida State, Alabama and Auburn all underwhelmed. This all tells me the season before us will have many twists and turns -- and quite frankly, I would love it if the end result was 9 teams with 2 losses so the committee really had its work cut out.

As for the Tigers, I left the game thinking "much needs to be improved" but that's not atypical for Game 1 with a new cast of characters. The key question is if they truly do improve.

With that in mind, here are my thoughts...

1. Who will be our playmakers? That's a question I was looking for on Saturday and it appeared Russell Hansbrough and Marcus Murphy appeared to take the reigns, which was encouraging. I'm hoping a receiver emerges as welll, but there is still time for that. White certainly knows how to catch touchdowns -- what I am looking for is the guy who will get us down the field. Hunt, Sasser and Leftwich are the key here.

2. South Dakota State is legitimate. I increasingly enjoy following FCS football and South Dakota State is an emerging program. They are a Top 10 team in FCS and that showed. I was impressed with Lujan,, Zenner and Wieneke. They made the game more competitive than one would have imagined and that's a credit to their staff. There was another team out there on the field, not just a bunch of creampuffs.

3. Baggett concerns me, but that 44 yarder was huge. I'm not feeling terribly optimistic about Baggett, but I was certainly relieved to see his last kick go through. Our kicking game must be dependable, and right now it isn't. I hope he continues to gain confidence.

4. Thumbs up on the stadium improvements, mostly. I thought they did a good job of classing up the joint while still keeping a college feel. I park in Lot P and I must say, the walk in to the stadium is greatly improved. The way the east side rises above the landscape now is quite impressive, and it's actually quite stunning to go inside and point out where the "stadium used to stop". I liked the wider concourse at the entry way. I heard a lot of folks compliment the short lines and view from the upper deck. I liked the new ribbons. The wider asphalt walkway down the hill was nice. That said, there is no new sound system -- at least none was used, so that was a bit perplexing, and the out of town scoreboard thingy was pathetic -- it was showing scores only a portion of the time, and only a portion of the scores, at that. I know folks with AT&T got on fine, but a lot of people have Sprint and it's useless. My wife has Verizon and was batting about .500 getting on. Either invest in WiFi or get those scores rolling.

5. Toledo's going to be tough. They beat New Hampshire - ranked ahead of South Dakota State in FCS - by a bigger margin that we won by, and we're playing on the road. However, it was only 16-14 at halftime and they were actually down 14-3 early on. However, they exploded to 52, scoring 22 unanswered points. Phillip Ely had 339 yards passing with 4 TD's spread out among a variety of targets and Kareem Hunt had a great rushing day. Toledo is not going to be an easy win, perhaps our toughest non-con test. I think it's close, but we win -- 38-28.

As for college football as a whole....

6. North Dakota State is fun to follow. I love how they're now 3-0 vs. the Big 12, plus having beaten Minnesota and Colorado State in their last 5 FBS contests. They are truly a dynasty and if they continue to dominate, and get more investment in their program, who knows what the future could hold? Call me crazy, but could we see, in 10 years or so, the Big 12 taking a look at the Bison? The way North Dakota is exploding population wise, it would not shock me -- they would need a new stadium, but there are elements there...

7. Florida State and Alabama are not shoo-ins. Don't pencil them into your playoff brackets right now, because those games were a few plays away from being monumental upsets in Week 1. I was hoping for the chaos, myself, but perhaps it will come later on. I would love to see a ton of teams in the race come November, myself.

8. Ouch, South Carolina. So, one of my 4 picks for the Playoff totally embarrassed themselves Saturday, and that was South Carolina. What a colossal embarrassment. Not that a close loss to Texas A&M, who played very well, would have been poor -- but the fact it was a blowout loss and how it occurred has got to have Gamecock fans absolutely apoplectic. Because of this poor play by South Carolina, I'm not quite ready to crown A&M as some sort of favorite yet, but wow, that was quite the result out of the gate.

9. Georgia and LSU are back. Out of the more competitive games this weekend, both Georgia and LSU both impressed greatly. LSU was down to the point I thought they were cooked, but came back and won in a neutral environment against a team many think could go to the playoff themselves. Georgia - Clemson was close for a while but Georgia really dominated late and that was also eye-opening. LSU has quite a battle in the SEC West, but one has got to think Georgia is the favorite in the East now. Then again, things can change quickly.

10. The Group of Five is poor. Central Florida, much like with their game last year vs. South Carolina, again messed up an opportunity to get a huge win against a strong Big Five team early in the year. I still think they'll be in the running for the big six bowl spot the Group of Five is guaranteed, but it was pretty ugly as far as the rest of the Group of Five goes. Houston lost big. Boise State lost big. Utah State lost big. Fresno State lost big. All four were supposed to be in the running for that coveted bowl spot, but all were terrible. Cincinnati has yet to play (and doesn't until the 12th, interestingly, against Toledo) so maybe they'll be the team.

Off to Week Two we go.....

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