Winners and Losers: College Football Week 2

Winner: The Magnolia Monsters

The beautiful magnolia trees of Mississippi bloomed late this year, as Ole Miss and Mississippi State both cruised to solid wins.

Ole Miss, now ranked No. 17, is off to a red-hot start and seeks to be a dark horse candidate in a very contested SEC West. With Texas A&M’s near-miss against lowly Colorado, perhaps that dark horse candidacy for whoever finishes behind Alabama may be more open.

For the Bulldogs down in Starkville, they recovered after a close call against Louisiana Tech last week with a thumping of a solid NC State team.

While neither of these squads are likely to cause any *major* damage in college football, some solid play early on will make for all the better race down the stretch of this already wild season.

Loser: Confidence in the Big Texas Schools

Every year we hear both the ironic and unironic calls for Texas to be “back”. Well, looks like those will continue to descend into the depths of silly takes akin to “Notre Dame is a contender” and “USC will finally dominate the Pac-12 again”.

With a 40-21 BEATING by Arkansas (of all teams), Texas needs serious rethinking, even just two games into this young season.

Starting Longhorns QB Hudson Card went a pathetic 8-15, 61 yds and no scores, and even the great Bijan Robinson went for 19 car, 69 yds and a score.

No shocker the scoreboard read 33-7 Hogs at the end of the third.

Yeesh.

Out west, Texas A&M struggled mightily against Colorado, winning just 10-7 after trailing for over 44 minutes of game time.

The Buffs last beat a top-5 team in 2007 (27-24 over OU), and it looks like that streak will continue to stretch.

Winner: Big Ten Dark Horses

No. 10 Penn State and No. 5 Iowa continue to roll through their schedules, as both teams attempt to mount an upset over Big Ten King Buckeye.

The Nittany Lions’ win wasn’t too tricky, taking down a Ball State team who greatly overperformed last year as MAC champions.

Yet the Hawkeyes defended their state’s namesake by smothering their in-state rivals Iowa State in a dominant 27-17 win. Brock Purdy was HORRENDOUS with a 3 INT disaster game, plus Breece Hall only managing 69 yards and a score (plus the fumble that led to the scoop and score).

This Iowa team has been dangerous, and after wins over Indiana and Iowa State, they host weak Kent State and Colorado State teams before the real Big Ten stretch. Fortunately for the Hawkeyes, they get to skip Ohio State (at least in the regular season).

Loser: the Entire State of Ohio

Speaking of Ohio State, the Buckeyes *alllllmost* pulled off a classic OSU win: super close in a poor first half against a team they’re much better than. We’ve seen this all before.

But this time, the tides finally turned. And they turned green and yellow with quacking in the distance quickly approaching.

The Oregon Ducks, perennially in the “almost-contender” category, may have cracked that at last.

The Ducks pulled off a monumental win in Columbus, downing the Buckeyes in a close contest.

The rest of the state suffered too: Ohio lost to Duquesne (yes the same Duquesne our beloved Frogs beat 45-3 last week) and Toledo just barely couldn’t pull off a Notre Dame upset.

Maybe next week, Ohio. Maybe next week.

Winner: Team Jesus

God was with a few teams this weekend, and religious-affiliated schools were blessed indeed.

Notre Dame’s three-point win over Toledo was a tight one, but a win nevertheless. Jack Coan still threw the game-winning touchdown for the Irish despite a dislocated finger.

Out in Utah, BYU upset No. 21 Utah in a wild and impressive upset of a solid Pac-12 South contender. Utah’s Micah Bernard rushed for 146 yards on just 12 carries but the strong effort wasn’t enough.

Even the trio of Texas religious schools (SMU, TCU, Baylor) all won, defeating Cal, Texas Southern and North Texas, respectively.

Despite the holy water in these teams Gatorade coolers, the Sun Devils of Arizona State and Blue Devils of Duke still won, so maybe the luck isn’t confined to just one side of heaven and hell.

Loser: Florida State (nothing clever, just Florida State)

The W in Florida State Seminoles stands for “win”.

This team had to have sold their souls to win that 2013 National Championship, as the FSU train hasn’t even been on the tracks for years.

That derailed team may have finally caught ablaze, however.

Losing to Notre Dame Week 1 is nothing to be ashamed of, but losing to JACKSONVILLE STATE on a FOURTH DOWN HAIL MARY is, in fact, something to be ashamed of. The loss is especially painful.

To make matters worse, the ‘Noles were up by 10 with five minutes to go.

Florida State still has matchups at North Carolina, at Clemson, hosting Miami and then at Florida, so it seems tough to see FSU even sniffing a bowl game despite only being two games in.

But hey, at least that title will never leave Tallahassee.