College football’s opening week delivered its first genuine chaos before the sport’s marquee Saturday matchup had even kicked off. Two ranked teams already went down on the road to a slower news cycle, and by Saturday night, the sport’s biggest storyline of the weekend, Lane Kiffin’s debut at LSU against Clemson, was still unfolding in Baton Rouge.
Thursday and Friday set the tone
Colorado opened its season Thursday night by stealing a 14-13 win at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. Freshman quarterback Julian Lewis found tight end Charlie Williams for a 20-yard touchdown with 42 seconds left, and when Georgia Tech drove into position for a potential game-winning 45-yard field goal on the final play, Colorado’s Boo Carter got a hand on it. Deion Sanders’ team survived by exactly one point in a building that had been sold out and loud all night.
Miami didn’t need a last-second play Friday. The Hurricanes ran up 45 points on Stanford in a 45-6 rout, with transfer quarterback Darian Mensah throwing five touchdown passes in his Miami debut and receiver Malachi Toney setting a school record with 234 receiving yards on 12 catches. Stanford’s offense, led by Davis Warren, managed 214 passing yards and no touchdowns against a defense that had clearly done its homework.
The marquee game everyone was waiting for
Saturday night’s headline matchup, No. 23 Clemson at No. 13 LSU, was still being played as of this writing, with Lane Kiffin making his LSU debut against Dabo Swinney’s Tigers in front of a full Tiger Stadium. LSU turned to transfer quarterback Sam Leavitt while Clemson gave first-year starter Christopher Vizzina his first real test in hostile territory. Earlier Saturday, No. 13 Alabama hosted East Carolina as a heavy favorite, and No. 2 Oregon hosted Boise State at Autzen Stadium in a game that started later in the afternoon. Final results for those games weren’t available as this recap was being finalized, so the honest version of this story is that Thursday and Friday already delivered two of the weekend’s more memorable finishes, and Saturday’s biggest tests were still playing out.
Common sense says you don’t publish a score that hasn’t happened yet just because a preview was written days in advance. Colorado’s block and Miami’s blowout are real, final, and worth talking about right now. The rest of Saturday will be real soon enough.
Sources: ESPN · Yahoo Sports · CBS Sports
