College football is back!
It’s a bit of a melancholy Saturday as Lee Corso waved goodbye on “College GameDay” for the final time, but what a week it was for the sport. There were two heavyweight fights between national title contenders in Columbus and Death Valley along with a massive upset in Tallahassee. True freshmen quarterbacks played like veterans while a notable transfer QB backed up his offseason smack talk and then some.
Week 1 is almost over (we’ve still got Sunday and Monday football, y’all!), but you know how this works: Let’s run through College Football Overtime, highlighting everything you need to know from the week that was in college football.
ONE BIG TAKEAWAY: HOW OHIO STATE RELOADED ON DEFENSE SO QUICKLY
Defenses that lose seven draft picks and the highest-paid coordinator in college football are supposed to regress. It’s natural. That’s especially true in this era of the portal when retaining talent is more difficult than ever for the blue bloods.
Instead, Matt Patricia’s defense provided nightmare fuel for Arch Manning in his official debut as QB1 for the Longhorns. It took No. 1 Texas more than 56 minutes of game time to score a point as the No. 3 Buckeyes stifled Steve Sarkisian’s offense in a 14-7 win.
Much of the conversation coming out of the game will surround Manning’s underwhelming debut. The preseason Heisman favorite bounced balls and overthrew receivers in a 17-for-30 effort that will have quick-triggered media members and fans alike pulling out the pitchfork for a QB with unprecedented hype.
Let’s just get this out of the way: Manning will be fine.
Growth within the offense and the pieces around him will help. So does not having to face Ohio State again, because that unit is elite.
Everyone knows Caleb Downs. Yet it’s worth noting how many would-be question marks there were for a unit that returned just three starters. Most teams have to dip into the portal to replace that sort of production. Not Ohio State. Look at its starting 11 from Saturday:
Caden Curry, EDGE — No. 141 overall in 2022 class
Eddrick Houston, DT — No. 33 overall in 2024 class
Kayden McDonald, DT — No. 136 overall in 2023 class
Kenyatta Jackson, EDGE — No. 98 overall in 2022 class
Sonny Styles, LB — No. 27 overall in 2022 class
Arvell Reese, LB — No. 206 overall in 2023 class
Jermaine Matthews, CB — No. 148 overall in 2023 class
Davison Igbinosun, CB* — No. 124 overall in 2022 class
Lorenzo Styles, CB* — No. 133 overall in 2021 class
Caleb Downs, S* — No. 8 overall in 2023 class
Jaylen McClain, S -—89 rating in 2023 class
*Former transfer
All 11 of those players were in the Ohio State program last year. All 11 of them — McClain was a four-star in the 247Sports Composite — were blue-chips. All but one of them is a third-year player or older.
That’s recruiting wins showing up on Saturdays, and it’s obvious internal development. Larry Johnson had to replace four starters on the D-line. Good thing he’d been marinating quality pieces for years behind them.
So often those key backups leave in the portal era. They waited their turn in Columbus. That continuity and time to marinate paid off. Expect the Buckeyes to have a top-10 defense once again.
REPORT CARD
A. LSU’S NEW-LOOK DEFENSE
LSU struggled to stop anyone when it mattered last year. The Tigers allowed 33.5 points per game in their losses and ranked 89th nationally in yards allowed per play. So, the Tigers overhauled their defense. Only three starters came back. Nine transfers came in as part of LSU’s No. 1 transfer class.
And wouldn’t you know it, Blake Baker’s defense looks a lot different in Year 2.
The No. 9 Tigers notched arguably the most impressive win over Week 1 in a 17-10 road victory over No. 4 Clemson. LSU’s defense led the way, holding Clemson to 261 yards and just 1.6 yards per carry.
Baker brought relentless pressure and showed a variety of looks that seemed to confound preseason All-American Cade Klubnik. The additions shined, too. Virginia Tech transfer Mansoor Delane made a critical second-half interception. South Florida DT transfer Bernard Gooden had a tackle-for-loss and keyed on shutting down Clemson’s rushing attack. Let’s not forget about the return of Harold Perkins from an injury that cost him almost all of the 2024 season. Perkins finished the night with a team-high five tackles and 1.5 tackles for loss. He sealed the game, too. Playing a new role at STAR, Perkins came screaming in from the second level to force Klubnik into an errant pass on fourth down.
Garrett Nussmeier never had to press to keep LSU in the game. The Tigers were able to establish and stay with the run, too. The defense playing to that level makes all the difference.
LSU was my preseason SEC pick. If the Tigers’ defense plays like this all season, I think there’s a great chance they’re lifting a trophy in Atlanta at the regular season’s end.
