College football Week 1 winners, losers: Georgia, Clemson lead way

August 31, 2024 Vaseline blog 0

College football Week 1 winners, losers: Georgia, Clemson lead way

Evidence that Clemson’s offense has finally turned a corner will have to wait at least another week.

Facing off against No. 1 Georgia, the No. 14 Tigers cobbled together just 188 yards on 3.6 yards per play in a 34-3 loss. After spending just two snaps inside opposing territory in the first half — one ended in a loss, the other in a penalty — Clemson’s only points came on a 26-yard field about midway through the third quarter, by which point the Bulldogs had built a 13-0 lead. Georgia would respond to the Tigers’ field goal with a touchdown on the ensuing possession to erase any sense of momentum.

After coming up just short of the College Football Playoff last season, Georgia looks built to smother teams on the way to a third national championship in four years. For the Tigers, even short gains felt like accomplishments; any long gain felt like an absolute miracle.

Second-year starting quarterback Cade Klubnik finished 18 of 29 for 142 yards, just 4.9 yards per attempt, with an interception. His receiver corps struggled to get any separation against the Bulldogs’ secondary while Clemson’s offensive front failed to get any movement, resulting in just 46 rushing yards on 23 carries. Overall, the performance would be shocking had we not seen it again and again these past three seasons — a crippling run of unrealized production that has coincided with Clemson’s disappearance from the national stage.

Of course, Georgia is going to do this to teams. The Bulldogs were not only dominant defensively but unsurprisingly effective on the offensive side: Carson Beck was 23 of 33 for 278 yards and two scores, kickstarting his Heisman Trophy campaign in style, while seven runners combined for 163 yards and two touchdowns on 6.3 yards per carry.

Even if the Bulldogs are the No. 1 team in the country, that Clemson was thoroughly dominated shows how far the Tigers stand from true title contention. When these two teams met in 2021, a 10-3 Georgia win, you could’ve made the case that Clemson was only a step or two behind the eventual national champs. A few years later, that gap has widened to thousands and thousands of what seems to be unsurmountable space.

That makes Georgia the biggest winner and Clemson the biggest loser from Week 1 of the 2024 season. Here’s the rest of the list:

Winners

Penn State

The No. 9 Nittany Lions’ new-look offense delivered 457 yards on 7.6 yards per play, led by quarterback Drew Allar’s 216 passing yards and three touchdowns on 13.1 yards per throw, in a 34-12 win at West Virginia. This a quick validation of James Franklin’s decision to hire coordinator Andy Kotelnicki, who previously worked wonders in the same position at Kansas. The turning point was a late touchdown drive to end the first half, a 73-yard haul in just three plays to respond to put Penn State in front 20-6 at the break. After an extended weather delay, the Nittany Lions tackled a pair of touchdowns in the second half for a convincing road win against Power Four opponents. After one week, the Nittany Lions look like a very legitimate Big Ten threat and one of the top contenders for the playoff.

Dylan Raiola

The five-star true freshman kicked off his college career at Nebraska with a bang: Raiola completed 19 of 28 throws for 238 yards and two scores without an interception as the Cornhuskers got started with a breezy 40-7 win at home against Texas-El Passed. One of the biggest additions of the offseason in the Big Ten, Raiola is a clear upgrade over what Nebraska worked with in Matt Rhule’s first season and one of a few reasons why the Cornhuskers are a trendy pick for eight or more wins.

Tennessee

It’s only Chattanooga, so let’s not get too excited. But the 69-3 win for No. 15 Tennessee was highlighted by a wonderful 2024 debut for redshirt freshman Nico Iamaleava, a former five-star prospect who got his feet wet in four appearances last season. Iamaleava hit on 22 of 28 throws for 314 yards and three touchdowns, including a 59-yard score to Dont’e Thornton Jr., before taking a seat for almost all of the final two quarters. All but one of his 314 yards came in the first half to set a new program record for one half, breaking by one yard the previous mark set by Tyler Bray against Troy in 2012.

Ohio State and Texas

These two playoff favorites hit the ground running. New Ohio State quarterback Will Howard had 246 yards of total offense and several freshmen made an immediate impact as the No. 2 Buckeyes poured it on in the second half to beat Akron 52-6. One rookie, five-star receiver Jeremiah Smith, led Ohio State with six grabs for 92 yards and two touchdowns. Freshman running back James Peoples had 30 yards and a score in six carries behind co-starters TreVeyon Henderson and Quinshon Judkins, who combined for 120 yards on 21 touches. Texas rolled past Colorado State 52-0 behind 545 yards of offense to set up next week’s huge non-conference matchup against No. 8 Michigan. The win included the first career touchdown pass for redshirt freshman Arch Manning, who finished with 95 passing yards.

Losers

Florida

The clock is ticking on Billy Napier after an ugly, hard-to-watch 41-17 loss at home to Miami showed just how far the program has failed in its third season. In a must-win game against a bitter rival, the Gators were barely competitive. The schedule was always going to be a problem: Florida is slated to play eight ranked teams, including five ranked opponents in a row to close the regular season. While the Hurricanes have clearly taken a step forward thanks to additions such as new quarterback Cam Ward, who threw for 385 yards and three scores, that the Gators were whipped in the Swamp is the strongest hint to date that Napier’s time is numbered and that this year’s team could be just the second since 1980 to lose eight or more games.

Virginia Tech

At the very least, an overtime loss at Vanderbilt evaporates all of the optimism around the Hokies after a very strong close to last season and immediately tosses the Hokies out of any consideration for the Top 25. Down 17-3 at halftime, Tech scrambled back to take the a 27-20 lead before the Commodores tied the game with under two minutes left in regulation. While not important in the grander scheme of things — any road to the playoff has to include an ACC title — falling to the Commodores is the sort of loss that can come to define a season, if not cut a promising year down to size before getting into September.

ACC

Miami might’ve looked the part, but that result was an outlier amid a bad first step for the ACC. Clemson was blasted by Georgia. Virginia Tech lost to Vanderbilt. No. 21 North Carolina State struggled to put away Western Carolina. A week ago, No. 10 Florida State got things started for the ACC with a loss to Georgia Tech. It’s been a pretty awful start for the conference, which was already badly losing a battle of public perception against the Big Ten and SEC. Down the line, bad losses in non-conference play and sloppy showings from the league’s best of the best could hold major sway with the playoff selection committee as they look through a dozen or more options from the Power Four for the seven at-large bids .