You spend months recruiting, training, studying, and planning. You practice for a month straight. You hire a new defensive coordinator. Game day finally arrives and you out-gain your opponent by 50 yards. And then your senior quarterback hits the same defender in the chest twice in his own end zone in a game you lose by four. College football is back, everybody, in all its pain and glory.
- On the bright side for North Carolina? Gunter Brewer should be proud of this.
- This is the Internet, and the Internet demands a hot take on everything. But I can't muster one on Jim Harbaugh's debut at Michigan. Utah won, 24-17, but the Wolverines slightly out-gained the Utes, slightly outperformed them on third downs, played to a draw in first downs and committed fewer penalties, but were undone by a work-in-progress offensive line and too many mistakes from quarterback Jake Rudock, who threw three interceptions and three touchdowns, two for his team and one for the opponent. This is about what we expected. Michigan will be good and possibly great eventually, but eventually won't arrive for a while. Still, this team could easily be 5-1 when Michigan State visits Ann Arbor on Oct. 17.
- Love this quote from Kyle Whittingham:
- Florida International beat Central Florida. A blocked 47-yard field goal as time expired gave Florida International its first opening night win since 2011 and snapped UCF's five-game winning streak against Sunshine State foes. The Panthers were just as surprised as you are.
- Sure, it was Elon. But Wake Forest rushed for 203 yards, more than the Demon Deacons rushed for in the entire months of September and October, and equal to their total in November, and scored 41 points, and more than their output from the entire month of October from last year.
- It's going to be a long season for Trevone Boykin. The purple-clad Heisman favorite tossed 42 passes and rushed 18 times in TCU's 23-17 win over Minnesota. The Frogs opened a 10-0 lead after the first quarter, and were then outscored 17-13 from then on. Boykin had a couple touchdown passes sail over open receivers' heads. In other words, it was a perfect opener for Gary Patterson.
- Utah State beat Southern Utah 12-9. Connecticut beat Villanova 20-15. We won't see those final scores repeated again in 2015. - I thought you needed to see this:
- Vanderbilt held Western Kentucky scoreless through the first half, out-rushed and out-passed the Hilltoppers, held a 20-11 first downs advantage, and still lost. This was the play the Commodores ran in an attempt to tie the game with 37 seconds remaining.
- Considering this happened just shy of 5 a.m. Eastern, you probably didn't see this but Colorado is hopping mad about the way its 28-20 loss to Hawaii ended.
- Please excuse me while I shout at a cloud. Settling in on my couch to watch North Carolina-South Carolina, it dawned on me, the feeling of dread like realizing you forgot to buy everything but the one item you actually needed at the grocery store: We're all in for hundreds of hours staring at the ESPN's Bottom Line this fall. The early part of Cocks-Heels brought vital information such as European soccer scores, Mel Kiper's Big Board and start times for college football games whose kickoffs were still 48 hours away. It's all filler, buying time so the Bottom Line doesn't run the same five baseball scores on a loop.
And here's the thing - nothing on the Bottom Line is essential anymore. Not in a multi-screen world when people watch games with their laptops and/or smartphones in front of them. ESPN tacitly admits this when it drops the Bottom Line from broadcasts it truly cares about - Monday Night Football, the College Football Playoff, the Masters, et cetera. Fox Sports 1 dropped its scroll for Michigan-Utah. But, alas, the Bottom Line brings in ad revenue and has thus deemed itself irreplaceable. College football is back, everyone. Looking forward to the rest of a great prelude to what is hopefully an unforgettable season. Even if it means the Bottom Line has to come along for the ride.