Week one is in the books. To the general or casual fan, who looked the most impressive this weekend?

24 South Florida
41 WKU (1-0)
(1) USF still has a little name value and a two TD win looks good.

03 ETSU
49 Jax St. (2-0)
(2) Jax St. has come out of the gate runnin’ hard. Granted it was a win over an FCS team, but Jax St. is only one year removed from that. And the score looks dominant.

24 Bowling Green
34 Liberty (1-0)
(3) Well it was a two score win over a bowl team from last year.

21 W. Illinois
58 New Mexico St. (1-1)
(4) 58 is a lot of points to score.

14 Incarnate Word
28 UTEP (1-1)
(5) UIC has been a good FCS team the last couple years, so nice rebound for UTEP.

00 Sam Houston (0-1)
14 BYU
(6) They kept it close and low scoring. So they deserve credit for being competitive out of the gate.

14 La. Tech(0-1)
38 SMU
(7) Does this score shock anyone?

07 Middle Tennessee (0-1)
56 Alabama
(8) I expected a blowout, but I did expect more from MTSU.

12 Maine
14 FIU (1-0)
(9) I am glad FIU won, but sheesh!

07 Tusculum
38 Kennesaw St. (1-0)
* This was a DII team. How did they score? KSU is FBS next year. The Owls should have hung 60 on this team.

Watched the Sam Houston game. I’d put them at 2 or 3. That was impressive. BYU is always good and they had a chance until late. Defense looks way ahead of offense. Jacksonville St and Sam made good first impressions.

Not sure on Kennesaw State simply cause I know nothing about DII and I refuse to talk bad about anybody after our sorry performance.

I could have sworn SHSU had a blocked FG for a TD. Did that get called back?

(09-03-2023 08:09 AM)freshtop Wrote:  I could have sworn SHSU had a blocked FG for a TD. Did that get called back?

Offsides call… the flag was extremely late it seemed.

I'd probably move Sam Houston to 4th. I was really impressed with their defending last night.

I thought FIU was the worst. Lucky to have beaten Maine at home.

I was most impressed with Western Kentucky yesterday, easily. I don’t know how good USF is year to year, but hosting a name brand program and blowing them out is always a good look.

A few things to clean up, but I love what I saw from WKU, especially their defense. They’re better than I expected. Were physical with a bigger team and adjusted well throughout the game to win.

Stadium and crowd looked good on TV for a big home game. Can’t ask for much more.

(09-03-2023 09:04 AM)sstaedtler88 Wrote:  I thought FIU was the worst. Lucky to have beaten Maine at home.

I thought Maine was going to win so… I guess it just depends on what your expectations were going in.

Congrats to the Panthers on a hard fought win.

(09-03-2023 09:13 AM)EatEmUp11 Wrote:  

(09-03-2023 09:04 AM)sstaedtler88 Wrote:  I thought FIU was the worst. Lucky to have beaten Maine at home.

I thought Maine was going to win so… I guess it just depends on what your expectations were going in.

Congrats to the Panthers on a hard fought win.

The things about that game is, Maine had 27 first downs to FIU's 13. Maine outgained FIU in yards 378-305. FIU turned it over 3 times, Maine turned it over. once. Not sure how the Panthers even pulled the game out. Every time i looked up Maine was driving.

If you watched the WKU game, it would be more impressive. First-quarter jitters were real; mid-way though second-quarter top WR Malachi Corley went out with an injury (doesn't sound serious). We were already down our second-best WR from last season. Austin Reed found his groove, our defence stepped up and you could see the team get in sync in the second-half.

(09-03-2023 08:14 AM)smith79jordan Wrote:  I'd probably move Sam Houston to 4th. I was really impressed with their defending last night.

I’d have ranked that higher as well. But notice OP had all the wins ranked above all the losses. (Not counting Kennesaw). Don’t know if that was by accident or design. But I don’t know enough about everyone to make a fair judgement.

Still, not a bad list. I hope Mike makes this a weekly feature.

(09-03-2023 08:09 AM)freshtop Wrote:  I could have sworn SHSU had a blocked FG for a TD. Did that get called back?

Yeah, it was called offsides IIRC.

Frustrating game to watch- we were expected to lose, but if we didn't make a couple dumb mistakes on offense and had a few calls go our way (that bad interception call in the 3rd for example), we could've actually won this one. I have to keep reminding myself that we kept a P5 offense to 14 (beating the spread) on the road in our first game as an FBS team, so I can't be too upset, but still.

I'm always hardest on my own team so wont talk about that....

Liberty has to find more consistent offense other than the QBs legs

SHSU looked shaky to start the game but settled in on defense. While defense will keep you in games most years in CUSA you need to score points to compete at the top. But I thought other than looking awful at QB and looking really small on both sides. There defense looked to be playing at the top part of CUSA. If a couple breaks went SHSU way instead of against them this could have been a tied game late 4th

Jax St I didn't get to watch and probably wont get around to doing so after seeing the score. From game 1 and the score of this game the defense, while small, is very quick, like SHSU and already decent FBS ready. Not as impressed with QB play as others. Like with Liberty the QBs legs will only take you so far. But if I see improvement at throwing the ball Jax St can be a very tough out

Middle I can't judge after playing Bama, some years Bama is a monster and some years the talent and size of a monster but not as deadly. But early on(all I watched) Middle's offense didn't look as bad as I hope it would.

Tech has lots of improvement to get done on both sides of the ball. On offense they have to find away to keep the pressure off the QB and find anyone other than Smoke to be a playmaker. Defense is going to struggle against teams that can pass the ball because they dont look like they can stop the run....or at least both

FIU looks like a bad FCS school

Only saw last weeks UTEP and NMSU games and wasn't impressed with either. Especially QB play

I watched a little of every game so this is a short review of my thoughts:

WKU- looked sloppy and not nearly as polished as I thought they would look. I think they settled in and did what was needed. Clearly still the best team in CUSA but I don’t think the gap is as big as I thought at the start of yesterday.

Liberty- missing a lot of pieces still handled business against a decent G5 team. QB looked good and that may be a problem for CUSA.

FIU- got cute with not kicking the FG and almost lost to an FCS team picked to finish 13th in the CAA. They are clearly the worst team in CUSA but glad they won the game.

UTEP- good crowd and horrible ESPN+ production but they handled a solid FCS team. I think middle of the pack is where they finish.

NMSU- looks a lot better than they did against UMASS. I think they are still a middle of the pack team.

JSU- I was not a believer but Rich Rod has them looking scary. Not convinced we win that game anymore.

SHSU- they were my sleeper pick this season and cemented that opinion for me. I doubt they are the top team in the league but I think they pickup at least one win from Houston or Air Force. No one better sleep walk the SHSU game because we could easily lose that game (every team).

LT- I had high hopes but they just look bad. Smoke is good but everything else was meh at best.

MTSU- I hoped the score would look better than it did but I saw a lot of positives. I think we could cause some problems in CUSA. D-Line was giving Bama issues so that was GREAT to see considering the size and talent they have. O-Line is good on the right side but the left looks as bad as expected. Nick our QB looked poised and not afraid. I’m hopeful but cautious with how good we could be. Secondary is going to get burned a lot so we will likely have problems with teams that air it out (WKU).

Kennesaw- didn’t see the game so cannot comment but they handled business against an inferior opponent and had a great crowd so that is great news moving forward.

(09-03-2023 09:27 AM)sstaedtler88 Wrote:  

(09-03-2023 09:13 AM)EatEmUp11 Wrote:  

(09-03-2023 09:04 AM)sstaedtler88 Wrote:  I thought FIU was the worst. Lucky to have beaten Maine at home.

I thought Maine was going to win so… I guess it just depends on what your expectations were going in.

Congrats to the Panthers on a hard fought win.

The things about that game is, Maine had 27 first downs to FIU's 13. Maine outgained FIU in yards 378-305. FIU turned it over 3 times, Maine turned it over. once. Not sure how the Panthers even pulled the game out. Every time i looked up Maine was driving.

2 of 3 turnovers were failed 4th downs. Tons of penalties and sloppy play. Maine isn’t good. They have no offense. Any half-decent FBS team would’ve won that game by 30.

WKU most impressive followed by

UTEP
us
SHSU
Liberty


Its hard to tell much about MTSU from playing Alabama

La Tech did not look good but SMU is throwing boatloads of money at players now

Just glad FIU won

Liberty is one dimensional on offense but they have the one of the easiest schedule in FBS. I don’t see them beating WKU

1 wku looked good
2 shsu defense looked good perhaps offense will look good next week
3 Jax St offense/QB looked very much improved from week one.
Defense looked good as it did last week
4-5 mtsu and liberty game looked as expected
6 utep still too early for me to tell glimpses of greatness that doesn't quite come through
The rest I didn't see divide as you will

Last Kennesaw Sanitation Unit. They're trash I hear they struggle to beat high school teams.

I'd agree with all the above...WKU and Jax St, MTSU, and Liberty are top of the class. We all need to bring it in future games

(09-03-2023 06:17 PM)tigtoodawg Wrote:  I'd agree with all the above...WKU and Jax St, MTSU, and Liberty are top of the class. We all need to bring it in future games

What about KSU? lol

(09-03-2023 06:21 PM)jones682 Wrote:  

(09-03-2023 06:17 PM)tigtoodawg Wrote:  I'd agree with all the above...WKU and Jax St, MTSU, and Liberty are top of the class. We all need to bring it in future games

What about KSU? lol

He said "We all...". Probably safe to include KSU in that. Lose the pringle can on your shoulder.

That said, that SHSU defense looked phenomenal. Definitely some BYU home cookin but yall looked great. Definitely gonna bet on yall vs AF!