NCAA Football Week 3: Thoughts and Takeaways

Week 3

Week 3 of the 2023 College Football season was full of mismatches again, but there was some intrigue, especially in Colorado. We also found issues in Tennessee and Alabama that may last the entire season.

Colorado is not that good

The Colorado Buffaloes struggled to come from behind and beat a bad Colorado State team in overtime. Sure, Shadeur Sanders looks like the real deal, but let’s face it: Washington State manhandled the Rams a couple of weeks ago, and the Rams were more than thirty-point underdogs coming into a game that the Buffaloes were playing at home.

The pregame chippiness led to a borderline dirty game, leading to the Buffaloes losing their best player, Travis Hunter, to a cheap shot.

The truth is TCU was a good when, but TCU lost a lot of quality players from last season and are probably a middle-of-the-pack Big 12 team this season. Nebraska is a bottom-of-the-pack Big Ten team that Colorado struggled for a half with. Colorado State was a more than thirty-point underdog that Colorado trailed for the majority of the game against.

So Coach Prime has done a good job with this team, but please, let’s wait until they play a real contender before we start a Deion Sanders coronation.

Alabama has Quarterback issues

Alabama defeated USF this past weekend but did not appear particularly impressive during their victory. Tyler Buchner and Ty Simpson failed to move the ball effectively, leading many people to question their next step for Alabama moving forward.

If anybody can fix the Crimson Tide issues, it would be Nick Saban, but I don’t know that the fix is even on the roster for Alabama. It’s easy when looking at the Tides schedule to imagine a three or four-loss season.

Billy Napier gets it done

The Tennessee Volunteers left Florida disappointed following a crushing upset loss at the hands of Billy Napier’s Florida Gators squad. The sloppy Tennessee offense could not match Billy Napier’s talented team and gave Napier his first significant win as Florida coach. Napier was starting to come under fire after a slow start to the season. Now this win may be more of a by-product that Tennessee is vastly overrated, but only time will tell.

Fresno State on a roll

Every year, there seems to be one team that comes out of nowhere to make a run, and that team this season is Fresno State. The Bulldogs are now the only team to have two wins against ranked teams on the road this season. They dominated Arizona State 29-0 and looked good doing it. The Bulldogs were good last year, and they may be even better this season.

Trouble in Cincy

Just a couple of years ago, the Bearcats were a college football playoff team, which led to them joining the Big 12 and with a big test coming at home against Oklahoma, Bearcat fans were excited about the challenge. Now that excitement has died down sin Cincinnati on Saturday lost to the Miami Redhawks at home on Saturday. The Redhawks had already been beaten 38-3 by the Miami Hurricanes and didn’t look to pose much of a challenge to the Bearcats, but the Cats lost for the first time since 2005 to the Redhawks. Thats not a good sign for first-year coach Scott Satterfield.

The Georgia Bulldogs struggle

The Bulldogs started slowly against South Carolina on Saturday afternoon, trailing by 11 points at halftime. However, once their running game got going in the second half, they eventually pulled away for a 24-14 victory under coach Kirby Smart despite starting slowly again this season. The Bulldogs offense has struggled without former offensive coordinator Todd Monken and Quarterback Stetson Bennett.

The PAC 12 looks strong, while the SEC struggles

Of course, everybody knows about Colorado, but they are nowhere near the best team in the PAC 12 right now. That distinction may go to the upstart Washington Huskies .

Michigan State is in chaos, but that shouldn’t overshadow No. 8 Washington’s absolute dominance against them in their 41-7 beatdown win. Washington scored 41 first-half points while Michael Penix Jr threw for 473 yards and four touchdowns; their defense allowed just 164 total yards over three quarters in this rout. Pennix had thrown for over 400 yards in each game this season.

USC hasn’t played anybody of note yet; Utah dominated Florida and looks dangerous, and Oregon puts up points like a Basketball team.

The SEC, on the other hand, has struggled. Alabama and Georgia have major issues and watch out for OLE MISS, the Rebels play Alabama, and a win could solidify them as a favorite in the SEC this season.