It’s only a few weeks into the college football season and the excitement is already through the roof. Coming into this season, the SEC has won the past six Bowl Championship Series National Championships. Last season’s champion, the Alabama Crimson Tide, opened the season leaving no doubt that they have full intentions to repeat as they clobbered the No. 8 ranked Michigan Wolverines 41-14.
Fellow SEC-West member Arkansas was not so lucky. After paying Louisiana-Monroe half a million dollars to play them at home, the Razorbacks were upset 34-31 in overtime. The next week, when the AP poll came out, Arkansas took a historic fall out of the polls. It was the second biggest drop out of the polls, second only to Michigan after losing to Appalachian State in 2007.
Perhaps one of the most surprising players thus far in all of college football is Tennessee Volunteers wide receiver Cordarrelle Patterson. Patterson was the No. 1 overall junior college recruit last year and has since shown why. In fact, ESPN’s latest Heisman Watch has Patterson receiving a fifth place vote. As for the true Heisman hopefuls, USC’s quarterback Matt Barkley seems to be the clear favorite to win it coming in to this season. But with University of South Carolina’s week three loss to Stanford (Random mention of South Carolina…) and Barkley’s shaky performance, things could change very quickly.
The SEC welcomes two new teams from the Big 12 to their conference this year: the Texas A&M Aggies and the Missouri Tigers. The Tigers will join the SEC East while the Aggies will join the SEC West. Both teams learned quickly that the SEC is unlike any other and came up short in their SEC debuts as Missouri fell to Georgia and Texas A&M lost a nail-biter to Florida.
Without a doubt, the team that has had to face the most adversity over the past year is the Penn State Nittany Lions. NCAA President Mark Emmert laid the smack down on the Nittany Lions, banning them from bowl games for four years. He also enforced a large scholarship reduction along with a whopping $60 million fine. Their misfortunes continue as they lost their home opener to Ohio and the next week lost on a last-second missed field goal to Virginia.
All football aside, everyone’s thoughts and prayers are with Tulane safety Devon Walker. Walker had a head to head collision in Tulane’s game against Tulsa and suffered critical spine and neck injuries. After the hit, Walker was not breathing and received CPR on the field before being rushed to a nearby Tulsa hospital.
There are many big games left to come this season, and college game day is sure to be there to make it a tremendous atmosphere. With USC’s recent loss, the first weekend in November has already jumped on to everyone’s radar. Alabama vs. LSU. No. 1 versus No. 2. If you thought last year’s game was one for the ages, you could have a sequel coming soon. We will see if the major question for the season is answered: Will the SEC be dethroned?