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It was a brutal start to the season for the East Carolina Pirates. East Carolina is looking to right the ship after back-to-back 3-9 seasons under Scottie Montgomery, but the Pirates loss to North Carolina A&T is the school’s second straight loss to an FCS opponent to start the year. However, now all the expectations are off coming into this Week 2 meeting with the North Carolina Tar Heels, and that means ECU has nothing to lose.... 

The Ohio State Buckeyes showed that they didn’t need Urban Meyer on the sidelines in a 77-31 rout of Oregon State in their season opener. Ohio State moved the ball with ease all day long as Dwayne Haskins looked solid throughout the first game of the season. The Rutgers Scarlet Knights are off to a good start too with a win in their FBS opener for the first time since 2014. However, it’s going to be tough for Rutgers to keep it within the number in this Week 2 matchup.... 

Coming into the season, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish were a trendy pick to win the national championship. As SB Nation’s Bill Connelly pointed out, if they got past Michigan in their season opener, they would likely be favored per the CFB betting odds in every game for the remainder of the season. After defeating Michigan 24-17 in the opener, the Irish are now likely to be double-digit favorites on the CFB betting line in every game until a September 29 home tilt against Stanford.... 

Big Red is still waiting to see Scott Frost’s new offense in action. A severe thunderstorm with 70 MPH winds and copious amounts of lightning caused the Nebraska Cornhuskers’ first game of the season against the Akron Zips to be cancelled last Saturday. Time will tell whether or not that was an ominous indicator of things to come.... 

The Navy Midshipmen made the long journey back home from Hawai’i earlier this week, and they are still in search of their first win. Navy was down 28-0 to the Rainbow Warriors after the first 19 minutes of play last Saturday, but the Midshipmen were able to make the final score respectable in a 59-41 loss. That wasn’t good news for anyone who bet on Navy though, as the Midshipmen were a two-touchdown favorite on the NCAAF betting line coming into this one.... 

With the first full week of college football action out of the way, we can get a better idea of where teams stand and how good – or bad – they might be. That helps to set the line for the upcoming games, but the betting public influences were the numbers go.... 

We better enjoy it while we can because this nasty rivalry is set to go on hiatus after the 2019 game. The politics and business side of college football are ruining traditional rivalries and this one is next. Two years ago the Penn State Nittany Lions were probably wishing they hadn’t scheduled the Pitt Panthers, with a loss to their Western Pennsylvania rival eventually costing them a spot in the CFP. The Lions made up for that defeat by pounding Pitt last season, evening the series since it r... 

The USC Trojans won their first Pac-12 championship last season and their first conference title since claiming the Pac-10 in 2008 by knocking off the Stanford Cardinal in the league’s title game. That win ended the South Division’s run of futility in the title matchup, giving that side of the conference its first win in seven tries. It also gave the Trojans a sweep of the two games after they cut down the Cardinal in the regular season meeting, ending a three-game losing streak to their Norther... 

Herm Edwards silenced the doubters for at least one week as he made a triumphant return to the sidelines in the Arizona State Sun Devils 49-7 rout of Texas-San Antonio last week. Edwards hadn’t coached a game since 2008 when he was with the NFL’s Chiefs, and he had never been a head coach at the collegiate level until his surprising hire at ASU. The competition gets a bit tougher in Week 2 when the Sun Devils host the No. 15 ranked Michigan State Spartans in a Pac-12/Big Ten showdown in the dese... 

Week Two pits a questionable and overmatched New Mexico Lobos team against the mauling power of the Big Ten West. The Wisconsin Badgers are picked by many to make the College Football Playoff and last week only served to reinforce those lofty expectations. With the best and most experienced offensive line in the country Wisconsin should curb stomp the Lobos. The only question is whether or not this is an overlay. As last week demonstrated the Badgers can dominate while still not quite being able... 

Week two includes a once great program that is still struggling to get back to its former elite status. Once again, the Michigan Wolverines hype machine served copious amounts of Kool aid this past offseason promising a new look and better results. Yet once again coach Jim Harbaugh’s Wolverines failed to deliver the goods on the nation’s biggest stage last week in a loss at Notre Dame. Now discredited yet again the Maize and Blue will play their home opener against the Western Michigan Broncos. Harbaugh and Michigan have much to answer for and may find WMU’s leaky defense the perfect remedy for their woes. ... 

Two of the brainiest schools in the nation will square off in Week 2 of the 2018 college football season when the Northwestern Wildcats host the Duke Blue Devils. Both teams are coming off impressive wins in their season openers. Northwestern was a one-point road favorite per the CFB betting odds on the road against Purdue last Thursday and held on for a 31-27 win, while Duke scored a comfortable win and covered the NCAAF betting line in a 34-14 victory over Army. One team will move to 2-0 after this one. ... 

The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and South Florida Bulls each cruised to wins in their season openers on Saturday. South Florida had little trouble getting past a feisty Elon Phoenix team by a margin of 34-14, while Georgia Tech ran over Alcorn State 41-0 with some eye-popping numbers on the ground. Each of these teams is looking to get to 2-0 with a win in their Week 2 match-up. This will be the first-ever meeting between these two programs.... 

The Oklahoma Sooners looked incredibly sharp in their season-opening win against Florida Atlantic. Many analysts, including yours truly, expected the Owls to give the Sooners all they could handle. However, the Sooners were more than up to the challenge, jumping out to a 42-0 halftime lead in an eventual 63-14 rout where OU easily covered the CFB betting line.... 

The Lane Train ran off the tracks shortly after it crossed the Mississippi River in the season opener for the Florida Atlantic Owls. Many bettors tore up their FAU tickets by halftime in a 63-14 defeat at the hands of Oklahoma. The Owls didn’t even come close to covering the CFB betting line in the loss, but they are decent favorites against the Air Force Falcons this week.... 

The Kevin Sumlin era in the desert got off to a rocky start with the Arizona Wildcats losing their opener last week to BYU. Looking to put the Rich Rodriguez scandal-laden tenure behind them, UA made a great hire getting the former Texas AM coach to come to Tucson. Sumlin actually began his head coaching career with the Houston Cougars in 2008, restoring that program back to national prominence. Sumlin returns to his old stomping grounds in Week 2 for the first time since leaving for College Sta... 

We’ve seen schools bow to corporations to sell their stadium naming rights, or slap the name of a gracious donor on the site. Sometimes the sacred ground gets the name of a legendary coach, but rarely is that coach still roaming the sidelines. Bill Snyder retired following the 2005 season as the Kansas State Wildcats winningest coach. Four years later he was back running the show, doing it inside Bill Snyder Family Stadium. Snyder and his Cats get a big test from the Mississippi State Bulldogs in Week 2 of the college football season. ... 

Week Two opens on Friday night with a perennial Big 12 Conference title contender against a Group of Five team coming off its first bowl in five years but with a history that shows the inability to sustain success. The TCU Horned Frogs are always in the hunt to win the Big 12 and are expected to be a Top 25 team yet again. Known for strong defenses the Frogs must break in a new quarterback for 2018. The SMU Mustangs are known for their ability to score but also for an inability to even field a m... 

As good as the oddsmakers are at setting lines, it’s not an exact science. Opening spreads for the 2018 college football season rolled out just after Alabama knocked off Georgia for the national championship in January. Not really, but it sure seems like it. A lot can happen in the months that separate the spring from the start of the season in the fall. Players transfer, coaches do stupid stuff to put their programs in peril, and of course there are injuries, which are as much a part of the gam... 

It's hard to believe it's only been five years since Chip Kelly last walked the sidelines of a college football game. The UCLA Bruins went all-in to bring in one of the most coveted names in the coaching ranks in college football, and they've turned the keys to the castle over to him. We'll get to see him sport his new colors in Week 1 of the college football season against the Cincinnati Bearcats on Saturday.... 

To the average college football fan, the only Group of Five team that has a legitimate chance of crashing into the College Football Playoff is UCF, but don’t count out the Boise State Broncos just yet. The Broncos are opening up the 2018 season ranked No. 22 in the nation, and they're going to have a few opportunities to prove themselves this year in a tough Mountain West Conference. The men from the Smurf Turf open up their season in Week 1 on the road with a tough non-conference game against t... 

True freshman don't often start at quarterback in major college football. In fact, the USC Trojans have only had three quarterbacks start as true freshmen during their illustrious history. All three true freshmen to have started previously (Rob Johnson, Carson Palmer and Matt Barkley) went on to play in the NFL. Will the same fate befall JT Daniels? We'll get to see the true frosh in action for the first time in Week 1 of the college football season when the Men of Troy take on the UNLV Rebels.... 

The California Golden Bears started the Justin Wilcox era on the right foot. Wilcox’s first game as head coach of the Golden Bears last year was a win over these North Carolina Tar Heels. California was a sizeable 13.5-point underdog in the game per the CFB betting odds, but Ross Bowers proved to be too much for this secondary. UNC would love to return the favorite and get an important non-conference road victory in Week 1 of the 2018 campaign.... 

The premier game of Week 1 of the college football season will take place in Atlanta on Saturday afternoon when the Washington Huskies face the Auburn Tigers. For Washington, the pride of the program and the PAC 12 as a whole is at stake, with some going so far as to say that the PAC 12 won’t be able to get a one-loss champion in the College Football Playoff if the Huskies don’t win this game. Meanwhile, Auburn is looking to shake off a disappointing end to the season that saw the Tigers drop ga... 

Dana Holgorsen has been seen as one of the sharpest offensive minds in college football over the last two decades. Holgorsen is an innovator who isn’t afraid to try new things in order to get results, and that has helped him succeed in the wide-open Big 12 during his time as head coach of the West Virginia Mountaineers. He and West Virginia will look to start off right in Week 1 of the 2018 season with a win over the Tennessee Volunteers....