With the NFL returning for their opening weekend, college football reminded everyone who boasts the premier product with a sensational Week 2 slate. Upsets? We got them! Highlight-reel plays? The reel isn’t long enough. Winners and losers? Step this way as we take a whistle-stop tour of the highs and lows experienced across the nation in college football Week 2.
College football Week 2 | Winners
There were 82 contests featuring FBS teams in college football Week 2. Statistically speaking, that means there were 41 winners. However, for the longest time, it felt like Eastern Kentucky and Bowling Green were committed to there being no winner from their epic 59-57 slugfest, which seems like a good place to kick off our college football Week 2 winners.
The Football Championship Subdivision
While Appalachian State knocked off Texas A&M in College Station, and Marshall beat the fight out of the Irish in South Bend, some of the biggest upsets in college football Week 2 came as FCS programs took down FBS teams in dramatic style. There were four FCS-over-FBS victories Saturday, the most on a single day of college football since Aug. 31, 2013, when Eastern Washington beating No. 25 Oregon State headlined a day of FCS shocks.
As mentioned above, Eastern Kentucky outlasted Bowling Green in a game that took seven overtime periods to separate the two teams. Colonels quarterback Parker McKinney threw for 324 yards and three touchdowns and found Braedon Sloan for the game-winning two-point conversion in what was the second longest college football game of all time. Remarkably, the win snapped a 15-game losing streak for the team from the Ohio Valley Conference.
Matt Sluka led Holy Cross on a crusade to Buffalo and emerged with a spectacular and unlikely victory over the MAC opponent. Call it divine intervention, if you will, with the Massachusetts-based program winning the game 37-31 on a Hail Mary heave as time expired in the fourth quarter.
Jalen Coker, flanked by Buffalo defenders, was the hero as he miraculously snagged Sluka’s pass out of the sky for a famous win. It was only the Crusaders’ second win over an FBS program since 2002.
The Mountain West suffered a weekend to forget as two of their teams were on the receiving end of FCS shocks. Former Nicholls quarterback Lindsey Scott Jr. inherited the Incarnate Word offense from Washington State QB Cameron Ward, and Scott’s 406 yards and four touchdowns were enough to sink Nevada 55-41. The Cardinals were 0-2 against the Mountain West ahead of the game and only had one previous FBS win.
Meanwhile, Weber State took down reigning MWC champion Utah State in a game that was never close due to the Wildcats’ solid ground attack, ferocious defense, and Ty MacPherson’s two touchdown grabs. It was the Wildcats’ first win over an FBS opponent since 1993 when they beat Nevada.
As a result of their college football Week 2 heroics, there’s now been six FCS-over-FBS victories in the 2022 college football season. There’s a long way to go to match the 16 wins during the 2013 season. There’s also a long way to go until the end of the 2022 season, with plenty more opportunities for FCS teams to cause significant upsets.
The running back position
While it might be undervalued in the NFL, certainly when it comes to career longevity and gaining monster second contracts, the running back position is alive and well in college football. In fact, running backs are absolutely thriving. Good luck to voters for the Doak Walker Award this season because, as Week 2 devastatingly demonstrated, there is an abundance of productive, game-changing RBs to choose from.
Kansas State running back Deuce Vaughn was named PFN’s Offensive Player of the Week after tallying 145 yards and two touchdowns in a dominant win over Missouri. However, he had to fight off competition from Khalan Laborn, Evan Hull, Raheim Sanders, Keaton Mitchell, DeWayne McBride, Sean Tucker, and Texas State running back Calvin Hill, who racked up 195 yards — one shy of Louisiana Tech’s Marquis Crosby.
That list doesn’t include two of the most impactful true freshman in the entire country at any position. Omarion Hampton has proven his worth week in, week out, earning PFN Freshman of the Week honors in Week 0 and coming close with 110 yards and two touchdowns in Week 2. However, he was beaten out by Penn State freshman phenom Nicholas Singleton who introduced himself on the national stage.
With headliners like Bijan Robinson and TreVeyon Henderson also having impressive performances, both the present and the future of the running back position are exceedingly bright.
Michael Marchese
The Marchese name has a fine tradition in Big Ten football. The family lineage runs through Iowa, Maryland, and has multiple roots in Illinois history. Meanwhile, another family member played at Army between 1978 and 1982. Yet, despite this inextricable link between the name and the game, few people will have known who Michael Marchese was when Illinois took to the field against Virginia. If they didn’t, they do now.
With the ball on the Virginia 39-yard line, Tommy DeVito spotted his 6’4″, 235-pound tight end emerging into open space on a wheel route. Hitting No. 42 in stride at the 25-yard line, Marchese rumbled towards the end zone, breaking the plane and sparking incredible scenes of jubilation from the Illini sideline. It was the first touchdown of the sixth-year senior’s career. Even watching the game on the TV, you could sense how much it meant to all involved.
Marchese isn’t your regular sixth-year senior. A former walk-on defensive back, he secured a first career interception in 2018, followed by another in 2019. However, it wasn’t until he switched to tight end under new coach Bret Bielema in 2021 that he was rewarded with a scholarship offer.
Several receptions had threatened to get him in the end zone, but he’d always been stopped just short. That was until Week 2, when the Marchese name was finally in the touchdown box score.
Georgia Southern Eagles
How do you know when you’ve had a rough season? Well, when you have two different head coaches with losing records within one campaign, that’s a fairly strong indicator. Such was the case for the Georgia Southern Eagles last season. However, a new head coach, and a new year, seem to have turned fortunes around. In Week 2, they pulled off one of the shocks of the week and finally set fire to one of the hottest seats in college football coaching.
It’s difficult to know where to start with what Georgia Southern’s win over Nebraska meant to this team and to college football as a whole. The 45-42 victory was the Eagles’ first win over a Power Five opponent in 13 attempts and their first since beating Florida in 2013. They were a three-score underdog coming into the game. Ironically, it was the dog-like fight in them that helped overcome the Cornhuskers by three points.
There were performances to be proud of across the roster, but none more so than that of Kyle Vantrease, who simply refused to be beaten. He’d tasted defeat at Nebraska last year as the quarterback for Buffalo and wasn’t about to let it happen again.
Vantrease repeatedly struck at the heart of the Huskers, with the final 75-yard, 11-play drive the dagger costing cost Nebraska … a lot. The loss cost them over $1 million in participation money to the Eagles, their 214-0 record when scoring 35 points or more at home, and even cost Scott Frost his job.
College football Week 2 | Losers
College football is a beautiful game, but not everything in Week 2 could be described that way. We don’t like the term “losers,” but these four were far from winners this weekend.
Cade McNamara
Ever since Jim Harbaugh announced a biblical decision to rotate his quarterbacks in the first two weeks of the season, the Michigan QB battle has been the most scrutinized positional battles in all of college football. Following Week 2, it became clear that the battle was over, which only spells bad news for Cade McNamara. It’s J.J. McCarthy’s job to lose now.
In all reality, the Michigan offense is far more potent in McCarthy’s hands. Although it was against a Hawaii team struggling to stop anyone right now, McCarthy was ruthlessly efficient and offensively entertaining in a 56-10 win. While the new Wolverines QB1 compiled three touchdowns and 229 yards while going 11 of 12, McNamara threw the only Michigan interception. Additionally, McCarthy offers a dangerous threat on the ground.
Pittsburgh’s offensive line
Kedon Slovis has spent the better part of the last three years battling injury. Arriving in Pittsburgh, he must have been excited to play behind an offensive line that kept Kenny Pickett clean on his run to the Heisman Trophy finalist ceremony and the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft. Sadly, in Week 2, that offensive line appeared to abandon him, and the former USC quarterback never returned after the half.
While the Tennessee pass rush was ferocious, they had an easy path to the quarterback all night long during their 34-27 win in the Johnny Majors Classic. They were consistently in the backfield all afternoon, with Slovis resembling a ragdoll as he was battered about behind the line of scrimmage.
The theme continued for Nick Patti, with one play where he was engulfed by Byron Young, threatening to end his night. By the final whistle, the Vols had tallied nine tackles for loss, four sacks, and two forced fumbles.
Missouri Tigers
A comfortable opening weekend win over Louisiana Tech hid some significant issues with this Missouri Tigers team. Those came to light in devastating style in a 40-12 defeat to Kansas State in Week 2. Last year, they finished 113th in scoring defense. Currently, they sit 102nd in the nation in the same metric. The Tigers struggle to stop teams from scoring on them, but throwing shade on the defense isn’t quite fair.
The defense has their work cut out for them as a result of the offensive deficiencies. Brady Cook threw two interceptions while averaging just 4.7 yards per attempt. Jack Abraham had three pass attempts, and two of them resulted in interceptions.
The Tigers have one of the best freshmen in the nation in Luther Burden III, but they can’t utilize him properly because of stagnant quarterback play. Missouri is currently 1-1, but they’ll struggle to finish above .500 with an SEC schedule that contains five teams that are currently ranked in the top 25.
Iowa offense
How long is Kirk Ferentz going to be patient with Spencer Petras? For that matter, how long is he going to keep faith with Brian Ferentz? There’s no such thing as a father’s love when you’re staring down the barrel of a potential losing season. That might sound like an overreaction after just two games, but Iowa arguably had the worst offense in all of college football in Week 2.
Ferentz senior had defended his quarterback in the lead-up to the Iowa State game. Then Petras completed 46.2% of his passes for 92 yards and an interception in the 10-7 defeat. The Hawkeyes currently rank last in scoring offense, 127th in rushing offense, 127th in passing offense, and are one of just seven teams to not find the end zone via the air through Week 2 of the college football season.
Although he told reporters that he’d “reassess everything” in relation to the offensive struggles, Ferentz still pointed to a lack of synergy, blamed injuries, wide receivers, and offensive line play as part of the reason for the poor play. When your punter has twice the number of yards than your entire offense, it’s time to make a change.