College Football Week 2 Awards (2016) September 12, 2016

(Note:  All rankings are current AP [week 2] unless otherwise noted.)

COACHES Wish I were him: Kyle Whittingham, Utah

Glad I’m not him: Kalani Sitake, BYU

Lucky guy: Brett Bielema, Arkansas

Poor guy: Gary Patterson, TCU

Desperately seeking a wake-up call: Pat Fitzgerald, Northwestern

Desperately seeking a P.R. man: Willie Taggert, South Florida

Desperately seeking sunglasses and a fake beard: Mark Stoops, Kentucky

Desperately seeking … anything:  Darrell Hazell, Purdue

TEAMS Thought you’d kick butt, you did: No. 3 Florida State (defeated Charleston Southern 52-8)

Thought you’d kick butt, you didn’t: No. 2 Clemson (defeated Troy 30-24)

Thought you’d get your butt kicked, you did: Akron (lost to No. 10 Wisconsin 54-10)

Thought you’d get your butt kicked, you didn’t:  Nicholls (lost to Georgia 26-24)

Thought you wouldn’t kick butt, you did:  Nebraska (defeated Wyoming 52-17)

Dang, they’re good: Michigan

Dang, they’re bad:  Kentucky

Can’t Stand Prosperity:  Oklahoma State

Did the season start?  Northwestern

Can the season end?  Miami, OH

Can the season never end?  Wisconsin

GAMES

Play this again:  Arkansas 41, No. 15 TCU 38

Play this again, too:  Utah 20, BYU 19

Honorable Mention to play again:  South Carolina 13, Vanderbilt 10

Never play this again: No. 20 Texas A&M 67, Prairie View A&M 0

What? East Carolina 33, N.C. State 30

Huh?  Arkansas 41, No. 15 TCU 38

Are you kidding me?  Illinois State 9, Northwestern 7

Oh – my – God:  Central Michigan 30, No. 22 Oklahoma State 27

Told you so:  Arizona State 68, Texas Tech 55

NEXT WEEK

(rankings are current AP (post-week 2, pre-week 3)

Ticket to die for: No. 2 Florida State @ No. 10 Louisville

Also: No. 3 Ohio State @ No. 14 Oklahoma

Best non-Power Five vs. Power Five matchup:  UCLA @ BYU

Best non-Power Five matchup:  No. 6 Houston @ Cincinnati (Thurs.)

Upset alert: Auburn @ No. 17 Texas A&M

Must win: Iowa State @ TCU

Offensive explosion: No. 22 Oregon @ Nebraska

Defensive struggle: No. 1 Alabama @ No. 19 Ole Miss

Great game no one is talking about: Pitt @ Oklahoma State

Intriguing coaching matchup: Mark Dantonio of Michigan State vs. Brian Kelly of Notre Dame

Who’s bringing the body bags? South Carolina State @ No. 3 Clemson

Why are they playing? Ohio U @ No. 15 Tennessee

Plenty of good seats remaining: Monmouth @ Kent State

They shoot horses, don’t they?  Georgia State @ No. 9 Wisconsin

Week 2 Take-aways:

After such a spectacular opening week in college football the previous Saturday and surrounding days, this weekend was a considerable let-down. The noon timeslots were mediocre, save for the decent matchup of Penn State vs. Pitt. The 3:30 timeslots were positively atrocious, where the best game was arguably Kentucky vs. Florida, and that game turned out to be a 45-7 blowout in favor of the Gators. All the good games were crammed together in the evening, where I found myself wearing out my TV’s remote by switching around to the games of Arkansas @ TCU, Tennessee vs. Virginia Tech (at the Bristol, Tenn. Motor Speedway), BYU @ Utah, and occasionally South Carolina @ Mississippi State.

After this mediocre lineup of games for this week, one thing that has festered for a while has become even more clear. Two teams that continue to suck with overpaid coaches who are out of their depth are both Darrell Hazell of Purdue and Mark Stoops of Kentucky. The latter is another case, apparently, of where the only Stoops brother who has the skill set to be a legit head coach at the big boy level is Bob, not brother Mark. We might recall that the other brother, Mike, flamed out at Arizona. Concerning brother Mark, who apparently has had all these great recruiting classes while at UK, lost to lowly Southern Miss last week and this week was demolished by a recovering Florida, 45-7. His predecessor, Joker Philips, went 13-24 (4-20 SEC) after three seasons. Stoops is currently 12-26 (4-21 SEC) after the second game in his fourth season of tenure at UK. The Kentucky faithful would do well to ask themselves: is this progress?

The former had only one good year at a middling MAC program (Kent State), and the powers that be at Purdue were suckered in by this limited success to offer him the Purdue job, paying him $2.2 Million annually, or about $1 Million more than his predecessor, Coach Danny Hope. Hazell is thus far 7-30 since the 2013 season at Purdue, while Coach Hope went 22-27 in four seasons there. Doing that math, that amounts to paying an addition $4 Million for 15 fewer wins. For an athletics department that ostensibly prides itself on operating in the black, those numbers simply do not add up. Moreover, it makes one wonder how much better Hope would have performed had he been given those extra resources that Hazell currently enjoys (meager as they still are compared to true big boy programs).

Meanwhile, on a totally unrelated note, Mississippi State gave the impression that they have righted the ship after their embarrassing upset at home last week to South Alabama. They defeated South Carolina this week, 27-14. Conversely, the loss on the part of the Gamecocks’ gives those who doubt the wisdom of the hire of head coach Will Muschamp further credibility.

All this aside, there are some outstanding matchups awaiting us this upcoming weekend, namely:

Michigan State @ Notre Dame; Texas A&M @ Auburn; Pittsburgh @ Oklahoma State; Oregon @ Nebraska; Alabama @ Ole Miss; UCLA @ BYU; Houston @ Cincinnati (Thurs. evening); USC @ Stanford; Ohio State @ Oklahoma; and of course, Florida State @ Louisville, which could potentially be the best game of the year thus far. I for one am already chomping at the bit, especially for the latter game!