College football returned in all its glory last week, but a lack of massive upsets and general madness made it feel like something of a soft launch. Then along came Week 2.
Big Ten teams suffered upsets left and right. National powers fell, and even the No. 1 team in the country barely escaped its matchup with an undefeated record intact.
Among the most mundane results was Ohio State’s own, as the Buckeyes finished Saturday with an uncontroversial 33-point win over Arkansas State. But that doesn’t mean nobody’s stock improved or regressed during the day.
Below we’re charting the trends across the sport after the second full week of college football action, taking a look at who took a step in the right direction and who’s going backward after a wild one on the gridiron.
Stock Up
Marvin Harrison Jr.
Who else could I possibly start this list with? Harrison was the belle of the Buckeye ball against Arkansas State this weekend, putting forth his best overall performance to date with a career-high 184 yards and a hat trick of touchdowns. Harrison caught passes of 45, 42, 42 and 30 yards during his first-ever 100-yard game in scarlet and gray, and the final three went for scores. Harrison joined Joey Galloway as the second Buckeye wideout to catch three touchdowns in multiple games, but he’s now done it in two of his past three performances.
Harrison’s showcase made fans forget all about the absence of Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who will have competition for targets when he gets healthy.
Prepare to relive all three of Marvin Harrison Jr.'s touchdowns against Arkansas State.pic.twitter.com/bFe5qNSCIb
— Eleven Warriors (@11W) September 10, 2022
Buckeyes’ big-play ability
Beyond Emeka Egbuka’s 31-yard touchdown in the season opener, the Buckeye offense wasn’t as explosive as usual against Notre Dame. That was not the case in Week 2. I mentioned Harrison’s three 30-plus-yard touchdown grabs, but Egbuka had the longest of the day at 51 yards. TreVeyon Henderson also found the end zone from 23 yards out on the ground, and the Buckeyes had other rushes of 25, 27 and 41 yards before all was said and done.
C.J. Stroud averaged nearly 22 yards per completion as he racked up 351 yards on just 16 connections, and the Ohio State offense got back into gear after a slow start in Week 1.
Mike Hall
Whether or not Hall was the “alpha dog” Larry Johnson referred to in the preseason, he’s sure playing like it through two weeks. The second-year defensive tackle followed up his stellar first start with an equally impressive encore, finishing with three tackles for loss and a sack against Arkansas State. Hall now has five TFLs through two games, just two fewer than Haskell Garrett had to lead all Buckeyes in 2021.
Hall left the game after suffering an apparent upper-body injury in the second half, but Ryan Day said the issue won’t be a long-term one after the game.
Mike Hall continued his hot start to the 2022 season with another dominant performance on Saturday. pic.twitter.com/9hNYFWZCcp
— Eleven Warriors (@11W) September 10, 2022
The Sun Belt
The college football gods took mercy on Ohio State Saturday, sparing the Buckeyes from the blistering wrath that the Sun Belt exacted upon several of its Power 5 foes. While Arkansas State wasn’t much of a threat to OSU, Marshall, Appalachian State and Georgia Southern all scored massive upset wins over the weekend. The Thundering Herd edged out the eighth-ranked Fighting Irish by five points, Appalachian State defeated No. 6 Texas A&M, 17-14, and Nebraska fell to Georgia Southern on another three-point stunner.
Oh, and all of those upsets came with the Power 5 favorite playing at home.
Quinn Ewers/Texas
Yes, yes, I know. Quinn Ewers suffered an early injury that could leave him sidelined for multiple weeks and the Longhorns suffered a loss over the weekend. So how could either have raised their stock? Well, Texas would have knocked off the No. 1 team in the country if Alabama hadn’t mounted a last-second come-from-behind scoring drive. Had Ewers not gotten injured in the first place, perhaps Texas already would’ve been out of reach by the game’s final seconds, given how good the former Buckeye looked early.
A loss is still a loss, but Texas and its young quarterback can still take something of a moral victory from the surprising performance.
Quinn Ewers with a DIME of a deep ball
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) September 10, 2022
The @TexasFootball offense is heating up pic.twitter.com/Exjg29EwrM
Stock Down
Denzel Burke
It was a bit of a weird one for Ohio State’s top corner on Saturday. Burke got beat in coverage on several occasions and committed two pass interference penalties on the same Arkansas State drive in the first half, with the infractions separated only by a couple of plays. After giving up one big gain downfield later on, Burke seemed to forget he still had to tackle the Red Wolves’ receiver, and the sophomore was benched for JK Johnson after that. Burke reentered the game in the second half, but Johnson wound up playing more snaps overall during an off day for the second-year defensive back.
Hard to argue with this pass interference called on Denzel Burke. pic.twitter.com/IvpKUaGK37
— Bill Rabinowitz (@brdispatch) September 12, 2022
Scott Frost/Nebraska
They’ve finally had enough in Lincoln. After a 1-2 start to the 2022 season, and more specifically, a 45-42 loss to Georgia Southern, the Nebraska football program axed Scott Frost. Three games into his fifth season with his alma mater, Frost held a woeful 16-31 record and a .340 winning percentage with the Huskers. Frost never even made a bowl appearance with Nebraska.
Even Mike Riley, Frost’s predecessor, went .500 in his three seasons with the program. The Huskers have new leadership with interim head coach Mickey Joseph, but it’s still hard to see how things will get much better in the short term.
Wisconsin
The Buckeyes’ Sept. 24 matchup with the Badgers lost a little luster this weekend, as Wisconsin won’t enter Columbus with an undefeated record. Paul Chryst and company fell at the hands of Washington State after committing three turnovers and failing to put up more than 253 yards of offense. The Badgers didn’t score a point in the first, third or fourth quarter and subsequently dropped out of the AP Top 25.
Ohio State’s win over Notre Dame
People were ready to troll Ryan Day just minutes after he issued the following quote during his postgame press conference Saturday: "The good news is we've already played a top-five opponent, so we've already proven ourselves in some ways."
The Fighting Irish aren’t a top-five team anymore, and they aren’t even ranked at all after suffering its second straight loss to start the season. Losing to Ohio State is one thing, but dropping to Marshall at home is another category. To make matters worse, starting quarterback Tyler Buchner will undergo surgery for an injury suffered in the loss. While some may argue the season-opening loss played a factor in Notre Dame’s Week 2 stumble, the Irish slide makes Ohio State’s Week 1 win a bit less triumphant in retrospect.
Marcus Freeman
Freeman had plenty of momentum at his back entering his first entire season at Notre Dame, even after losing his head coaching debut against Oklahoma State in last year’s Fiesta Bowl. He could even have been forgiven for dropping the season opener to his alma mater in Columbus. But Freeman is now in unprecedented territory for a Fighting Irish coach, as he holds an 0-3 record in his first three contests at the helm of the program. Next weekend’s matchup with California is now a must-win for Freeman if he hopes to turn things around in 2022.
Jimbo Fisher
All the five-star prospects in the Aggies’ record-setting 2022 recruiting class didn’t mean a thing on Saturday as the No. 6 team in the country was sunk by Appalachian State. Putting up just 31 points against Sam Houston State wasn’t overly impressive, and Texas A&M’s 14-point output against the Mountaineers was even less so. Now Fisher faces an SEC gauntlet that includes three top-15 teams (and Alabama) over the next four weeks. Good luck!
Iowa
Yikes. If a 7-3 win over South Dakota State in the season opener wasn’t bad enough, Iowa failed to put up more than seven points again in Week 2, and this time in a three-point loss to Iowa State. The Hawkeyes have now tallied just 316 total yards of offense through two games, which is good for – you guessed it – dead last in the country by a WIDE margin.
