Week 2 of the college football season is in the books and a few shifts have occurred within the polls. Over the weekend, several top 25 teams clashed against each other.
Here’s a recap of the key games of college football’s week 2:
No. 16 Oklahoma at Tennessee
The Sooners came into a hostile environment at Neyland Stadium, with 100,000+ fans supporting the Tennessee Volunteers. The upset minded Volunteers, ranked 23rd at the time, came out firing against the Sooner. After intercepting OU quarterback Baker Mayfield on OU’s first drive, Tennessee scored 17 unanswered points before the Sooners finally kicked a field goal in the second quarter. While the Volunteers headed into halftime looking to be in control, Mayfield and the Sooners had other plans. The Sooners forced Tennessee to punt on their last two drives, then marched down the field twice to tie the game at 17. In overtime Mayfield shined, rushing for a touchdown to answer the Volunteers opening score. With the game knotted up at 24, Mayfield found Sterling Shepard for an 18-yard pass for a touchdown, holding of Tennessee on the subsequent drive to hold on 31-24.
No. 12 Oregon at No. 4 Michigan State
The Ducks and Spartans squared off for the second consecutive year and this time, Sparty came out on top. The Spartans defended their home turf against the 7th ranked Ducks, who defeated them 46-27 last year. However, Oregon did not have Marcus Mariota this season and their offense sputtered. Transfer Vernon Adams engineered a fourth quarter rally for the Ducks but on second down late in the fourth, Adams overthrew a wide-open Byron Marshall. Marshall had beaten his defender on a fade route and a touchdown catch would have given Oregon the 35-31 lead with a minute remaining. The Spartans sacked Adams the next play and his fourth down pass fell incomplete, giving MSU the nail-biting victory. Consequently, the Spartans moved past Baylor in the polls, going to fourth while the Bears fell to fifth.
Jacksonville State at No. 18 Auburn
The Auburn Tigers were almost upset by Jacksonville State at home this past weekend in sad display of football. Jacksonville State came into the contest a 40- point underdog and almost pulled off the impossible. Jacksonville State became the first FCS team to take a Division 1 opponent into overtime where they eventually lost 27-20. JSU gained 438 total yards, 37 more than the Tigers. Auburn quarterback Jeremy Johnson had another sub-par performance in his second career start, throwing for 2 interceptions. However, Johnson managed to throw up a prayer to Melvin Ray in the back of the endzone with 39 seconds left to force overtime. There, the Tiger defense held off JSU and scored the winning touchdown to improve to 2-0. After poor showings in back to back games, the Tigers fell drastically in the polls, going from 6th to 18th. So far Auburn and Johnson have failed miserably to meet expectations and for a team many picked to compete for a national title, they have greatly underwhelmed thus far.
