What We Learned, Week 1

South Carolina vs. Vanderbilt

1. South Carolina is a fragile team. I like their defense, especially that defensive line. But they are so dependent on the read option running game with Connor Shaw and Marcus Lattimore that they will be dead ducks if Shaw goes down. Glad to see Lattimore looks like he's healthy after ACL surgery. He made some moves that looked like the Lattimore of old. Good for him.

2. Vandy still has work to do. I was impressed that Jordan Rodgers looked as comfortable as he did, because 2011 was a bit of a struggle for him. I doubt that he has the same talent that his older brother (some guy named Aaron) does or that he'll be a NFL QB, but he can be useful for the Commodores. Plus, their backfield is loaded. Zac Stacy looked really good and they still have Warren Norman and highly-touted freshman Brian Kimbrow in the backfield. 

Boise State vs. Michigan State

1. Is it too early to put Le'Veon Bell in the Heisman discussion? He might not be as talented as some other college runners like Montee Ball or Marcus Lattimore, but if he gets 40 carries a game, he will blow by those guys' numbers easily. He reminds me of a hybrid of Eddie George and Ron Dayne, the first two guys I think of when I think of Big Ten workhorse running backs.

2. I'd give Andrew Maxwell a game grade of "E" for "EWWWWWWWWWWWWW." If Sparty wants to go the Rose Bowl, they'll need a lot better effort than that from him.

3. Like Rod Gilmore of ESPN said after the game, you can cross the Broncos off the BCS Buster list. The best team they play for the rest of the year is BYU. Though the Cougars looked good during a thrashing of Washington State, one win against BYU probably won't be enough to push the Broncos to the top of the polls this year. To their credit, the Broncos showed up and out-played Michigan State for most of the game. Chris Petersen is a boss and a legitimate top-3 coach in all of college football. He's right up there with Nick Saban. 

SJSU vs. Stanford

1. This version of the Cardinal will play like their teams of the past couple years, but they aren't nearly as good. That's obvious, but I was one of the few who didn't think they wouldn't miss a step. It's hard for me to figure out how SJSU stuck around with Stanford. 

Notre Dame vs. Navy

1. This is Notre Dame's deepest backfield they've had in quite some time. Even though starter Cierre Wood was left home for a violation of team rules, the Fighting Irish still managed to ring up 293 yards rushing and 50 points on Navy. A great deal of credit obviously should go to the Irish offensive line, who punished Navy's small defensive front all game long. Theo Riddick looks much more comfortable as a RB than he ever did as a WR. It'll be interesting to see how they divvy up the carries when Wood returns. Also, kudos to Brian Kelly for not being pigheaded when it came to his preferred spread attack. He knows Notre Dame's best offensive units are their RBs, offensive line, and tight end. He realizes that ND probably doesn't have an impact QB, so he did what the Irish are good at. Gives them a glimmer of hope that they might be able to exploit better teams on their schedule like Oklahoma and USC by punishing them on the ground. They will need a lot of growth from Everett Golson. I wasn't thrilled with his performance today. Some good, some bad. A conservative, vanilla game plan for him, though. If ND has intentions of beating Oklahoma and USC, among others, they will need a lot more from Golson.

2. New Navy QB Trey Miller is a stronger passer than the Midshipmen are used to having. Like Gary Danielson said, he'll learn the option in time. It takes time to master the option. But it's good news for Navy that they have a weapon at QB and that they can threaten teams with the passing game.

Marshall vs. West Virginia

1. West Virginia's offense is really good. As in really, really, really good. As in "might be better than the 2008 Oklahoma Sooners offense" good. They picked up right where they left off in the Orange Bowl, ringing up 69 points, 341 yards passing and weirdly, 314 yards rushing. The main criticism, if any, of Dana Holgorsen's offense has been its over-reliance on the passing game. If the Mountaineers have that kind of balance all year long, you can safely pencil them in for an all-time great offensive season. Geno Smith, consider yourself officially in the top three of Heisman candidates. Any QB who goes 33 of 37 for 340 yards and 4 TD's and backs that up with another 65 yards rushing on 8 carries and another score deserves serious consideration. I don't care if it's week 1. That's seriously high-end performance.

Miami (Oh.) vs. Ohio State

1. What a difference a year makes. Although the caliber of competition wasn't all that spectacular, game one of the Urban Meyer era at Ohio State couldn't have gone any better. Despite a sluggish first quarter, a 35-0 run engineered by Braxton Miller (207 yards, 2 TD's, 0 INT's, 161 yards rushing and a TD) paved the way for an easy Ohio State win. The secondary made a couple of costly errors and figures to be a work in progress for the duration of the season.

2. Miami is nothing special as a football team, but Nick Harwell absolutely deserves your respect and a measure of attention. He's a legitimate future NFL wide receiver.

Ohio vs. Penn State

1. In what will likely go down as the most memorable game of the day, the first surprise of the season went down as Frank Solich's crew won a big game, paving the way for them to possibly run the table all the way to the BCS. Don't believe me? Look at their schedule. It's possible. 

2. Right after the game ended, the ESPN cameras focused on Bill O'Brien and he had a look on his face of total dejection. You really had to feel for the guy, especially when Tom Rinaldi is right in his business right after the game asking him dumb reporter questions. I'm getting really sick of ESPN's obsessive reporting. It seems all they want to do is find one story per sport and assign a reporter to basically stalk someone for the rest for a while. Whether it's Tim Tebow, Jeremy Lin, or this Penn State fiasco, I'm sick of it. They should have spoken to the winning team and left O'Brien to handle his business and speak to his team. Shame on the worldwide leader. 

More WWL coming up after the afternoon and evening games conclude.