College football preview: Heisman odds, best weekends for games, a beer with Dan Marino
Trevor Lawrence is 2-1 to win the Heisman, Tua is a shade under 3-1. Oh, and don't make plans Oct. 12. Monster games that day.
Last weekend was just an appetizer. The season kicks off in earnest with a hearty seafood tower-like slate of games on Thursday followed by a hefty prime rib-like schedule to gnaw on two days later.
In part one of our two-part preview, we’ll salute an Ohio State defensive lineman’s courage, try to grasp the Clemson quarterback’s statistics, and take a hard look at the Heisman odds for locals Jonathan Taylor and D’Andre Swift. (Read part 2 here.)
1. Alabama junior Tua Tagovailoa is the top-rated NFL draft-eligible quarterback, according to a season preview on DraftScout.com. He’s followed by Oregon senior Justin Herbert, Georgia junior Jake Fromm, Texas junior Sam Ehlinger, and Michigan senior Shea Patterson.
2. The Crimson Tide are coming off a 44-16 drubbing by Clemson in the championship game, the largest loss in the Nick Saban era. The Tide open Saturday against Duke in Atlanta, in what is the Blue Devils’ biggest nonconference game since they hosted Alabama in 2010. The then-No. 1 Tide won, 62-13, that day, and are favored by 34 points.
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3. Clemson cornerback A.J. Terrell, who had the pick-six off Tagovailoa to open the scoring of the championship-game blowout, became a father over the summer. He’s almost surely headed to the NFL after this season.
4. The best Saturday of the regular season is the final full one, Nov. 30. The top games (with AP preseason ranks):
2-Alabama at 16-Auburn
5-Ohio St. at 7-Michigan
9-Notre Dame at 25-Stanford
12-Texas A&M at 6-LSU
5. The second-best Saturday? Oct. 12.
2-Alabama at 12-Texas A&M
8-Florida at 6-LSU
10-Texas vs. 4-Oklahoma (at Dallas)
USC at 9-Notre Dame
6. Quarterback Jalen Hurts, who played in three championship games at Alabama, will take over for Heisman winner Kyler Murray at Oklahoma.
7. Coach Dana Holgorsen, explaining why he left West Virginia and the Big 12 for Houston and the AAC. “To me, there’s no difference. The University of Houston and a lot of the schools in the American are no different than the conference I just left. I’m looking at it from a coaching perspective. If I’m at any school in the quote, unquote Power Five — which I fully embrace us being a Power Six [team] because of what I’m about to say — I look at the teams in this conference, and I really don’t want to play them in the nonconference. Because those guys are really good.” Not buying it, but that’s what the man said.
8. Holgorsen’s first assignment is a doozy: at Oklahoma on Sunday. Holgorsen was 0-7 against the Sooners while he was at West Virginia, with his defenses giving up an average of 47 points.
9. Matt Rhule went 1-11 at Baylor in 2017 and 7-6 last season. He added longtime Temple assistant Ed Foley to his coaching staff. “I’ve offered Ed a job to come to Baylor every year since I’ve left” Temple, Rhule said. “Just another person that I know will tell when I’m going down the wrong path. ... I trust Ed, and I think he’ll bring a lot to us from a football perspective.”
» FROM THE ARCHIVES: Letting Ed Foley walk was a big fumble by Owls
10. Ohio, which hasn’t won a league title in 51 years, is favored in the Mid-American Conference.
11. USC installed a new offensive system after going 5-7 last year, its first losing season in almost two decades. Head coach Clay Helton originally hired Kliff Kingsbury to coordinate the offense, but Kingsbury headed to the NFL after a month to coach the Arizona Cardinals. He was replaced by Graham Harrell, another leaf in the Mike Leach coaching tree.
12. Paddy Fisher, the stud linebacker for Northwestern whose name suggests he should be playing for Notre Dame, lost his father to cancer in 2010. He said helping his mom raise the family shaped him into the leader he is today.
13. The brother of Ohio State defensive tackle Robert Landers was in the Oregon District of Dayton, Ohio, on Aug. 4, when a gunman killed nine people and injured 27. The shooting inspired Landers to tweet out a video he hopes will help destigmatize mental-health issues.
14. “I said this 10 years ago in a meeting ... in the ACC, and people ... kind of laughed,” said Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher, formerly of Florida State. “I said, listen, guys, mental health is a huge part of what’s going on right now. When you’re 18, 20 years old, the kids — the things they’re facing, is a hundred times greater than we ever did when we were coming up because of [the media] and the social media and the accessibility and the expectations. It’s crazy what these kids go through, and it’s a shame sometimes.”
15. Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence, the early Heisman favorite, is on a streak of 169 pass attempts without an interception. He had 30 TDs and four interceptions last season, with a rating of 157.6. Unfathomable numbers, especially for a freshman.
16. Over the weekend, FanDuel had Lawrence at 2-1 odds to win the Heisman, Tagovailoa at a shade under 3-1, Hurts and Ohio State QB Justin Fields at 12-1. Georgia’s D’Andre Swift, a St. Joe’s Prep product, is at 25-1. Ditto for Wisconsin RB Jonathan Taylor, of Salem (N.J.) High.
» Heisman odds: FanDuel | DraftKings | Parx
17. Syracuse, which has given Clemson fits the last two years, hosts the defending national champions on Sept. 14. The Orange beat Clemson two years ago and nearly upset the Tigers in Death Valley in 2018. Syracuse was 6-0 at home last year.
18. Kansas is selling beer and wine at home games. In probably unrelated news, Jayhawks coach Les Miles is back in the Big 12 for the first time since 2004, when he was at Oklahoma State. Kansas is 18-90 in the last nine seasons.
19. Vanderbilt is also among those lighting the drinking lamp. Beer and wine sales, said AD Malcolm Turner, “will provide additional resources to invest in our mission of helping student-athletes succeed on and off the field, such as through facility enhancements and in other areas.” Wonder if he talks like that at home.
20. Then there’s Mississippi State coach, and former Penn State offensive wizard, Joe Moorhead, who is trying to get Dan Marino to come to Starkville for a game. Moorhead went to the same Pittsburgh high school (Central Catholic) as the Hall of Fame quarterback. “And, as Pittsburgh people will know, I’ll have a cold case of Iron City on ice waiting for him."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.