#HLSBets CFB Week 1 Recap, Top 25 and Rundown
Can anyone take Nick Saban and Alabama's crown? Welcome back to HLS Entertainment today we are going over week one of college football through #HLSBets, updating our Top 25, talking about what team's stocks are rising or falling, Heisman frontrunners and more!
Man didn't it just feel good to veg out on the couch flipping channels going back and forth watching football all weekend? I especially love how CFB took over the entire weekend with no NFL yet (AFC/NFC win total predictions out soon) with games going on from Wednesday all the way through Labor Day on Monday. Amazing way to spend a weekend.
Before we get to the top 25 lets discuss the weekend rapid fire. Coastal Carolina continues their 2020 success 52-14 win over Citadel hoping to prove they belong. Utah has a big win over a high school maybe Utah is back? Ohio State wins very ugly but still by multiple scores over Minnesota, who just lost stud RB Mohamed Ibrahim for the season. Arizona State beat up on an even worse high school team than Utah 41-14. Sam Howell and the North Carolina Tar Heels get absolutely embarrassed losing to Virginia Tech 10-17 possible dashing playoff hopes before the first real Saturday of college football.
Alabama proved yet again they just reload year in year out, meanwhile the U proves to still not be back getting manhandled 44-13. Tulane just about saved the CFB world of having to deal with Oklahoma yet again this year but after a successful onside kick they failed to reach the endzone and fell short 35-40. James Franklin and the Nittany Lions slugged it out old school Big Ten style with the Wisconsin Badgers and held on to win 16-10, Franklin is safe another week. Oregon just about joined the rest of the Pac-12 North in shame and embarrassment but were able to hold on to beat Fresno State 31-24. Bad weekend to root for Miami, either of them, as the Cincy Bearcats takedown the lesser Miami 49-14.
Deep breath.
The Indiana Hoosiers get absolutely embarrassed by the vastly superior Iowa team 34-6, will Indiana fans finally shut up after holding onto to their fraud season. Iowa State escapes a scare 16-10 over the third best team in Iowa, Northern Iowa. Sark avoids game 1 mistakes and takes care of business handling Louisiana 38-18 and ruining my over. USC topples San Jose State in a little Trojan on Spartan action 30-7. We got a possible national championship preview in the defensive slugfest of Clemson and Georgia, have defenses finally caught up this year? Georgia wins because a pick 6 10-3. Emory Jones lost the starting job at Florida as they stumbled more than they should have against FAU 35-14. Texas A&M looked sluggish to start but finished strong 41-10 over Kent State. Montana takes Washington's Pac 12 slot as they embarrassingly lost the right to call themselves a power five team losing 7-13. And LSU walked into the Rose Bowl and got just bullied by the blue sissy shirts losing 27-38. And finally, Florida State missed out on an early season giant upset over Notre Dame by starting the wrong QB and ended losing 38-41, that was just poor execution by the coaching staff.
Top 25
1. Georgia (LW1)
2. Alabama (LW3)
3. Clemson (LW2)
4. Texas A&M (LW5)
5. Ohio State (LW6)
6. Oklahoma (LW4)
7. Notre Dame (LW10)
8. USC (LW 11)
9. Cincinnati (LW13)
10. Iowa (LW19)
11. Iowa State (LW9)
12. Florida (LW14)
13. Penn State (LW15)
14. Oregon (LW7)
15. Texas (LW17)
16. Arizona State (LW18)
17. Oklahoma State (LW21)
18. UCLA (LW-NR)
19. Virginia Tech (LW-NR)
20. Utah (LW-NR)
21. Ole Miss (LW23)
22. North Carolina (LW8)
23. NC State (LW-NR)
24. Wisconsin (LW16)
25. Coastal Carolina (LW25)
* LW = Last Week, referring to my preseason Top 25 found here!
Bets I Should Have Won
Louisiana Texas Over
This one hurt. Props to Texas and head coach Steve Sarkisian coming out and proving they were the much better team. I had bought into an early season upset here (my bad) but after the second half explosion it felt like at least the over should have hit. But Louisiana driving the ball down late get stopped in the redzone with the current total sitting at 56 all they need is a field goal to push us over the 58 total. It was not a situation where "ah dang they just failed on fourth down", the clock ran out on them and they just did not run a play on fourth when they had PLENTY of time to do so. That hurt.
Heisman Frontrunners
Bryce young
Bijan Robinson
CJ Stroud
It is still Alabama's college football world and we are just living in it, I guess Saban got tired of having a QB problem with now this being his 4th straight QB to get Heisman buzz. I mean Bryce Young just skyrocketed to the top of every odds predictor for the Heisman trophy his odds have dropped all the way to +400 if not lower. And of course they would, he was setting Alabama records for most passing yards and touchdowns in a first career start with 344 yards and 4 touchdowns.
Bijan Robinson is a name to look out for. The Texas running back had 103 on the ground (5.2 ypc) and added 4 catches for 73 yards (18.3 ypc) and a TD. This guy is going to just be a stat sheet stuffer all year and if Texas stays relevant (keeps winning) then he might find himself on a plane to NYC this winter.
CJ Stroud is the name I am personally not a fan of, he is on a short leash by fans right now in Columbus. Only completing 13 of his 22 passing attempts is rough but the 294 yards and 4 touchdowns will help pad the stats long-term, and as long as he is starting and the name on the front of his jersey says Ohio State then he will be considered by Heisman voters.
Sell Your Stock
Washington
Northwestern
LSU
The Huskies are frauds that loss might be the worst in program history, any Pac-12 North title hype just died. Northwestern is a team that gets built up every year because of how scrappy they are (and because half the journalist covering the sport went there) but an early season loss hurts this season's projection as their win total was only 6 to begin with. LSU is who we (smart people) thought they were, but even I was wrong about how bad they are. This team has A LOT to prove to save some jobs.
Buy Stock In
Anthony Richardson and Florida
UCLA Utah and the Pac 12 South
Rutgers
Auburn
Anthony Richardson needs to be the full time starter in Gainesville, his explosiveness and elusiveness was incredible and dealing with him for a full game will make every DC in the country at least a little nervous. Oregon looks like it will have to do the heavy lifting for the North but the Pac 12 South could be just loaded with talent this year going 6-1 so far, I am excited for some Pac 12 after dark games this season. I just want to shout out Greg Schiano and Rutgers for whipping up on Temple 61-14, we see you keep building that program. Everyone is rightfully down on Auburn, heck they were bad enough last year they fired their coach. But we also very well know it was not a talent level issue but a coaching issue, so keep an eye out as this team could be dangerous with competent coaching.
Thank you so much for reading! Please share with your friends on social media I love the clicks. As a reminder I post the #HLSBets public sheet on my twitter @HaroldLStokes so give me a follow there, as well as you can hop on the Bonus Sheet weekly for $5 a week, but for reading this far I will let you know you can still hop on for the full regular season plus conference championship week for only $50. Just hit me up on twitter my dms are open!
