The 2022-2023 College Football season kicked off this past weekend, to the delight of many football fans around the world. The dog days of the summer with no sports except MLB are now a part of the past. They were some intriguing headlines as not everything went according to the expectations, and it resulted in the offshore sportsbooks being caught out a couple of times with their predictions.
Nebraska and Northwestern began the season in unfamiliar territory. The game took place in Dublin, Ireland and these two teams put on nothing but a show. With a 31-28 finish, fans in Ireland got their first taste of college football and will not forget it anytime soon. The experienced QB Ryan Hilinski has led Northwestern to a 1-0 record and a promising start to the season. Hilinksi went 27-38 with 314 yards and 2 TD’s.
Not many big names played this past weekend, but a few ACC powerhouses were in action. Florida State dominated Duquesne 47-7. Jordan Travis is back under center for the Seminoles and will look to get his team back to where they were a couple of years ago. Moving a little north, UNC had a shaky start but ultimately came out on top 56-24 over Florida A&M. A 28-14 score at halftime suggested the 2nd half could go either way. However, the freshman phenom Drake Maye made an outstanding debut to take the Tar Heels to 1-0. Maye threw for 294 yards and 5 TD’s.
Bret Bielema and the Illinois Fighting Illini got off to a hot start after thrashing Wyoming 38-6. Tommy DeVito is now the quarterback in Champaign, Illinois. After beginning his career at Syracuse, DeVito is now in the BIG 10 and looks to carry this program back to relevancy. DeVito threw for nearly 200 yards and 2 TD’s. Chase Brown ran for over 150 yards and scored 2 TD’s as well. An encouraging start to a continuing rebuild of Bielema’s squad.
To cap off the night, we were treated with probably the biggest surprise of the weekend. Vanderbilt was only favored by 9 points going into their matchup at Hawaii. Not much was expected of Clark Lea and this Vanderbilt, but we got the exact opposite. 42 unanswered points in the 2nd half led to a 63-10 victory for the Commodores. Mike Wright was all over the field for Vandy. He went 13-21 with 146 yards and 2 TD’s and rushed for 163 yards and another 2 TD’s. The Junior QB accounted for 4 touchdowns and over 300 total yards. Vanderbilt has all the momentum it could have ever asked for heading into Week 2.
