Random observations from this weekend’s college football action thus far:

South Carolina and Steve Spurrier are building something quite nice up in Columbia.  They have a legitimate shot in the East to win the title but hey it’s week one.  North Carolina is going to be a solid team in the ACC this season as I suspected.  Always good when you have a senior quarterback.

Mississippi / Vanderbilt was a thrilling game to watch.  Both teams should have winning seasons and are doing their part to add to the depth in the SEC conference.  Defense may be the reason why neither team wins as many games as they want to.

 USC’s struggle with Hawaii was a bit of an eye opener. Can anyone tell me the last dual quarterback system that worked?  Nevertheless, that’s week one and the game was in Hawaii which has the power to make you bring less than your best.

The 52-51 final score in the Rutgers / Fresno St. game was indeed a surprise.  Expected Rutgers to play better defense than that.  Derek Carr, David’s younger brother throws for 470. Is he the best Carr in the driveway?  Rutgers needs to tighten up their air patrol pronto!

Michigan St. still lacking that explosive element in their offense.  It’s going to cost them this season.  Teams are going to drag them into a track meet and they won’t have their spikes.

Didn’t expect to learn much from Miami’s game vs. Florida Atlantic on Friday and this remains true. I am assuming that Golden and staff did not want to show much offensively and that led to them failing to reach the 40 or 50 point barrier that fans wanted to see.  Canes fans will get a clearer picture come this Saturday for sure.

Gotta love the story of Baker Mayfield the Texas Tech walk on freshman quarterback who went out on Friday Night and out dueled former 5-star recruit and Texas commit turned SMU Mustang from the same high school, Garrett Gilbert.  Mayfield put up 5 TDs and 400 + yards in Tech’s 41-23 win over SMU.  Mayfield had 67 touchdowns in high school but only three offers of which,  Texas Tech was not one of them. Sometimes production actually matters folks!  That I think Kliff Kingsbury was just trying to show off.

Great debut for Wisconsin’s Garry Anderson.  The man is a great coach and folks need to get used to Wisconsin doing a whole lot of winning.  Shout out to Plantation HS, Florida product Sojurn Shelton snagging a pick in his first college football game.

Michigan certainly flexed their muscle against Central Michigan 59-9.  Apparently trying to send a message to the team down South who struggled with Buffalo in their opener.

Northern Illinois continuing to show that parity exists in college football knocking off Iowa 30-27.  Kirk Ferentz need not add layers to his clothing when the weather turns cold in Iowa, his hot seat will take care of him.

Anyone else surprised by Notre Dame’s mere 28-6 win over Temple.  Not sure what to make of it.

And the Tide just keep rolling along.  Alabama is competing against themselves at this point.  Yes, I know this is totally knee jerk coming off of week one but their defense is just smothersome if I can use such a word.  That means beating them is going to be quite the chore. The Heisman Trophy type RB and QB plus the lights out receiver only adds to the problem.

Bobby Petrino can coach. I hope Hilltopper fans enjoy his one or two years at Western Kentucky.

Johnny Manziel, as much as I want to defend him, looks like a train wreck. His ability to consistently make the wrong decision is disappointing. Who’s this kid’s idol? Jim McMahon?

Florida, like Miami, apparently decided to play possum.  No surprise really that neither team covered the spread ahead of their meeting next week.  Both teams looked to be offensively challenged in their opener.

Clemson and Georgia gave the fans what they wanted.  Georgia’s stable of running backs seems endless.  Clemson’s offensive pressure seems undying.  Would love to see them matched up against Bama’s defense.  The game was worth the price of admission and who can’t love the atmosphere in Death Valley on game day.

Man how’s LSU gonna just score 37 points like that without warning somebody?.  The Tigers will do do something foolish like score 20 something against Nicholls St. then hang 37 on TCU like a family photo in a new home.  LSU brings some offense this season then I could be wrong about their SEC fate for 2013.  TCU, better tighten up, you are not in the Mountain West anymore.

Oregon’s scoreboard operator should consider using PEDs.  It’s going to be like that this year.

Now for the College Football parity report:

Towson 33  Connecticut 18
North Dakota St. 24  Kansas St. 21
Northern Illinois 30  Iowa 27
Cincinnati 42  Purdue 7
Illinois 42  Southern Illinois 34
West Virginia 24  William & Mary 17
Eastern Washington 49  Oregon St. 46
McNeese St. 53  South Florida 21
Northern Iowa 28  Iowa St. 20
Eastern Illinois 40  San Diego St. 19

Stop fooling yourself, parity in college football is here.