Week 1 CFB Rundown

There’s nothing we as a society love as much as a good comeback story. In life, you rarely ever get a chance to have a mulligan when things go awry and start fresh. However, sports are generally more forgiving in this area. Specifically in college football, you’re now afforded the luxury of entering the transfer portal. In previous years, players would have been tied to their university or suffered a year long ineligibility period for transferring. Now, that CFB rule is obsolete, giving players a second chance to start fresh.

Delving fully into that topic is another story in and of itself, but for the sake of brevity, we’ll shelve that for a later date. With that freedom to move about, players in less than ideal situations can now leave for new opportunities & be immediately eligible to play. Also, CFB coaches can suggest (or essentially force) players to enter the portal to start anew and or free up scholarships in the room.

While there’s definitely some cases where players have underperformed and been rightfully benched, there’s also cases where players who were solid, but in unfortunate situations, took the brunt of the criticism and blame for poor team performance. There’s also situations where a player just needs more time to develop and come into his own.

Regardless, when you’re a high profile player coming into college and it doesn’t work out at these elite programs, a certain shadow is cast upon you. A haunting, harrowing shadow- the kind that’s hard to ever get rid of. The old saying goes, “timing is everything” & that couldn’t be more true for the young men I watched play Saturday and Sunday. Cincinnati QB Emory Jones, Texas State QB TJ Finley, & Oregon State QB DJ Uiagalelei have all been through the wringer in recent years.

Jones & Finley are on their 3rd school now. Uiagalelei is at his 2nd. While there was a varying level of expectation between the three, they all underachieved in their previous situations. All three have been then butt of the internet and CFB media jokes, almost unfairly so. Written off as old, washed up, and busts. All three left their situations with the hope of a renaissance & finally living up to their potential.

The beautiful part about this is, they’ve all gotten those fresh starts we previously spoke about. While long term success remains to be seen, they all three took their second (and third) chances at a first impression & ran with it. So while week 1 of CFB delivered us plenty of memorable moments, watching these players seize their opportunity was the highlight for me. Here’s the stats from their debuts for their new teams.

Emory Jones: 19/23. 345 passing yards. 5 passing TD’s. 2 rushing TD’s. W vs EKU.

TJ Finley: 22/30. 298 passing yards. 3 passing TD’s. 1 rushing TD. W @ Baylor.

DJ Uiagalelei: 20/25. 235 passing yards. 3 passing TD’s. 2 rushing TD’s. W @ SJSU.