CLASS OF 2019 RANKINGS: Rivals250 | State | Position | Team

CLASS OF 2020 RANKINGS: Rivals250 | State | Position

AP TOP 25: Impact players that should shape the CFB Playoff picture

Even before I started working at Rivals.com, I would spend my Saturdays watching as many college football games as possible. Now that I have interacted with most current college football players, it gives Saturday’s a different perspective. Each week, I will watch as many games as possible and share my thoughts in this space, examining weird moments and sharing some throwback recruiting stories as well.

The heat indoors

This time of year, it’s never a surprise to see the obligatory shot of a thermometer on the sideline. You know, the “forecast says 89 but it’s over 100 down here on field level” special. But on Saturday there were a pair of indoor games where heat was also a factor. The air conditioning was apparently broken inside the Carrier Dome, meaning that Florida State and Syracuse were left to play in a stuffy indoor environment. One would think that would factor the team from the Sunshine State that is used to the humidity, but as we now know, it was no issue for Syracuse even with its backup quarterback. The TCU-Ohio State game was also indoors, but also featured a sweat-soaked Horned Frogs coach Gary Patterson. The whole point of playing indoors is climate control so it seems like this might be something for the facilities crews to iron out.

Everything about Florida State’s start

We already mentioned the Seminoles above but honestly they could be all five weird things for this week. The Noles looked brutal once again and the Willie Taggart era continues to be off to a rough start, with this week’s weird moment being an adult film star starting a GoFundMe page for Taggart’s buy out. Obviously, he inherited a situation that wasn’t ideal and losing games is one thing, but his team looking lost is concerning. The situation starts with the offensive line and might be tough to remedy considering the ‘Noles have just one four-star offensive lineman committed in the class of 2019.

Alabama’s dominance

What’s weird about that you say? Well, not much considering it’s been a decade of dominance and this looks like the most dangerous Alabama has been offensively during Nick Saban’s run at the school. Three weeks into the season it looks like the Tide are college football’s version of the Golden State Warriors, meaning we all know this is going to end with Nick Saban hoisting the trophy. But the ride is part of the fun even if the destination seems predetermined. All of this was also just an excuse to show this clip of an Ole Miss fan dressed as a shark made at an Alabama player for impersonating the Rebels' “Landshark” hand motion.

Kansas is back!

Kansas has won two games in a row. This is not a drill. The Jayhawks dominated Rutgers yesterday, winning easily in a game where the school’s defense forced six turnovers. People made plenty of jokes last year when Kansas made Louisiana a focus and at one point had three Rivals100 prospects committed, but the work in The Boot is a major factor in the school’s turnaround. Yesterday, it was former four-star Pooka Williams leading the charge on offense once again as he rushed for 158 yards and a touchdown. On defense, Louisiana native and former four-star Mike Lee had a pick-six while his former Landry-Walker (La.) high school teammate Corione Harris also had a pick. It’s still likely to be a long year for Kansas but the progress shown is encouraging.

Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory

A bizarre sequence between Vanderbilt and Notre Dame led to a near Commodores touchdown turning into a touchback on Saturday. This play turned out to be very costly later in the game as Vanderbilt nearly went into South Bend and pulled off the upset.

I ranked Deejay Dallas higher than our main competition and the reason I pushed him up might be the same reason they ended up pushing him down. Heading into college Dallas didn’t have a true position, as evidenced by the fact that he started his freshman year at wide receiver before eventually being moved to running back due to injuries at the position. On Saturday, he had a breakout game as a ball carrier, rushing for 110 yards and a touchdown in Miami’s win over Toledo. It was his first 100-yard game and as he continues to learn the position he only looks more dangerous.

The former two-star quarterback stepped into the starting lineup for Iowa State this weekend and while he didn’t come away with the win, he still had a career game, throwing for 360 yards and two touchdowns. Zeb Noland was a two-star in the class of 2016 and flipped to the Cyclones late from Appalachian State. He’s certainly been more than serviceable and can continue to prove me wrong with strong play in the future.

Since it seems like something new emerges every week as a sideline prop, this is now a weekly category. And Oregon State made a major statement with the debut of the Turnover Chainsaw. For those who have turnover prop fatigue, get out of here, they are here to stay for at least the time being and the Beavers really deserve points for their creativity. For those who don’t know, Oregon State plays a chainsaw sound at home on third downs to fire up the crowd, so it only makes sense for their turnover prop to be a chainsaw. I think the Beavers should take it one step further and take the chain off and allow players to actually start it on the sideline and rev it up. Something to consider for next week.

Our first two hot seat of the week honorees (David Beaty and Kevin Sumlin) went out and won their next game. That means the Noles are definitely beating Northern Illinois next week, right?

For the second-straight week, this honor goes to a former Rivals100 quarterback who played for Arizona State last season. Brady White is now at Memphis where he’s the Tigers' starter and is clearly finding his footing in the school’s high-powered offense. In Friday night’s win over Georgia State, White threw for 269 yards and five touchdowns. On the season, he’s completing 70 percent of his passes and has 10-1 touchdown to interception ratio.

This was an easy choice this week as I found my eyes drifting over to the battle between the American Athletic Conference basement dwellers and the school I didn’t know had a football team until this week. The game was a scoring fest that was 42-28 at halftime in favor of the Huskies and ended with the Rams knocking on the door of scoring the game-tying touchdown before quarterback JuJuawn Lawson was sacked by UConn’s Eli Thomas on the 16-yard line. UConn has had a rough start to the year after playing UCF and Boise State and even if it wasn’t pretty I’m sure Huskies fans will take the win and run.