The SEC dominated the first week of college football, a five-day extravaganza that included Labor Day Weekend.
SEC teams went a perfect 16–0, which kicked off with No. 25 Missouri dominating Arkansas-Pine Bluff 54–14 on Sept. 3. Ninth-ranked Ole Miss capped things off with a 41–38 victory over No. 24 Louisville on Sunday in the lone matchup between two top-25 teams.
Ranked SEC teams all rolled to dominant victories with point totals in the 50s and 60s, and unranked teams did likewise. Auburn survived a nail-biter with a 17–16 victory over Baylor on Sept. 5 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta for the closest SEC win of the weekend.
Baylor missed on a two-point conversion attempt with nine seconds left that cost the Bears the game. As for Ole Miss in the only other one-score game, the Rebels marched 40 yards in eight plays for a game-winning field goal at Nissan Stadium in Nashville.
Of all the big starts, arguably the biggest came on Sept. 5 when No. 11 demolished Clemson 51–10. LSU head coach Lane Kiffin’s debut delivered, and expectations have only grown for an LSU program that hasn’t made the College Football Playoff since the 2019 national championship season.
While LSU has that drought to erase, the SEC hasn’t fielded a national champion since 2022, when Georgia won back-to-back titles. That also marked the last time an SEC team made the national championship game, and the conference has landed a finalist since the 12-team CFP field came into existence.
Once heralded as the premier conference in college football, the SEC has taken a backseat to the Big Ten in recent years. The Big Ten produced the last three national champions: Indiana, Ohio State, and Michigan.
While the Big Ten mostly dominated in Week 1, there were some concerning developments. Rutgers endured a 37–21 upset at home against UMass on Sept. 3, and that was just the beginning.
Michigan, ranked No. 16, needed a “Hail Mary” touchdown pass with a second put back on the clock to escape Western Michigan, 13–12, on Sept. 5. The Wolverines fell out of the top-25 poll afterward because of the controversy surrounding the win and nearly losing to a MAC team at home.
The Big Ten went 16–2 overall and the only other loss besides Rutgers was Wisconsin, another program that has fallen on hard times. Fourth-ranked Notre Dame beat the Badgers 41–13 on Sunday at Lambeau Field. Wisconsin stayed close with the Fighting Irish for the first half during the rare college game at Lambeau, but Notre Dame blew out the Badgers in the second half.
The Big Ten nearly had more losses beforehand on Sept. 5, but Northwestern rallied against FCS powerhouse South Dakota State 34–18, and No. 2 Oregon held off Boise State 34–27. Michigan State’s 30–20 win over Toledo on Sept. 4 also had moments of doubt.
Meanwhile, the Big 12 had a 13–3 mark in Week 1, which started with Colorado’s comeback win over Georgia Tech, 14–13, on Sept. 3. While the Big 12 only had three teams lose, Oklahoma State took the biggest loss of all, 24–10, against Tulsa, a non-Power 4 team.
As for the ACC, it was a .500 weekend at 6–6, which doesn’t bode well for the Power 4 conference in the early going. No. 7 Miami had the most convincing win against Stanford on Sept. 4, and No. 19 SMU established itself with a 27–24 win over Florida State on Monday.
Besides FSU, the other losses stand out for the ACC. California couldn’t handle UCLA, 45–24, in Bruins head coach Bob Chesney’s debut on Sept. 5. Boston College fell to Cincinnati, 34–15, on Sept. 5, in a game where the Eagles couldn’t stop the Bearcats quarterback J.C. French IV, who had four touchdowns.
All four Power 4 teams get automatic bids with conference champions for CFP, but the ACC will need to turn things around in Week 2 to build a case for a second team making the field in December.
