This past weekend, we had a notable lack of kelly green and rolling thunder and we all learned a little from the competition. For the sake of not going too in-depth, we will stick to the power 5. We saw that, for the most part, the group of five upper echelon teams perform well when facing the power five.

While it’s difficult to surmise which conference did the worst over the weekend, the choice for the best is the Big 10. Wisconsin won a marquee game over fairly heavy favorite Louisiana State University. Ohio State and Michigan competed with each other to see which university could lay more waste to their respective opponents. The conference as whole only suffered 2 defeats, and that was by Rutgers and Northwestern.

This is where the pack gets a little murky. The SEC, with the exception of Alabama, had an awful weekend. The fourteen team conference went a combined 7 – 7 over the weekend, with Tennessee needing overtime to beat a feisty Appalachian State team, and Arkansas edged Louisiana Tech by a single point at home. South Carolina overcame Vanderbilt in one of the worst football games I have ever seen. The issue of the SEC calling itself the best conference in college football has more to do with Alabama appearing to be the best team in college football.

The ACC was subdued most of this weekend, but they split their marquee matchups as Florida State decided to stage a furious comeback on Labor Day as they spotted Ole Miss a 28 – 6 lead before taking over that game. UNC played Georgia in the Georgiadome and kept it close but just could not contain Nick Chubb as he rumbled all over the field. The only perceived hiccup the conference suffered was Virginia losing to Richmond by 17.

The Big 12 as a whole did fairly well, but the issue was that Big 12 favorite Oklahoma was thoroughly beaten by Houston. That game, combined with the initial struggle TCU had against South Dakota State, may be extremely detrimental to the Big 12 playoff hopes. It is only week one and Ohio state bounced back to win the College Football Playoff after a week two Virginia Tech loss. They also benefitted from a conference championship game that the Big 12 does not possess.

The Pac 12 may have had the biggest flops of week, one simply because of lack of viewing, and the games that were viewed did not end well. USC was annihilated by Alabama, UCLA lost in overtime to Texas A & M and defending conference champion Stanford played Friday night in a sloppy game versus Kansas State.

While the season will last well into December, only time will tell which perceptions disappear. And for Thundering Herd fans specifically, we have twelve straight weeks of Thundering Herd football, starting Saturday night at 6 p.m.