Week two is now in the books, meaning we’ve reached the quarter-mark of the season, and while it’s still early, week two taught us a lot. Here’s what we learned.
1) The Rolling Tide
Alabama, perhaps to the surprise of many, has leapt out to a 2-0 start. And they’ve done so with a basic formula. Solid defense, and a running game that makes you want to quit trying to tackle by the end of the third quarter. Freshman quarterback Balion Siege has been electric, both on the ground and through the air, and he’s been helped a great deal by the Notre Dame transfer at tailback, Joe Pantoja. This is one of the strongest one-two punches out of the backfield in the CFSL, and their defense is no slouch either. Despite only being a top four defense against the run, they’re playing cohesively, and making stops when they absolutely need to. We’ll see if somebody can find an aspect there to be exploited in the coming weeks.
2) WHEN THE WOLF HOWLS…
Florida corner Dakota Wolf has been lights out already in two weeks. What he has done in this span of time is nothing short of stunning. In week one, he set the CFSL record for kick return yards by pulling a 360, and then tying a CFSL record with two kick return touchdowns. Single game records, and he set them in week one. Then, last night, he goes off and snags three interceptions, one of which was a pick-six. Question is, what’s he going to do next week?
3) un-luck o’ the irish
Notre Dame has got some massive struggles, and it starts with the quarterback position. The Fighting Irish didn’t look too bad in week one, staying stride-for-stride with Ohio State. The problem is, quarterback Leo Asiata threw two interceptions in the fourth quarter and sealed the fate of Notre Dame. Asiata still hasn’t thrown a touchdown pass this season, but doubled down this week by throwing four more interceptions. In the span of two weeks, Notre Dame is 0-2 and has only scored 16 points. It’s not all on Asiata though. Freshman tailback Vidar Lund has not gotten enough of a workload, with most of his carries this week coming in garbage time. Notre Dame needs to centralize their efforts on Lund to help Asiata.
4) THE ONLY ONES
Going off the previous point, there’s only two teams who have yet to win a game right now. Notre Dame has been mentioned, but the other is the winless Florida Gators. Florida had a rough time two weeks straight, but in two very different ways. Week one the Gators’ faithful saw the game get away and snowball on them. This week? Things appeared to be well in-hand for Florida, at one point in the second they had a 21 point lead, and took a 28-14 lead into halftime. Then the game was slowly wrestled away from them. It’s difficult to pinpoint where the issue may lie for the Gators, outside of the rushing struggles of halfback Avery Jordan. Whatever the cause, they need to rectify their issues quickly.
5) THE YEAR OF THE DUAL-THREAT
It’s not like dual-threat quarterbacks are a new introduction to the CFSL. Certainly not, but this is what makes this season so interesting. Of the top four quarterbacks – based on quarterback rating – three of the four have over 150 rushing yards through the first two weeks. USC’s Kingston Fox, Alabama’s Balion Siege, and Clemson’s Will Slay. The quarterback rating leader, Oregon’s Devonta Cribbs, has 137 yards rushing thus far. Of those three with over 150, two of them have over 200 rushing yards. Fox is up to 224, and Siege is sitting at an even 300 for the season. And that’s not even including names like Ohio State’s Xavier Garcia-Allen or Miami’s Jose Bueno. The dual-threat quarterback has taken the CFSL by storm this season, and we’ll see how far each will take their respective teams.
As we enter into week three the identity of each team is becoming more and more clear, and we’ll see what more we’ve got to learn about each team going forward. Don’t miss out on The Inside Blitz Podcast on Monday at 6:00 PM CST over on Twitch, and we’ll see you in league chat.
