College Football Focus Studs And Duds Week 1

 Each Sunday, College Football Focus will take a look at the good and bad of the college football weekend, listing three studs and three duds.

 With limited menu options from the opening weekend, we had to get a little creative.

There was a lot of celebrating by Stanford, which blasted Rice 62-7 in Australia (News & Observer)

Studs
Stanford's offense -- The Cardinal scored 62 points against Rice, the most in a season opener since 1968 (68-20 over San Jose State), and piled up 656 yards of offense. That's a stark contrast to last season, when Stanford was held to six points in an upset loss to Northwestern. Stanford had balance (37 passes, 36 rushes) and explosiveness, averaging nine yards per play, and running back Bryce Love was a revelation, finishing with 180 yards and a touchdown on just 13 carries. His play was almost enough to make fans forget about the departed Christian McCaffrey.

Colorado State -- The Rams opened a brand-new, 41,000-seat on-campus stadium in style, putting up 58 points on Oregon State and showing that they will definitely be a factor in the Mountain West race. QB Nick Stevens was stellar, tossing for 334 yards and three touchdowns, but it was an 44-yard interception return by Tre Thomas that put CSU up 34-20 and broke things open.

BYU DL Sione Takitaki -- The junior was all over the field early, creating havoc for a Portland State team that hung around longer than expected. The Cougars won in fairly uninspiring fashion, 20-6, but Takitaki was a one-man wrecking crew, finishing with seven stops, three tackles for loss and a pair of sacks.

Duds
Oregon State -- Gary Andersen was optimistic that his team could maybe make some waves in the Pac-12 this season, but after allowing 58 points to Colorado State and scoring just seven points after halftime, Anderson has to be worried about his season -- hyperbole, maybe, but the upcoming schedule offers little relief. Portland State -- no soft touch, as BYU found out -- comes in next weekend, and then it's Minnesota after that. Then the real fun begins -- at Wazzu, hosting Washington, at USC and hosting Colorado and Stanford. It's easy to see why the Beavers were pointing to the CSU game as important, because it's not impossible that they begin the year 1-7. We'll know more about them after the next couple of games, and maybe CSU was just better. But few -- least of all Anderson -- thought the Rams were 31 points better.


San Jose State -- The Spartans grabbed a 16-0 first quarter lead over a somnambulistic South Florida team before having their doors blown off in a 42-22 rout. What's worse is that San Jose State never really threatened after that first quarter, getting an oh-by-the-way touchdown midway through the fourth quarter. The defense allowed 315 rushing yards, and South Florida ran a school-record 101 plays. South Florida converted two of its three interceptions into scoring drives.

Rice quarterbacks -- The Owls knew they were in for a rough one going against a very good Stanford squad, but it still had to be disappointed with the play of quarterbacks Sam Glaesmann and Jackson Tyner. The pair combined to go just 10-of-24 for 95 yards and two interceptions, were sacked twice and hurried or hit numerous other times. Glaesmann had a QBR of 4.3 while Tyner's was 1.3 -- numbers that aren't going to win a lot of contests.