It's a short turnaround, but Week 2 of the college football season is already here.
Two matchups between AP top 25 teams are on the schedule, including the SEC East showdown between No. 3 Georgia at No. 24 South Carolina (3:30 p.m. ET, CBS) and a Pac-12 primetime game between No. 10 Stanford and No. 17 USC (8:30 p.m. ET, FOX). Those are the highlights of an otherwise-lean week of play.
Sporting News pegged the quarterback who had a potential Heisman moment (Trace McSorley), the coach on the spot (Tom Herman) and the upset pick (LSU over Miami) last week. It won't be that easy every week but we'll try again.
WEEK 2 PICKS: ATS | Straight up
Here is our look at the Heisman race, a coach on the spot, an upset alert and more.
Heisman watch
West Virginia's Will Grier (429 yards, five touchdowns), Oregon's Justin Herbert (281 yards, five touchdowns) and Ohio State's Dwayne Haskins (313 yards, five touchdowns) will be in stat-padding mode against lesser competition in Week 2, but there is a quarterback who has a chance to barge into the conversation.
South Carolina's Jake Bentley, who passed for 250 yards and four touchdowns to four receivers in a 49-15 victory against Coastal Carolina on Saturday, has that spotlight against No. 3 Georgia. The Gamecocks have shifted to a more up-tempo offense with new offensive coordinator Bryan McClendon. The offensive line is healthier, and Deebo Samuel — who had seven catches for 56 yards and a touchdown in the opener — is back in the lineup.
The early returns for Bentley have been encouraging through one week of play.
"It is one, very small sample set with one game, but I thought he was very efficient," South Carolina coach Will Muschamp said of Bentley on the SEC teleconference on Wednesday. "I think moving forward he's been better when we're playing with more tempo. That's part of the reason while we're doing this."
The Gamecocks appear confident heading into the game — Samuel apparently doesn't know who Georgia cornerback Deandre Baker is — and that adds to the heat of an SEC rivalry that flared up this decade when the Gamecocks won four of five from 2010-14. Georgia has won the last three meetings.
Bentley, meanwhile, is 1-5 against ranked teams as a starter, and he averages 166.3 passing yards on top of his seven touchdowns and eight interceptions. If he can change that against the Bulldogs and put up good numbers to go with it, he could make some Heisman noise.
MORE: SN's Week 2 Power Rankings
Coaches on the spot
Five Pac-12 coaches made their debut last week. Heading into Week 2, UCLA's Chip Kelly and Arizona's Kevin Sumlin face the prospects of an 0-2 start.
UCLA is a long shot to win at No. 6 Oklahoma, but some improvement must be shown after a disappointing loss to Cincinnati in the opener, regardless. The Bruins were held to just 306 yards. It won't be much easier in Week 3 against Fresno State, which dropped an FBS-best 79 points on Idaho in Week 1.
Arizona meanwhile dropped its opener 28-23 against BYU, and star quarterback Khalil Tate was limited to 197 yards passing and 14 yards rushing. Now Sumlin will return to his old stomping grounds at Houston, where All-American defensive tackle Ed Oliver will be waiting.
Both of these transitions will take time, but it will be intriguing to see where Kelly and Sumlin are when their teams meet in Oct. 20.
What about the rest? Oregon State's Jonathan Smith had a no-win situation at Ohio State, and Oregon's Mario Cristobal enjoyed a good start against Bowling Green. Who can make the biggest statement this week? Arizona State's Herm Edwards, who gets the "Pac-12 After Dark" treatment (10:45 p.m. ET spotlight against No. 15 Michigan State).
Upset alert
Aside from South Carolina-Georgia and USC-Stanford, there are only two other games involving top-25 teams with single-digit spreads.
No. 18 Mississippi State travels to Kansas State for a noon game, and Nick Fitzgerald returns from a one-game suspension. Backup Keytaon Thompson accounted for 473 total yards in a 63-6 victory against Stephen F. Austin last week. Joe Moorhead's offense works, and the Wildcats slipped past South Dakota 27-24 last week. Still, this reminds us of a trip No. 5 Auburn took to Manhattan in 2014. The Tigers won 20-14 against Kansas State.
No. 13 Penn State avoided the customary opening-week Appalachian State upset bid last week in a 45-38 overtime thriller, but now they'll travel to Pitt for an in-state rivalry that gets extra heat with the primetime spotlight. It's the 99th meeting between the two schools, and Pitt is good for one big upset a year. The Nittany Lions and Panthers have split the last two meetings.
"You grew up with this Pitt-Penn State rivalry," Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi said earlier this week, via 247Sports.com. "Going on 99 times, whatever. It's been a rivalry for a long time. Rivalries are rivalries. Everybody's got one. Who is it against? Maybe there's two or three of them in your season. That's what it is."
Don't be surprised if this week's upset comes from one of those two games.
MORE: Biggest Week 1 overreactions
Think about it
Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh is getting dragged by social media after the Wolverines lost 24-17 to Notre Dame in the opener, and his 28-12 record since taking over in Ann Arbor is frequently cited. After all, Brady Hoke was 27-13 at that point.
Two things. First, Hoke went 4-7 the rest of the 2014 season and was fired. Do you honestly think Michigan will go 4-8 this season? If so, then by all means keep making that lame comparison. The Big Ten is far better right now than it was in 2014, too.
Second, Michigan is still ranked No. 21 in the AP Poll. That Wolverines' record is the 23rd-best among FBS teams since 2015, and it's tied for 14th among Power 5 programs with Northwestern. Michigan isn't paying Harbaugh that much money to be in the same sentence as the Wildcats, but the point is it could be much worse. The Wolverines are what their record says they are.
Keep that in mind as this plays out. At the absolute worst — where Harbaugh isn't winning rivalry games or beating ranked opponents on the road — it's still a top-15 program. Harbaugh can work into the top 10 at some point with improvement in big games, and Michigan has a lot of those left. The next coach would face the same expectation and, given the Wolverines' practices since Lloyd Carr retired, it's safe to say another coach might not fix the problem. The better bet is to stick with Harbaugh and hope they learn from the loss to the Irish.
