My grandfather, a long-time high school football coach at Haileyville, in southeast Oklahoma, tried to break down the sport’s basics ahead of my first season as a pee-wee player in 1984.
“There’s a quarterback, a halfback and a fullback,” Lafayette “Faye” Warren explained.
I eagerly consumed his knowledge and made some assumptions.
“OK, grandpa,” I said. “Just by their names, I assume the fullback is the most important position, the halfback is the second-most, and quarterback is third.”
“That’s a good way to look at It,” he said.
My grandfather wasn’t wrong, and neither was I.
At least not in 1984.
Things have certainly changed in 40 years. While my grandpa was completely happy having his quarterback hand off to a fullback or halfback in his “power-T formation” to see what havoc could be created in the ensuing scrum, that’s not the case for any modern coach now. The game has simply evolved to the point fuddy-duddies of my grandfather’s, my dad’s and, quite frankly, my era must accept that quarterback play is the single, most important, aspect of a football team.
As I watched OU win its 24-13 showdown against Michigan on Saturday night, that fact could not have been more apparent.
The Sooners struggled mightily on offense last season behind a duo of Jackson Arnold and Michael Hawkins, who had a combined one start between them going into the season. OU finished 6-7 in 2024, with much of the blame going toward an offense with the worst overall numbers the program had seen since 1998.
Fast forward to this season, and the Sooners have exchanged inexperience and incompetence behind center with a game-tested, effective quarterback who led Washington State to eight wins last year. Add to that healthy receivers, a better tight end and an offensive line ahead of last year’s unit, it makes sense that we saw what unfolded on Owen Field against the Wolverines.
OU’s John Mateer finished 21-of-34 passing, for 270 yards, a touchdown and an interception. He added 74 rushing yards and two more touchdowns with his legs, which made some fantastic jump cuts on designed runs to gash the defense. Freshman Michigan quarterback Bryce Underwood, meanwhile, finished 9-of-24 passing, for only 142 yards.
Looking at those stats, it’s not hard to decipher which team prevailed.
It all comes down to the guy behind center, which leads us into a full-house backfield of Hangover Highlights for Week 2:
- OU’s Mateer played a good — and borderline great — game, while Michigan’s Underwood looked like an 18-year-old freshman thrust into a situation over his head against a multi-front defense that he had a hard time reading. Going into the week, it seemed likely that OU head coach Brent Venables would make things difficult for the young QB, and that’s what happened.
- Outside of the quarterbacks, however, OU vs. Michigan proved to be an evenly matched affair. Both defensive lines overwhelmed the opposing offensive lines. OU had a bit better showing from its receivers compared to Michigan, while the Wolverines had the more effective running backs Saturday night, gashing OU’s defense for that 75-yard touchdown run on the first play of the second half.
- What does it mean going forward? For the Sooners, they have what looks to be a defense similar to the one that kept them in so many games last season. But now, it seems to be coupled with an offense that can accomplish more than peeing down its own leg — a potentially dangerous combination.
- Yet, I was still thrown aback by the number of stupendously stupid plays the Sooners made. Between untimely and unnecessary penalties, dropped passes, missed tackles, special teams miscues and odd play calls, I’ll admit I still wonder just how well-coached this team is. Personally, I felt OU was the better team against Michigan by about three touchdowns after what I saw unfold in Norman on Saturday night, but silly plays by the Sooners kept it from being a blowout.
- I said all offseason I believed Oklahoma State had a puncher’s chance against Oregon. With Oregon having lost its quarterback from last season, I felt it might take the Ducks a bit to round into form.
- But as I mentioned last week — when Oklahoma State’s own quarterback, Hauss Hejny, went out with an injury in the season opener — I thought the Cowboys’ prospects would hinge on his health, as I was not impressed by backup Zane Flores. This Saturday, Flores floundered pitiably in Eugene, never crossing the 100-yard passing plateau and throwing a pair of pick-six interceptions in his Cowboys’ embarrassing 69-3 loss.
- I wondered at some point during the massacre why OSU head coach Mike Gundy even bothered putting his team on a plane to Oregon. After his silly comments earlier in the week about how Oregon outstripped Oklahoma State in NIL roster funding, it seemed the longtime OSU coach was already making excuses for what might unfold. Then, when I saw Gundy elect to punt at Oregon’s 40-yard line, with his team already down 14-0 in the first quarter, I couldn’t help but think the Cowboys’ coaches and team should have just licked the stamps and mailed this game in, say, Wednesday.
- With Gundy’s group accomplishing anything other than innovation, today marks 365 days since the Cowboys have beaten a major-conference team. Hell, it’s only one week shy of a full year since they won ANY game against an FBS-level opponent. The countdown is officially on for Gundy’s job.
- The curiosity that seems to surround Texas was solidified in my brain when my dad walked into the house early Saturday afternoon and requested that I change the channel from a hard-fought and competitive Iowa-Iowa State game to the 38-7 Texas blowout win over San Jose State. I guess “hate-watching” is a definite thing.
- With that in mind, the nation’s weekly Arch Manning madness continued with weird ups and downs. Manning started the game slowly, completing just three of his first six passes for short yardage and “leading” his team to punts in its first two possessions.
- Manning then threw FOUR touchdowns in his next SEVEN passes, which is nothing short of Tecmo Bowl-level incredible.
- They were all the TDs he would throw, though, as he ended up with a solid line of 19-of-30 passing for 295 yards, those four touchdowns and one interception.
- As I said last week, I still believe Manning will be good, likely not spectacular this season, but with a high enough ceiling to improve in the future. His situation is essentially the same as any other talented, highly recruited quarterback who doesn’t have the baggage that comes with the last name of “Manning.”
- I mentioned the Iowa-Iowa State game, and it was a true barn-burner, pun absolutely intended. Iowa State has rarely been able to slay their in-state nemesis, despite arguably having better teams over the past 10 years. Since 2015, Iowa had won seven of nine games against the Cyclones.
- The ‘Clones built a 13-3 lead before Iowa struggled back to tie things up in the second half. A 54-yard Iowa State field goal with fewer under two minutes remaining, however, sealed a 16-13 win for the home team.
- Iowa State now has wins over Kansas State and Iowa, and an underrated victory against a tough FCS team in South Dakota. Could Iowa State have a real chance to win a conference title this season for the first time since 1912 — the year the Titanic sank, the Girl Scouts were founded, New Mexico and Arizona became states, the first transatlantic flight occurred and the Oreo cookie was invented?
- That 1912?!
- Back to the doldrums of our digital modernity, Baylor defeated SMU in one of those long overtime slugfests we only see in college football — a 48-45 double-OT saga. The Bears truly had their backs against the wall, after being beaten by Auburn last week and finding themselves down by double-digit points at three different times against SMU.
- The win not only gives Baylor a heartbeat heading into the conference season, it gives the Big 12 a much-needed win over a rival conference. Meanwhile, with the SMU defeat, both teams in last year’s ACC championship game already have a loss after just two weeks of this season, with neither the Mustangs nor the Clemson Tigers looking too good to start the year.
- The Big 12 needed that Baylor win because one of the conference’s preseason darlings, Kansas State, made an interesting “splat” noise Saturday. Kansas State, who many predicted to be the conference champion, fell 24-21 to an Army team that had lost to something called Tarleton State the week before.
- Army quarterback Cale Hellums rushed for 124 yards … on 41 carries! I’m sending his stat sheet from Saturday to the terrorists in this world and telling them to be afraid … be very afraid … of what’s coming once he graduates and joins our armed forces.
- In other Big 12 blues, the defending Big 12 champion Arizona State Sun Devils were bedeviled 24-20 at Mississippi State, a program that finished 2-10 last season and dead last in the SEC. Yet, the Bulldogs still managed to bite the defending champion and highest-ranked member of the Big 12 Conference.
- In further SEC-on-Big 12-violence, Missouri toppled Kansas 42-31 at home. Missouri is nobody’s pick to make many waves in the SEC this season, while Kansas was a sexy preseason darling for the Big 12. Yet … here we are. It makes one wonder about the competitive gap between the two conferences, something even the robots recognize when you search “Big 12 conference sucks” on Google.
- “The perception that the Big 12 conference ‘sucks’ stems from a feeling that it lacks a unified identity, has lost its traditional powerhouses, and is now filled with teams that are not seen as nationally relevant threats, according to multiple sources,” Google’s AI overview states. “This sentiment is particularly strong among fans of former Pac-12 schools that joined the conference, who feel that the new conference’s members are a mismatched collection of ‘leftovers’ and that the overall quality has diminished.”
- Harsh but accurate words, Google. At least the Big 12 hasn’t been found guilty of “unlawful monopolization,” I guess.
- Anyway, we should not lay laurels at the feet of the SEC just yet, as one of its own preseason sweethearts — the Florida Gators — were subdued by the snout and gored through the tail in an 18-16 home defeat by the South Florida Bulls.
- The Gators were a trendy pick to make noise in the SEC behind quarterback D.J. Lagway. Saturday’s game against the Bulls portends fewer positive aspirations, but I can’t help but think maybe USF is simply a damned good team with this win and its blowout over Boise State last week.
- Those who have followed the Hangover Highlights here at NonDoc the past two seasons know about my unrelenting man-crush on former New Mexico State quarterback and current Vanderbilt Commodore Diego Pavia, who took his underdog squad into Blacksburg, Virginia, on Saturday night and absolutely ran the favored Virginia Tech Hokies out of their own building with a 44-20 beatdown.
- The Pavia family can be an absolute handful, and not just in football, as Diego’s two brothers proved last week.
- Finally, my Week 1 crush on Pudge the Cat continues unabated, despite his Bowling Green Falcons’ 34-20 loss to Cincinnati on Saturday. Sure, BGSU lost the game — one in which the Falcons entered as more than three-touchdown underdogs — but besides the gutsy showing on the scoreboard, I discovered Pudge had become so popular, he needed his own protective detail Saturday … complete with shirts declaring, “PUDGE SECURITY.”
- If Pudge and Pavia ever meet, my head might explode in more powerful ways than any Sunday-morning college football hangover could ever cause on its own.
