Winners and Losers: Ranking Week 2's upsets from Colorado State to Kentucky

Nick Bromberg
·College football and motorsports writer

Week 2 of the college football season featured just two matchups between ranked opponents. No. 3 Georgia took care of No. 24 South Carolina easily and No. 10 Stanford had no trouble dispatching USC.

Other top teams like Alabama, Auburn, Ohio State and Oklahoma had easy days as well. Just one top 25 team — who you’ll see a bit later — was upset on Saturday outside of No. 15 Michigan State, who lost to Arizona State long after you likely went to bed. The Spartans’ loss to Herm Edwards’ Sun Devils is the biggest loss of the weekend.

But there were some other upsets too. Here are the five biggest non-Michigan State upsets of the second week of the season.

5. Colorado State 34, Arkansas 27

Arkansas led the Rams 27-9 late in the third quarter. A 2-0 start to Chad Morris’ tenure as the Razorbacks’ head coach seemed inevitable.

It was not. Not long after Arkansas missed a field goal that would have made the lead 30-9, Colorado State started its charge. The Rams scored 25-straight points over the last 18 minutes of the game to stun the Razorbacks 34-27.

CSU’s last four drives went touchdown, touchdown, field goal and touchdown while Arkansas missed the field goal and had three-straight punts. The defensive stops are noteworthy for the Rams, a team that had given up 88 points in its first two games of the season.

4. Eastern Michigan 20, Purdue 19

Purdue is now 0-2. Eastern Michigan kicked a field goal as time expired for the win in the soggy conditions.

The Boilermakers’ loss to Northwestern in Week 1 was helped by a late personal foul penalty as Northwestern tried to run out the clock. And guess what, another late personal foul happened against EMU again. Purdue had EMU stopped on its game-winning drive but a third-down sack was negated by a personal foul that resulted in an automatic first down.

Eastern Michigan’s win is the school’s second over a Big Ten team. The first came in 2017 when the Eagles beat Rutgers.

3. Kansas 31, Central Michigan 7

Congratulations to the Jayhawks, who won a road game for the first time since 2009. That’s a span of 46 games and 49 when you count three neutral site losses in that timeframe into the equation.

This game goes into the upset column because Central Michigan was favored by four points. So it counts.

2. East Carolina 41, North Carolina 19

Things are going really poorly for the Tar Heels. Thirteen players are serving suspensions for selling team-issued shoes, UNC was outmatched in Week 1 against an improved Cal team and then inexplicably lost to East Carolina in Week 2.

The Pirates lost in Week 1 to FCS North Carolina A&T. So by the transitive property, that means A&T gets to claim superiority over UNC too. That’s probably the least of coach Larry Fedora’s worries at this point. UNC was 3-9 in 2017 but had rash of injuries to blame for that season. There’s fewer excuses in 2018. The decline of America — or at least UNC football — may be upon us.

1. Kentucky 27, No. 25 Florida 16

The Wildcats finally beat the Gators. In the Swamp, nonetheless. Kentucky hadn’t beaten Florida since 1986, a span of 32 games. The Wildcats tool the lead with 14 third-quarter points and held on as Florida couldn’t get anything going on offense in the second half.

Florida cruised in Week 1 against Charleston Southern but its drives in the second half against the Wildcats started with a punt, a controversial missed field goal and an interception. That field goal might have been good, but it ultimately didn’t matter. The Gators would have still been trying for a game-winning score when Feleipe Franks fumbled and it was returned for a touchdown with no time left.

The game ball went to offensive line coach John Schlarman who has been dealing with cancer.

WINNERS

South Florida WR Terrence Horne: Horne returned two kickoffs for touchdowns … on back-to-back kickoffs.

The freshman’s first return was a 98-yard score and he had another opportunity just a few minutes later after a short Georgia Tech touchdown drive. The sequel wasn’t as good as the original. It was just 97 yards.

He scored his third touchdown in the fourth quarter to help USF’s comeback. The Bulls scored three-straight touchdowns to win 49-38 and Horne’s three-yard catch cut the deficit to 38-35 with 12:11 to go.

Mississippi State RB Kylin Hill: The Bulldog running back outgained Kansas State all by himself.

The Wildcats had 213 total yards of offense while Hill had 211 rushing yards and two touchdowns himself. He added 16 yards and a touchdown in the passing game to give him 227 total yards and 18 total points. Kansas State scored 10 in the 31-10 Mississippi State win.

The game was Mississippi State QB Nick Fitzgerald’s first game back since a nasty leg injury at the end of the 2017 season. Fitzgerald rushed for 159 yards on 18 carries but was a bit rusty passing. He was just 11-27 for 154 yards.

Boston College RB AJ Dillon: Holy Cross could not slow Dillon down. He rushed for nearly 150 yards and three touchdowns in the first nine minutes of the game as Boston College — well, Dillon — raced out to a 21-0 lead.

That was his only workload for the day. With the game out of hand early, Boston College went to the bench and Dillon didn’t get a touch the rest of the day. The Eagles combined for 52 carries for 365 yards in the 62-14 rout.

Navy QB Malcolm Perry: Take a look at this touchdown run from the Navy QB.

Navy scored again after that Perry TD to sneak past Memphis 22-21. It’s a nice bounceback for the Midshipmen after losing at Hawaii in Week 1.

Michigan’s offense: Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Wolverines are supposed to beat Western Michigan. And that they did, 49-3. But it’s hard not to watch what the Wolverines did on Saturday and not see an improved offensive product from what happened in Week 1 against Notre Dame.

QB Shea Patterson was 12-17 passing for 125 yards and threw three touchdowns. More impressively, Michigan averaged almost nine yards a carry with 35 rushes for 308 yards. Scoring 49 points on 53 offensive plays is a damn good ratio.

LOSERS

Nebraska: The Scott Frost era showed promise. But Nebraska fans expecting everything to be magically fixed in the early weeks of Frost’s tenure were sorely disappointed on Saturday. Colorado scored a late touchdown to beat the Huskers 33-28.

The Huskers could have also lost promising freshman quarterback Adrian Martinez for an extended period of time. Martinez injured his right knee in the fourth quarter and had to be replaced by backup Andrew Bunch for Nebraska’s final drive. Frost said the early indications on Martinez’s injured knee were “semi-encouraging,” so there’s at least a glimmer of hope for Nebraska fans in what ended up being a dour weekend.

Northwestern: The Wildcats’ offense was kept in check by a surprisingly dominant Duke side in a 21-7 Blue Devils win on Saturday. QBs Clayton Thorson and T.J. Green each threw an interception and no one outside of running back Jeremy Larkin gained more than a yard on the ground.

Meanwhile, Duke’s Daniel Jones was 16-22 passing for 193 yards and three touchdowns. But he left the game late in the second half with an apparent left shoulder injury. If he’s out for an extended period of time, Duke’s chances to be a sleeper contender in the ACC take a big hit.

UConn: The Huskies traveled all the way across the country to Boise State and gave up 41-straight points in a 62-7 blowout loss. It’s easy to pick on UConn, a team that has struggled since Randy Edsall’s first stint with the team, but it’s not too much to ask for the Huskies to be semi-competitive, is it? Boise State had over 800 yards of offense.

UConn was blitzed 56-17 by UCF in Week 1. Yes, starting with the two best non-Power Five teams in the country is rough, but it’s not setting up to be a good season in Storrs.

Temple: Here’s another AAC team that’s at 0-2. And unlike UConn, Temple doesn’t have the excuse of playing good opponents. The Owls lost in Week 1 to Villanova and followed it up Saturday with a 36-29 loss to Buffalo.

The Bulls scored the game-winning TD with 59 seconds left on a pass from Tyree Jackson to Anthony Johnson. Temple got to midfield on its final drive but quarterback Frank Nutile fumbled and Buffalo recovered.

Savannah State and Lamar: Each of the FCS teams gave up 77 points to their opponents. We’d throw Southern Illinois in here too for giving up 76 to Ole Miss, but the Salukis at least had the decency to keep close with the Rebels in the first half and score 41 points themselves. Savannah State didn’t score on Miami and Lamar didn’t score on Texas Tech, who had 13 different players catch a pass.

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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.

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