One week of college football action is almost officially in the books, and in the SEC, every team has taken the field and played its first game of the 2025 season. To put it simply, it was a mixed bag for the SEC to start the 2025 campaign.
It definitely didn’t appear that the conference, which at one point this century had won 7 national championships in a row, was drastically superior to the rest of the college football world.
But hey, I’m not here to rain on the SEC’s metaphorical parade. I’m here to hand out some awards to the standouts of the weekend, and I’ll be back each and every Monday this season to do the very same thing. Let’s have a day, shall we?
Biggest Winner of the Weekend: Brian Kelly
Of course, this wacky weekend of college football produced no shortage of surprising results — FSU over Alabama, South Florida over Boise State, and Tarleton State over Army all come to mind — and LSU’s 17-10 win in Clemson was one of them. Maybe folks in SEC country wouldn’t agree, and neither would the legendary Lee Corso, who picked LSU to win the title this year, but I didn’t even have LSU in my College Football Playoff field this season, so color me surprised.
Going into Saturday night’s road game against the Clemson Tigers, Brian Kelly had yet to win a season opener since taking over as the head coach at LSU. Considering LSU had been 0-3 in Week 1 under Kelly, and that Clemson was my preseason national championship pick, I penciled the Tigers (Clemson, that is) in for a win and didn’t give it that much thought otherwise. Now LSU has forced me to reevaluate everything I thought I knew about this season, and for the record, I’m not complaining.
Give me all of the unpredictable results. I want a full-blown season of chaos this year, something out of 2007, where upsets became the norm, and for a few weeks there in the middle of the season, it seemed like 20 different teams could win the championship at season’s end. As if it weren’t official before this weekend, it is now… LSU could absolutely win the national title this year. Sure, Brian Kelly was 0-3 in Week 1 games heading into this season, but in all other games at LSU he’s 29-8. And LSU’s schedule this season all of a sudden doesn’t look as daunting as it once did. Texas and Georgia are nowhere to be found, and what figured to be LSU’s toughest road test — a visit to Bryant-Denny Stadium on Nov. 8 — doesn’t look so tough anymore.
Hey, speaking of Alabama…
Biggest Loser of the Weekend: Kalen DeBoer
Let’s start here… you wanna know how badly this Kalen DeBoer situation in Alabama is looking? The first bit of research I did for this column was to see who the shortest tenured Alabama coach was. There were 3 head coaches — all pre-WWII — who only got 1 season in Tuscaloosa, but within the last 75 years, the answer to that trivia question is Dennis Franchione, who turned down a 10-year contract extension to take over as the head coach at Texas A&M because Bama was staring down NCAA sanctions that included a bowl ban. The shortest-tenured head coach that Alabama let go was Jennings Whitworth, who went 4-24-2 in the 3 seasons immediately prior to Bear Bryant’s arrival.
Now I’m not saying that DeBoer’s stay at Alabama is going to be shorter than Whitworth’s, but it’s definitely not a promising sign that there are already pieces being written about who should take over for DeBoer as the head coach at Alabama, including Jon Gruden and Jimbo Fisher, per Dari Nowkhah. Are we really sure that either one of those 2 are better options in 2025? I know I just spoke adoringly of the 2007 college football season, but we’re not in 2007, friends.
Kalen DeBoer probably deserves a longer leash than a 2-season run at Bama, unless of course things really crater this season and Alabama is flirting with a .500 record by mid-November. At that point, anything is fair game, but for now, DeBoer should be afforded the time to turn things around, even if he’s forced to deal with the well-deserved criticism that comes with Alabama’s first Week 1 loss since 2001.
Overreaction of the Weekend: Arch Manning is Overrated!
Admittedly, Arch Manning’s performance at the Shoe on Saturday afternoon certainly wasn’t the kind of game you’d expect from the preseason Heisman Trophy favorite, but I’d suggest heading to your medicine cabinet and popping open your bottle of chill pills and taking one before you say something about Manning that you’ll likely regret a couple of weeks from now.
Sure, there was far more good than bad, but I’d advise you to consider 4 things:
First, Ohio State’s defense might be really freakin’ good this season. The Buckeyes boasted the best defense in the country last year, and it’s possible we get to the end of the season and say the same thing this year.
Second, this was a pressure-packed environment for Arch to be kicking his 2025 season off in. Drop any quarterback into this situation and they likely aren’t lighting the world on fire.
Third, I didn’t love the game plan from Steve Sarkisian. It felt very vanilla to me, and maybe that’s an indication he didn’t trust his quarterback as much as he’d like, but I doubt that.
Fourth, just check out this throw:
Arch Manning is going to be just fine.
Play of the Weekend: Vernell Brown III’s 1-Handed Catch
Full disclosure, I was actually preparing to make the above Arch Manning throw the play of the weekend, simply because it was the most NFL-caliber throw I saw all weekend, but then Vernell Brown III went full-OBJ in the later slate of games, and I had to had to recalibrate.
When you go full-OBJ, you win Play of the Weekend. I don’t make the rules, I just enforce them.
SEC Debut of the Weekend: Joey Aguilar
Not only is “Aguilar” is a heck of a lot easier to pronounce than “Iamaleava,” but the transfer from Appalachian State — who started his collegiate career at the City College of San Francisco — performed extremely well in a neutral site matchup against a very game Syracuse squad. Aguilar completed 16-of-28 passes for 247 yards and 3 touchdowns, including a deep ball to Braylon Staley that went 73 yards to pay dirt in the 2nd quarter.
Aguilar is 24 years old, so he’s not just some kid who is going to be overwhelmed by the moment. He’s practically a grown man, and he played grown man football on Saturday afternoon. Next week’s matchup with ETSU will serve as a nice warm-up before Georgia comes to town on Sept. 13. That’s when we’ll see what Joey Aguilar is really made of.
Unexpected Hero of the Weekend: Vicari Swain (WR, South Carolina)
The Beamer Bowl was ugly for 3 quarters, and just when it was starting to look like Virginia Tech might be in position to sneak out another big-time ACC over SEC win, Gamecocks wide receiver Vicari Swain made the most Beamer Ball play possible, flipping the script and giving South Carolina all the momentum with an 80-yard punt return — its first since 2013 — that extended its lead to 17-8.
“It’s so many Virginia Tech games where offense is ugly and special teams finally says, all right, we’re tired of watching this. We’re just going to go score ourselves, and that’s what we did,” Gamecocks coach Shane Beamer said after the game, per Jackson Castellano of the Island Packet.
Most Impressive Player I Saw This Weekend: Dylan Stewart
I’m almost hesitant to say this, but I’m going to anyways… there were a few times when South Carolina’s 19-year-old sophomore looked a little Jadeveon Clowney-ish out there on Sunday afternoon. Clearly, he’ll fit right in once we makes the jump to the NFL and is playing every Sunday afternoon.
Stat Line: 7 tackles, 1 sack, 1.5 tackles for loss
One Big Question Heading Into Week 2: Can John Mateer and Oklahoma get revenge on the Big Ten when they host Michigan?
Better hope so, otherwise next Monday, the overreaction of the weekend might just look something like this… The Big Ten has officially surpassed the SEC as the powerhouse conference in College Football!
