Is the glass half full or half empty?

Both, of course.

With that premise, here are 10 things I liked and 10 things I didn’t like from the SEC’s 2015 opening football weekend.

THINGS I LIKED

1. The SEC’s domination.

Count ’em up: 12-1 with wins against the ACC, Big Ten and Pac-12. We expect nine conference teams will be ranked in the Top 25 come Tuesday afternoon.

The SEC West finished 2-5 during bowl season with a loss in the national semifinals. Others pointed and laughed all offseason. On Saturday? The division went 6-0 and averaged 43.7 points per team, and that’s without an inflated LSU-McNeese State total (canceled due to weather).

The SEC may or may not include the nation’s best team this year. But, as much as any other time in its history, this conference is disgustingly deep.

Oh, Vanderbilt. We’re sure there will be times that SEC East teams like Georgia appreciate you this season — as in, next weekend. But this week you ruined a good thing. Andy Ludwig, did you have to dial up the same two-point conversion play that Western Kentucky admitted they knew you always try?

2. Christian Kirk.

As good as Speedy Noil is and still could be, after a single game, I’ll venture to say that Kirk will be better.

The true freshman housed two huge touchdown runs — a 79-yard punt and a 66-yard reception that was nothing more than a glorified lateral. Against the nation’s 15th-ranked team. In his first college game. Competing with Noil, Josh Reynolds and Ricky Seals-Jones for targets.

It’s just one game. But the potential exists for Kirk, a former five-star recruit, to be special even by Aggies receiving standards.

3. The state of offensive football in Gainesville, Fla.

Forget the opponent. Florida could’ve been playing the co-ed intramural flag football champions Saturday and the crowd would be pleased with some of the offensive numbers that the Gators posted.

Operating behind a piecemeal offensive line, Treon Harris and Will Grier combined to complete 29 of 36 passes for 379 yards.

The team looked like it had, you know, practiced offense prior to the first game of the season. An early salute to the new coach. His job was to excite the fan base and, despite saying next to nothing in the media for months, accomplished that on the field.

One penalty. 606 total yards. Ladies and gentlemen, Jim McElwain.

4. Neutral-site games.

  • Texas A&M vs. Arizona State
  • Alabama vs. Wisconsin
  • Auburn vs. Louisville
  • South Carolina vs. North Carolina
  • Tennessee vs. Bowling Green

Pick any random SEC weekend in October. Choose five games. Match them up with this handful and make a definitive case that your games are more entertaining than these. Plus, if you’re a true SEC fanatic, the best part about these neutral-site games is that your conference can win them all.

5. Verne and Gary.

The CBS announcing duo record the facts of the game about as accurately as a king’s self-appointed court scribe at a trial during the prime of the beheading era.

But they have so much darned fun. And that infectious laugh. Try to tell me with a straight face you don’t hear it in your head right now, and feel giddy about it to boot.

It’s almost disappointing when these two don’t produce a lovable bumble or two.

6. Seeing so many great players healthy and back on the field.

Carl Lawson, Kenyan Drake, Antonio Morrison and Laquon Treadwell were among the star players who returned from serious injuries to make an impact Saturday. No matter which fan base is yours, it’s great to see premier talents on the field competing.

7. Aggressive security guards.

It’s slightly amusing when a pudgy middle-aged man jiggles and jives his way around the field of a well-attended sports venue, usually not in athletic attire. Then it’s a little disconcerting and troublesome. It’s really that easy to get past our well-groomed, expensive security?

I prefer that the men who are supposed to at least protect the players are physically capable of doing so. As such, well done to the crew at the Bowling Green-Tennessee game in Nashville’s Nissan Stadium.

8. Tennessee’s backfield duo.

Alvin Kamara didn’t look like a man who understood his place in Team 119’s narrative. The former Alabama back was supposed to come to Knoxville as a likable sidekick — a changeup option with speed providing consistent relief for the big-bodied Jalen Hurd.

Yet, on Saturday, Kamara led the team with 144 rushing yards while bearing a far closer resemblance to a tag team partner.

Throw in a mobile Joshua Dobbs at quarterback and Tennessee rushed for 399 yards, most since Nov. 26, 1994. This performance alleviated at least some of the concern surrounding the UT offensive line.

9. Texas A&M’s pass-rush duo.

Depending on which statistician you trust, Daeshon Hall registered four sacks to All-America candidate Myles Garrett’s two. Yet Bruce Feldman slotted Garrett third in his post-Week 1 Heisman rankings.

We heard from College Station all offseason that Hall would be a major player. If teams continue to dismiss his production as a product of the attention that Garrett draws away, from what we saw Saturday night, Hall easily could eclipse 10 sacks himself. And all that without Julien Obioha (undisclosed injury), who slid inside in a move the team depicted as promising.

10. Derek Mason as a defensive coordinator.

Brandon Doughty threw for more than 4,800 yards last season at Western Kentucky. Mason held him to 2 of 12 on third downs and 209 passing yards. That’s despite needing to bail out an offense that still managed to turn the ball over three times and didn’t score a touchdown until 33 seconds remaining.

If Mason needs to stump for another coordinator job sometime soon, tape of this game should suffice.

THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE

1. Jeremy Johnson’s decision-making.

No two interceptions are alike. Sometimes the receiver runs the wrong route. Sometimes protection fails. Sometimes the ball deflects off a tight end’s chest.

On Saturday, Johnson had no one to blame but himself for his three picks. Louisville should’ve saddled him with more.

I’m not sure if he was pressing. Maybe the Cardinal defense remains really good despite losing six players to the NFL draft. Maybe expecting all the new parts to gel so quickly was too much. Maybe all of the above.

Johnson still can turn it around. He looked more like a backup than a Heisman contender Saturday. But don’t write off his 2015 yet.

Still, he put too much trust in his own arm talent and forced desperate throws into double and triple coverage. Yikes.

2. Weather delays/disruptions/cancellations.

For the second consecutive year, an SEC team has outright canceled a non-conference game against an inferior opponent. This time it was LSU, which entered a lightning delay early in the first quarter before giving up four hours later.

At least the Tigers waited. I can’t read minds or lips, but after the second lightning delay of the game, Louisiana-Monroe and Georgia seemed too eager to call it quits during that televised huddle.

For good measure, Tennessee endured a weather delay in Nashville, perhaps “dampening” its chances at impacting an important market for the fan base.

3. Multiple ongoing quarterback competitions.

Did I appreciate seeing Kyler Murray’s “first to third base on a shallow single” speed? Sure.

Was it impressive that Jim McElwain was able to move the Gators offense whenever and wherever he wanted with both Treon Harris and Will Grier behind a decimated line? In a circus trick kind of way, yes.

Was South Carolina’s offense more effective by snapping the ball to four different quarterbacks? Maybe.

At least we suspect Chad Kelly has done enough to earn permanent starter status in Oxford.

I’m not a big fan of these ongoing sagas for a few reasons. We’ve waited all offseason. I enjoy clear-cut winners and losers. Make a decision already. … Take Texas A&M. Murray looked ineffective as a passer, despite expert scampering. But the Aggies insisted on continually playing him meaningful snaps. If the Sun Devils had put up more of a fight, that could’ve been costly.

Finally, if I’m one of the players on those teams, I want to know to whom I should hitch my wagon. Who is my leader? Who is going to carry me at the quarterback position in 2015 and beyond? And when will I get to stop answering questions and reading 1A newspaper spreads about this “quarterback controversy?”

For an SEC desperate to prove itself competent at quarterback, not many put up great numbers, in part due to the relay race at the position. Ask Vanderbilt how that went for the Commodores in 2014.

4. Kentucky’s second-half ineptitude.

The Wildcats led 33-10 with barely one minute left in the third quarter. After branding everything football-related as “The Inaugural Season” for months in a nod to the renovated Commonwealth Stadium, parading around all the pledges from touted recruits and teasing us with stories about legendary night practices, it seemed that Kentucky was ready to back up the noise with an on-field statement.

Then UK gave up 23 unanswered points — and the football, with the game tied at 33 and time starting to melt off the fourth-quarter clock. Kentucky is fortunate this one didn’t end in embarrassment.

5. No SEC games.

Football doesn’t feel like football until the SEC logo is splattered all over both sidelines.

I’m all for enticing neutral-site games pitting the SEC and the Pac-12 or Big Ten. But we’ve waited since Thanksgiving weekend for this, save for Missouri and Alabama. Give us at least one regular-season SEC game during opening week!

6. GameDay’s new quirks.

The transition from Chris Fowler to Rece Davis was smooth, though I personally felt nostalgia without the former. Still, the show’s two quirks — making picks against the Vegas line and including Kirk Herbstreit’s son on the segment — both fell flat.

Some of the pickers seemed confused by the lines, and it injected too much thinking into what has always been a broadcast toward which one could devote a partial mind while socializing or finishing chores. And while cute, Herbie’s son was distracting.

7. Thursday’s snooze fest.

Thanks to two Skai Moore end-zone interceptions, South Carolina and the SEC got to celebrate a victory on the opening Thursday night of the season. Better for the Gamecocks than one year ago.

Still, coach Steve Spurrier and SC could’ve — maybe even should’ve — lost that game. And Vanderbilt couldn’t muster more than 12 points against a so-so Conference USA defense. Other than the “football is back” buzz, it was hardly worthy of an opening-night performance.

8. Tennessee’s pass defense.

Evan Berry and especially Emmanuel Moseley got picked on by Bowling Green’s Matt Johnson. Granted, Johnson is no slouch MAC quarterback. But the Vols shouldn’t allow 433 passing yards to any Group of 5 team. Especially with preseason All-SEC candidate Cam Sutton and what is supposed to be a tremendous pass rush.

9. Not seeing Mizzou DT Harold Brantley play.

Well wishes to Brantley after his summer car accident. It sounds like he’s well on the road to recovery, at least as a walking-around citizen.

But we sure will miss Brantley on the field this fall. He was a member of my “top 5 players I’m excited to watch” list exiting spring practice. The potential All-American is alive, though, and we’re all thankful for that.

10. Derek Mason as a head football coach in the Southeastern Conference.

It’s not for everyone, as Will Muschamp can attest. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad coach. But not everyone can succeed as one of 14 head coaches in the most lucrative football conference in the United States. Especially not at Vanderbilt.

The jury is still out on Mason, but a verdict could be reached soon if he falls to Houston or Middle Tennessee State and fails to pick up an SEC victory. Going backward from last year’s embarrassment may not be something Vandy can stomach.