For Some College Football Teams, A Dismal 2021 Has Carried Over Into 2022

For a handful of teams, the 2022 season has started out looking much like that of 2021. That is a good thing for some teams. However, it is anything but good for those teams noted below.

A tough start was not entirely unexpected in a few cases, especially those teams with new head coaches. In a few other instances, though, unmistakable signs of forward progress were expected out of the chute. The needle may still move forward for those teams, but it was a rough start.

Colorado

Karl Dorrell returned to the collegiate head coaching ranks in 2020 knowing it would take some time to produce results in Boulder. He won four games during a virus-abbreviated first season. However, following a 38-13 loss to visiting TCU in the season opener, the Buffaloes are just 4-10 since.

If the loss to the visiting Horned Frogs, now commanded by Sonny Dykes following a 5-7 mark in Gary Patterson’s final season in Fort Worth, is any indication, then 2022 might not offer much diversion. True, Colorado trailed only 7-6 at the half and had a turnover-free game. TCU, though, reeled off 31 straight points in the second half.

“There’s nowhere to go but up,” said Dorrell, whose team is at Air Force this week and hosts Minnesota next week.

Georgia Tech

Geoff Collins gave the offense a makeover when he arrived in Atlanta prior to the 2019 season. The unit was moving away from Paul Johnson’s option attack to that of a more conventional look. It would take time to covert. However, each of Geoff Collins’ first three seasons on the Yellow Jackets’ sideline resulted in three wins fand a record of 9-25. Last year, Georgia Tech was 93rd in total offense and 95th in scoring. In other, words there was still plenty of work to be done after three years.

Granted, Clemson has a great defense, and the Yellow Jackets hung with the Tigers for much of the first half Monday night. But there were two blocked punts, nine penalties and the offense managed all of 205 yards and 12 first downs in a 41-10 loss to kick off Collins’ fourth season in Atlanta.

Louisville

What a difference a year made. Quarterback Malik Cunningham totaled five touchdowns and his day was over early in the fourth quarter of last season’s 41-3 dismantling of visiting Syracuse. Last Saturday, he was limited to 186 total yards and held out of the end zone while turning the ball over three times in 31-7 loss to the host Orange.

“We did not get into good rhythm,” coach Scott Satterfield said of the offense, in an understatement. “Never could get anything going like we’re used to doing.”

It was a deflating opening to a crucial season for Satterfield, who is 10-15 since going 8-5 in 2019, his first season in Louisville after a successful run at Appalachian State. The Cardinals will be tested the next two week with a date at UCF on Friday night and a visit from Florida State next week.

Navy

Heading into last week’s game against Delaware, Navy coach Ken Niumatalolo said, “I feel like you throw out the last two years for us because nothing we did was similar to what we (have done in previous years).”

Niumatalolo, who is in his 15^th season as the head coach in Annapolis and has six bowl wins on his resume, would certainly love to throw out a season-opening 14-7 loss to Delaware in which Navy turned the ball over three times.

The Midshipmen lost single-digit games to ECU, Cincinnati, Houston and SMU last season. But to open 2022 with such a loss to an FCS program that won five games in each of its last two (fall) seasons?

Nebraska

Beating an old drum here, though the opener in Dublin against Northwestern reminded Cornhuskers’ fans so much of 2021. Then, back in Lincoln, Scott Frost’s team was tied with North Dakota — not North Dakota State — with less than five minutes to play in the third quarter before rattling off 21 unanswered points to pull away.

“The more familiar we are with one another and what we’re doing, the better we are going to be,” said Frost, whose team snapped a seven-game losing streak.

Nebraska fans can only hope things will get better. Their team remains at home for the next three games (Georgia Southern, Oklahoma, Indiana), which will provide an idea if indeed anything has changed.

Temple

Stan Drayton has a project on his hands in North Philly. It will take time, and not overnight, for the first-year coach, the Owls’ sixth in seven years, to ramp up this program once again. That was evident in a clunker of an opener at Duke. A non-competitive, 30-0 defeat saw TU was outgained 337-50 in the opening half before losing for the 16th time in the last 19 games.

They may — or may not — have a quarterback to build around in D’Wan Mathis, who was Georgia’s starting quarterback in the 2020 season opener against Arkansas before ultimately giving way to Stetson Bennett and entering the portal. He cannot do it alone, though.

The Owls host Lafayette this weekend.

USF

Jeff Scott has new coordinators, bolstered depth through the portal and has a new starting quarterback in the person of Gerry Bohanon, who arrived from Baylor. As such, optimism was running full tilt heading into the Bulls’ opener against visiting BYU. Scott knew opening against the Cougars, a deep and experienced team, would present a considerable challenge. What he did not expect was for his team to appear totally lost following a 2 ½-hour weather delay.

BYU scored on the first play from scrimmage and had a 28-0 lead before the first quarter expired. The 50-21 final was not nearly that close.

“We have a lot of stuff to look at, to learn from,” said the third-year coach, who fell to 1-19 against FBS teams. “I am very confident that our guys will respond the right way. I told them this game will not define our season and it won’t define our team. How we respond to this will.”

After USF hosts Howard (coached by Larry Scott, an offensive lineman on USF’s inaugural team in 1997) on Saturday night, it is off to Gainesville, which has not slept since the Gators’ win over Utah in Billy Napier’s debut.

Virginia Tech

A loss at Old Dominion in 2018 began a run in which the Hokies are 23-25. The faithful can only hope first-year coach Brent Pry snaps the program out of its string of mediocrity and back into something resembling, if not national prominence, then ACC contention. Pry’s first game, though, was a loss in Norfolk to the Monarchs and his former fellow Penn State assistant, Ricky Rahne.

Tech, which has had two straight losing seasons for the first time since 1991-92, the school’s first two years of Big East affiliation, lost their opener on a touchdown run as time expired. ODU’s winning drive of 59 yards — the Hokies’ defense allowed less than 200 yards prior to the drive — was set up by Marshall transfer Grant Wells’ fourth interception and the Hokies’ fifth turnover.

Starting with Boston College on Saturday, the Hokies’ next three games are at home before the teeth of the ACC schedule kicks in.