Impressive performances abounded during the first full weekend of college football

Slow Week 1 in college football, eh?

We’ll let the punditry class debate the intricacies of referee clock management and when the binary world of ones and zeroes breaks down in front of 100,000 screaming fans and a national spotlight.

We’ll also leave to others to delve into the Mid-American Conference appeal of the outcome of member team Western Michigan’s controversial loss at Michigan.

And we’ll table all comments on the SEC’s move to schedule a vote among conference presidents as whether to expel LSU regarding its handling of its roster.

Let’s keep today on the field, where the first week of action saw all ranked teams in action win, save for Louisville, who lost to fellow ranked team Mississippi on the game’s final play.

Speaking of final plays and ranked teams almost losing, did you see the game at the Big House? Oops, never mind!

There were dozens of impressive performances during the long weekend. To be fair, a lot came in mismatches. To be equally fair, you can’t throw a stick without hitting a Heisman winner or contender whose stats were padded a bit by mismatches, so let’s proceed.

As a weekly reminder, college football fans can now vote on a daily basis at hopefuls.heisman.com and have their vote count at the end of the season. The fan vote uses a season-long weighted model, developed in partnership with the Carnegie Mellon Sports Analytics Center, that gives greater weight to votes cast later in the year as the body of work grows and conference races intensify.

Pittsburgh sophomore QB Mason Heintschel threw down the statistical gauntlet in week 1, leading the Panthers to a 59-14 win over Miami (Ohio), completing 31-of-41 passes for 453 yards and a program-record-tying seven touchdowns.

He’s the first QB to chuck the ball for 450 yards and seven scores without an interception since LSU’s 2019 Heisman winner Joe Burrow. His seven TDs are one less than half of his entire freshman season total when he played in 10 games.

Speaking of Heisman winners, Indiana kicked off its post-Fernando Mendoza era with a 52-16 win over North Texas. TCU-transfer Josh Hoover, in his first game filling the Fernando-mania void, threw for 231 yards and four scores. With games against Howard and Western Kentucky ahead before Big Ten plays starts with Northwestern and Rutgers, Hoover will have every opportunity to get comfortable in Coach Curt Cignetti’s system ahead of the Oct. 17 date with Ohio State.

The Buckeyes feature two returning Heisman top-10 vote-getters in QB Julian Sayin and wideout Jeremiah Smith and both were in mid-season form in the season-opening 56-3 win over Ball State. Sayin completed 21-of-25 passes for 320 yards and three scores, two to Smith, who finished with 151 yards on eight catches.

Productive QB-WR duos were prevalent in Week 1. USC’s Jayden Maiava completed 23-of-25 passes for 349 yards and three scores to move the Trojans to 2-0 with a 39-0 win over Fresno State. Freshman Trent Mosley caught four passes for 104 yards and two scores while fellow frosh Kayden Dixon-Wyatt had six grabs for 102 yards, a USC first for a freshmen duo in more than 50 years.

Halfway up California, Miami (Fla.) visited Palo Alto and defeated Stanford, 45-6, on the arm of first-year Hurricane and Duke transfer Darian Mensah, who threw for 401 yards and five scores. Second-year Miami wideout Malachi Toney, who recorded 109 receptions for 1,211 yards and 10 scores last year, opened his sophomore season with 12 receptions for a school-record 234 yards and three TDs.

With so much going on in the first weekend of college football, Arch Manning and Texas flew under the radar, relatively speaking. Manning passed for 305 yards and four TDs on 20-of-27 passing in a 59-7 win over Texas State.

Game 2 for Manning will be decidedly over the radar when No. 4 Texas hosts the top-ranked Buckeyes on Saturday.

Tennessee unleashed a new era of Vol football with its own freshman QB as Faizon Brandon passes for 226 yards and three TDs and ran for two other scores in his debut in orange. He became the first SEC QB to debut with three scoring passes and two TD runs since Cam Newton opened his 2011 Heisman season in his first game at Auburn.

Notre Dame got off to a slow start in its season-opening 41-13 win over Wisconsin, but ultimately cruised with QB CJ Carr throwing for 239 yards and two TDs.

Fellow preseason Heisman fave Dante Moore of Oregon put up impressive numbers with 378 passing yards and three scores without a pick, but his No. 2 Ducks barely escaped with a 34-27 win over Northwest rival Boise State. Moore’s fourth-quarter 62-yard scoring pass was the difference.

Iowa running back Kamari Mouton rushed for a career-high 183 yards on just 11 carries and scored twice in the Hawkeyes’ 40-0 win over Northern Illinois. TCU RB Jeremy Payne ran for 142 yards and caught five passes against North Carolina in Dublin while UCLA’s Anthony Woods, on this side of the pond, ran for 118 yards and two scores to kick off a new era in Bruin football.

Can’t wait for an equally exciting Week 2.