Week 2 of the college football season is set to begin on Friday night. Last weekend gave us some interesting first games, with a number of the nation’s dominant programs looking pretty susceptible. And then there is No. 1 Alabama, which looks pretty far ahead of the field.
We have a great slate of games this weekend. At noon, No. 3 Ohio State hosts No. 12 Oregon, with both teams looking to put together more complete performances than they had last week.
The Cy-Hawk Game takes center stage at 4:30 p.m. ET. After hosting College GameDay, No. 9 Iowa State will look to win the rivalry game for the first time since 2014, and bounce back from a disappointing Week 1 performance against Northern Iowa. Iowa jumped all the way up to No. 10 with its dominant win against Indiana.
Michigan looks to keep things rolling at 8 p.m. against Washington, while we have some fun late night games, including BYU–Utah and USC–Stanford.
Week 1 of the season brought some pretty big surprises. ACC Coastal favorite North Carolina fell at Virginia Tech, Penn State pulled out an upset win in Madison against Wisconsin, Illinois fell to UTSA, and Vandy dropped to FCS East Tennessee. The Biggest upset was likely the one in Seattle. Washington entered the year with some Pac-12 title hype, and laid an egg against Montana, an FCS program in the Big Sky Conference.
One week of picks in, and Stephen Driscoll and Tzvi Machlin have a split of first place. Here are the standings after Week 1.
T-1. Steve Driscoll: 43-11
T-1. Tzvi Machlin: 43-11
T-3. Andrew McCarty: 42-12
T-3. Alek Arend: 42-12
T-3. Zach Koons: 42-12
6. Andrew Holleran 41-13
7. Matt Lombardi: 40-14
T-8. Dan Lyons: 39-15
T-8. Chris Rosvoglou: 39-15
T-8. Matt Audilet: 39-15
11. Matt Hladik: 38-16
With our 11 staff members picking each game, the biggest splits come in Tennessee–Pitt, TCU–Cal, Mississippi State–NC State, Colorado State–Vanderbilt, Arizona–San Diego State, BYU-Utah, and the huge rivalry game between Iowa and Iowa State in Ames.
Here are our picks for Week 2 of the 2021 college football season:
Each week, we pick every college football game involving Power Five and/or ranked teams. Check back with The Spun each week for updated standings.