One year ago today, Sept. 6, 2015, Stanford was terrible. David Shaw was uncreative. Unimaginative. He was lost without Jim Harbaugh's coattails and was completely exposed as a coach. And what was with all that talk about Ed McCaffrey's kid and his whopping 66 rushing yards in a 16-6 loss to Northwestern?
One year ago today, Sept. 6, 2015, Washington State was in ruins. A loss to FCS Portland State showed that Mike Leach had lost control of the team and his system simply wouldn’t work in Pullman.
See where this is going?
Stanford, of course, went on to win the Rose Bowl and Christian McCaffrey blasted the all-purpose yards record previously held by Barry Sanders. Washington State went on to a nine-win season and a victory over Miami in the Sun Bowl.
It’s a popular coaching cliché that you’re never as good or bad as people say you are. And never is that fact more crystallized than after Week 1, where perspective is non-existent and context is microscopic.
There are plenty of examples through the years where Week 1 belly flops served only to fuel the fires of overreaction and jumping to conclusions from atmospheric heights.
The future is scary because, despite what Miss Cleo had us believing in the '90s for a nominal per-minute-fee, we don’t know what it holds. And it’s human nature to grasp at what we do know and then extrapolate.
Right now there are five Pac-12 teams staring at 0-1. Four of those games were close. UCLA took Texas A&M to overtime and Arizona, Oregon State and Washington State all had opportunities to win late. The only real stinker was USC. If you are a USC fan and want to overreact, you’re justified.
But the overreactions can work both ways. Washington looked outstanding. But it was against a sub-par Big Ten team. And to that guy holding the “We Want Bama” sign at the UW game ... slow your roll. No one wants Bama.
Stanford and Utah looked glitchy on the offensive line. Oregon’s defense looked shaky. Arizona State took forever to warm up offensively. And not that I want to spit on your Cheerios, Colorado, but you beat a Colorado State team picked to finish fourth in the Mountain Division of the Mountain West. Yes, be encouraged. Yes, be optimistic. But do so at your own peril. You still own the longest bowl drought among Power 5 programs.
The point is not to discourage Colorado fans or coddle UCLA and Washington State fans. The point is that we are only one game into a 12-game season. That seems like a very obvious statement -- but do a quick scan about your team on social media and you’d be surprised (or maybe you wouldn’t be) about how many folks are jumping the shark... errr... Husky.
If you’re able to look at things objectively (pause for laughter) then you know Week 1s are terribly difficult to evaluate for a myriad of reasons. You have new players and new coaches and new schemes that have never been tested in a live situation. Most teams have been preparing for their Week 1 game for two-plus weeks as opposed to the usual week-to-week prep time. And for a team like Eastern Washington, that was their only crack at an FBS team. They rose to the occasion, Washington State didn’t.
But assuming what your team looks like in Week 1 is what they’ll look like in Week 10 is lunacy. The Cougars and Cardinal proved that last season.
So take a stiff shot of whatever comforts you (or toast a glass of champagne because your team won) and then spit it down the sink. Because it’s not going to be this bad -- or this good -- for 13 weeks.
Of all the lessons learned in Week 1, keeping things in perspective is the most important.
