A return to normalcy: We are back to what college football is supposed to be

We all search for signs that college football is back from whatever that was they did last year, with its protocols, unplayed games and empty stadiums. Last weekend, we got them.

We had a Penn State “white out.”

We had 91,000 people in the Swamp belting “We Won’t Back Down” by the late Gainesvillean Tom Petty and, by God, the Gators stood their ground.

Not to limit this to color and pageantry — the games at those sites, Beaver Stadium and Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, matched the intensity of the fans. But Week 3 concluded and there is no dominant team. Everyone has flaws to correct. We are back to what college football is supposed to be. We have finished a quarter of the season, and there are way more questions than answers.

“We haven’t arrived yet,” I heard Penn State wide receiver Jahan Dotson say on ESPNU Radio after the Nittany Lions held off Auburn 28-20. “It’s just the beginning.”

Exactly. That’s what college football is supposed to be, another sign of normalcy after a season that had so few of them. It had begun to feel as if a dominant Alabama is what passes for normal in this era, but the Crimson Tide we saw Saturday, the one with the defense that couldn’t get off the field, isn’t dominant.

That’s the wonderful point. Neither is anyone else. A season begins, and the conventional wisdom, honed over eight months of speculation that becomes more feverish the closer we get to Labor Day weekend, becomes gospel. These are the preseason favorites to make the College Football Playoff. These are the preseason favorites for the Heisman.

Then the games begin, and conventional wisdom goes into an Oklahoma drill with reality and reality is winning. The preseason favorites have issues. The preseason Heisman favorites recede into the pack.

We have enough of a sample to know that Clemson can’t make a first down and whoever plays Ohio State can. Oklahoma has struggled to put away Tulane and Nebraska. We know the best team in Iowa is in Iowa City, not Ames.

We know that three teams reach the last weekend in September undefeated in Pac-12 play. Unfortunately for the conference, two of them are not members of the Pac-12. They’re not even in the Power Five. San Diego State and BYU are a combined 5-0 against the league. There’s also Fresno State, which knocked off UCLA late Saturday night at the Rose Bowl. The Bulldogs, by the way, earlier this month led Oregon in the fourth quarter and were tied with the Ducks with 3:00 left.

We know the state of football in the state of Florida is — how diplomatic can we be? — problematic. Florida went 0-5 — the state, not the Gators — against FBS teams over the weekend.

We know the state of football in the state of Michigan is strong. The Michigan schools went 4-1 Saturday, and don’t blame Central Michigan’s 49-21 loss at LSU on the humidity in Death Valley. Michigan State won a noon game at Miami 38-17 by dominating the fourth quarter.

The best team in the state may be in East Lansing, but do you push your chips in on a coach who wears shorts on the sideline? Mel Tucker, another graduate of the Saban Coaching Academy, is transforming the Spartans into what looks like a Saban-coached team: physical, disciplined, winning. Payton Thorne has a higher touchdown passing ratio (one in every 8.6 passes) than anyone in the FBS, and who, you may be asking, is Payton Thorne? For that matter, who is Michigan State?

Who is Michigan? Three games in, the Wolverines look as if they have recaptured the formula that Jim Harbaugh brought to Stanford more than a decade ago. They are a punishing, physical team that can run the ball at will. Do you push your chips in on Harbaugh, who began his seventh season in Ann Arbor with a Wolverines record (49-22) that looked a lot like that (45-23) of another seventh-year coach, Clay Helton, no longer of USC.

Wolverines freshman Blake Corum and Spartans junior Kenneth Walker III have the kind of rushing numbers that attract Heisman voters: Both are averaging 8.6 yards per carry and they have combined for 12 touchdowns. And Ole Miss quarterback Matt Corral can’t get out of bed without finding an open receiver.

Corral made a few preseason Heisman lists. Corum and Walker didn’t. Neither did Ohio State freshman running back TreVeyon Henderson, who in his third college game broke a school record set by the only guy with two Heismans. Henderson rushed for 277 yards against Tulsa, 38 more than the Buckeyes freshman record set by Archie Griffin in 1972.

The Heisman will be won on the field, an unfortunate piece of news for D.J. Uiagalelei of Clemson, D’Eriq King of Miami and Michael Penix of Indiana, three quarterbacks who have underperformed. Max Howell of North Carolina stumbled out of the gate, and Kedon Slovis of USC got hurt.

Based on the way the preseason favorites started, the College Football Playoff may be decided on the field, too. The teams that began with a preseason head start have given it back.

We’re in Week 4 and it feels as if the real season is just beginning.