With the college football Week 1 slate officially in the books, it’s worth bringing up the panic meter, even if it’s only been one game for most programs. And there’s three teams we should be concerned about.

Oklahoma State, Oregon, and Clemson all entered the season with expectations, and all three gave their fanbases reason to sweat in the opening week. The panic meter is running hot, and at least two of these programs deserve the heat.

Oklahoma State’s ugly loss to Tulsa warrants real concern

Oklahoma State lost to Tulsa for back-to-back seasons, and after this offseason with all the North Texas guys arriving and new head coach Eric Morris taking over for the first time in forever, all the hype was with the Cowboys. And to bring it back to the question, I would panic at least a little bit.

Oklahoma State is going to start the year 0-2 because they face Oregon this week, and it very clearly showed that they had more prep on Oregon than they did against a Tulsa program that dominated them physically. It didn’t matter what quarterback Drew Mestemaker could do. The offensive line was egregiously bad, and Morris tried to adapt within the game, and it just did not matter.

This team is not ready to compete at the Big 12 level. You could say it’s an overreaction, and I think there’s a good chance they could rebound for the rest of the season, but starting the year 0-2 and looking as bad as they did against Tulsa is just not a great start.

Oregon is fine, and you shouldn’t worry

Now, speaking of Oregon, no, I would not panic about the Ducks. The only asterisk or question I would potentially have following that Boise State game is the fact that the defensive line did not overwhelm Boise State at times. That unit was seen as probably the best defensive line in the entire country with all those returning NFL Draft prospects.

But Boise State is one of the best, and you could probably argue the most solidified, Group of Six contenders out there. They’re always going to give these teams problems with how they play football. They had a veteran quarterback, they’ve been able to give Oregon problems before, and we have seen Oregon play these lower-level opponents pretty close.

I’m not surprised by this result. I’m kind of surprised that Boise State almost won the whole thing because I expected Oregon to pull away late, but I’m not worried about the Ducks. It is a concerning trend that you’re playing with fire the way that they are, but even with that in mind, I’m not having any more doubts about Oregon. And neither should you.

Clemson has a real problem, and it might be Dabo Swinney

And lastly, Clemson. Yeah, I’m hitting the panic button. I thought that game was going to be competitive against LSU, and maybe we’ll find out that LSU is just that good and the Tigers were walking into a lion’s den with no chance to begin with. But I talked about it before with Chad Morris as offensive coordinator, and that hire just felt like going back to something comfortable instead of picking what’s best for the program.

It’s so clear that modern college football is moving further and further away from Dabo Swinney, and he’s going to have that stadium built after him, or he’s going to have a statue built after him, whatever it may be. He is the best coach in that school’s history. But at some point, you have to ask the question: is it time to move on?

And you may say, Tegan, it’s only Week 1. Maybe Clemson figures it out and gets rolling through the ACC. And sure, that’s possible. But the gap between where Clemson is now and where programs like LSU are operating feels like it’s widening, not closing.

If the Morris hire was supposed to signal a return to offensive relevance, the early evidence says otherwise. Clemson is the team fanbases should be watching most closely after this opening weekend, because the trajectory under Swinney is pointing in a direction nobody at that program wants to acknowledge.