Dan Wolken

USA TODAY Sports

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — In the run-up to last month's NCAA vote over whether the five high-revenue conferences would be granted more autonomy to make some of their own rules, the biggest point of discussion was whether it would widen the gap between the so-called haves and have-nots.

The start of the 2014 college football season, however, showed that the entire topic was pretty much a waste of breath. There already are two very distinct brands of football being played in the 128-member Football Bowl Subdivision (129 members by 2015), and there is no amount of NCAA legislation that could change it more than a couple degrees in either direction.

To the extent that there was ever any parity in college football between the 65 power conference schools and everybody else, it is now effectively over. In truth, it has been for the last few years.

Did you see what happened in Week 1? Games matching the Power 5 against the so-called "Group of 5" were about as competitive as insects against windshields. In 20 matchups on opening weekend, only three teams from the so-called "Group of Five" were able to win and just three others were competitive. The average scoring margin was 20.7 points — three touchdowns — and even teams that have been recent standard-bearers for small conference success such as Boise State, Rice and Utah State got stomped.

"That's not a spot we've been in very often," Utah State coach Matt Wells said Sunday night following a 38-7 loss at Tennessee that might have been the most revealing result of the weekend in terms of the gap that currently exists between the Power 5 and everyone else.

On paper, this was a classic opportunity for a program that plays in a 25,000-seat stadium and has to recruit two-star players almost exclusively to come into one of the sport's historic venues and embarrass the crown jewel of an athletic department that spent $86 million more on sports than Utah State did last year.

Though nobody would have argued before the game that Utah State is more talented, Tennessee is in the midst of a rebuilding process as Butch Jones tries to clean up the mess from three disastrous years of Derek Dooley. With dynamic senior quarterback Chuckie Keeton, whose national reputation had been formed in close losses to brand-name programs each of the last three years, it stood to reason that Utah State might be able to take advantage of a Tennessee roster with no proven quarterback and 21 true freshmen who will play some role this season. Even Las Vegas expected it to be close, with the point spread bet down to 4.5 points by kickoff.

But after the game was a few minutes old and the vast differences in size and speed became evident, it was obvious the Aggies would need to play virtually mistake-free just to have a chance going into the fourth quarter. They were overmatched even by a Tennessee team that will likely struggle to finish .500 this season, and the reality is that would've likely been true if the game had been played in 1974, 1994 or 2034.

No amount of autonomy could have hurt Utah State any more on Sunday than the fact that they were Utah State and the other team was Tennessee.

"You hang in there for as long as you can hang in there and still hold out hope there's going to be a play made, a blocked punt or a return or a pick, knock the ball loose — we didn't create any of that," Wells said. "We had every intention to come in here and compete, and I think we did for a while. We're used to competing a heck of a lot longer, and honestly I'm in complete shock the game wasn't a ballgame going into the fourth quarter."

Maybe he shouldn't have been based on other scores around the country. Boise State, the flagship for the little guys of the sport, got run over by Ole Miss. Even after a chaotic preseason camp, Notre Dame cruised by 31 points over Rice, which won 10 games last season and is expected to contend in Conference USA's West division. Southern California beat Fresno State, another presumed Mountain West contender, by 39. Navy, after doing so many things right and putting itself in position to win in the third quarter, ended up losing to Ohio State by 17. Central Florida, which looked like a legitimate big-time program in a Fiesta Bowl victory against Baylor last season, lost to roster-depleted Penn State on a last-second field goal in Ireland.

All of that doesn't mean another Boise State-type program can't develop tremendous players and beat power conference teams on occasion. It doesn't mean schools from those five conferences can't recruit enough players who fall through the cracks to compete at times. As long as there are Power 5 programs who make bad hires and as long as there are players such as Keeton who were overlooked in the recruiting process, there will always be opportunities for the little guys to beat the big guys.

But let's call them what they are: anomalies.

"We expected to play a little better, honestly, we thought we had a pretty good chance to win, but Tennessee outplayed us in every phase of the game," Utah State linebacker Nick Vigil said. "They were just better everywhere."

Remember that quote should Utah State suddenly start winning games in the Mountain West and Tennessee start losing them in the SEC. Sunday night didn't give fans the story line they wanted, but it looked more like the reality of what college football has almost always been (with a few blips of history) and what it will continue to be in the autonomy era.

For a few years, Boise State and a handful of others made things seem more equal than they really were, but the lack of a Cinderella in 2014 may highlight the fact that programs such as Utah State and Tennessee have never had a whole lot in common.

And changing the rules to allow schools such as Tennessee to spend even more money on football won't affect that reality much at all. ​