College Football Preview: Week Five

 

Music to listen to: The Secret to Quiet by The Mercury Program

Television networks like to college football weekends catchy titles to promote the contests such as Redemption Saturday, Revenge Saturday, Rivalry Week and Upset Week. Looking at the slate of major contests on the schedule for week five of the season, I’m seeing a mix of all of them coming out because conference play has begun for most teams (come on American Athletic Conference, we’re waiting for the epic Rutgers/Temple and SMU/South Florida matchups! Get your act together and put together your teams in matchups earlier next season):

 

-Miami hasn’t left the state of Florida yet this season. The Hurricanes play their first road contest of the year…and just head north to Tampa to meet the winless South Florida squad who haven’t even given Willie Taggart an early hope of optimism for the Bulls. Miami should be 7-0 heading into its game against Florida State on Nov. 2.

 

-Thursday’s contest against Virginia Tech may be the biggest contest for Georgia Tech in years. The Yellow Jackets have an annual matchup against Georgia that gets more coverage but if GT ever expects to have a national presence in the college football landscape, it will have to win games like Virginia Tech at home on ESPN. The talk within the Atlanta sports world for the past year has been whether Georgia Tech has entered “mediocrity,” meaning whether winning 6-8 games a season is the peak of the program, which would be considered unacceptable considering the resources the program has. The excuse of academics rings hollower each season with programs such as Stanford, Northwestern, Vanderbilt and Notre Dame (to a lesser degree) finding success by winning conferences and making high-caliber bowl games.

 

A victory over the Hokies under the lights would not only make GT undefeated in the ACC, which should be the main objective right now for the Yellow Jackets, it would give a boost to the program. I’ll watch that contest very closely.

 

-South Carolina will beat Central Florida. The Knights are a solid team with a good defense and an emerging offense behind junior quarterback Blake Bortles. The elements for an upset are there from the game being held in Orlando to the early noon kickoff. However, the defensive front of the Gamecocks will have its best effort of the season and Central Florida struggled stopping the rushing attack of Penn State two weeks ago. Running back Mike Davis and quarterback Connor Shaw should have solid games and ball control the game to a victory for South Carolina.

 

-Maryland shutout West Virginia 37-0 last week. I know losing Geno Smith, Tavon Austin and Stedman Bailey would hurt many offenses but the Mountaineers getting NO points against the Terps has to be one of the most surprising results of the season so far. Now, WVU has to host Oklahoma State. The Cowboys MAY get to 60.

 

-Florida State and Clemson are in classic “trap” games. The Seminoles travel to Boston College and Clemson hosts Wake Forest. Both top-10 teams are facing arguably the two worst teams in the ACC. However, if you’ve watched college football for more than five years, you’ve seen Clemson and Florida State lose these types of games. However, even on Clemson’s worst day, the Demon Deacons don’t have the horses to compete and the Eagles give up a respectable 18 points per game on defense but score only 17 on offense.

 

-Oklahoma beats Notre Dame by double-digits on the road.

 

-I’m not saying that Washington State will beat Stanford but if its a one-possession game in the 4th quarter, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

 

-Was tempted to take Kentucky over Florida especially with the Gators’ weak offense but losing Jeff Driskel MAY actually improve the unit.

 

-Watch out for Wisconsin possibly over Ohio State and Arkansas over Texas A&M as potential upsets. If you can run the ball and control the clock like the Badgers and Razorbacks can, intrigue is out there. However, I can see two potential “boatrace” (credit to Tony Barnhart for the term).

 

-I’ve been saying that Ole Miss will upset a major SEC West team this season and this Saturday may seem like a prime opportunity for it. However, I’m taking the Tide over the Rebels in a highly competitive matchup.

 

-The game of the week, LSU and Georgia, will come down to one thing…whether the Bulldogs’ defense can get stops on the Tigers’ newly balanced offense. LSU does just enough to leave Athens with a victory.