Week 5 Preview
We will get it started with a great Thursday slate. A pair of old Southern Conference foes will hook up as Sun Belt teams in Statesboro with Appellation State and Georgia Southern. Texas Tech and Oklahoma State will square off in a big 12 battle to stay in the upper end of the conference. It is also time for UCLA to be the team I thought they were preseason. They will battle Arizona State and wont survive if the play continues to be so pedestrian. We could talk about the Friday games but considering that I find it an affront to all of those who love football to play college games on a Friday, so we wont. We will however talk about the other conference USA and Mountain West games. The big MW game would have to be Colorado State traveling to Boston College. Will the Rams fair any better than USC did against the Eagles? C-USA has a couple of shots against power 5 members but it's fairly unlikely they will win either game. Western Kentucky against Navy will be a very intriguing match up. Army takes on Yale in game with more historical implications than notional championship ones. Notre Dame will not have any problems with a semi-conference game against Syracuse. The only other game of note in the ACC is Florida State traveling to play NC State a team they should not have a problem with but always seem to. In the SEC Arkansas has had some nice non-conference wins, how will they do against A&M and will Ole Miss overlook a dangerous Memphis team? On the eastern side Vandy and Kentucky battle to stay out of the cellar, Tennessee travels to Athens for a game that is always close and Mizzu travels to the other Columbia for a game with huge implications. The Tigers are going to be angry after losing to Indiana last week this feels like the stars this time are aliening against a South Carolina win.
Other than the matter of a lil brown jug and Michigan trying to stop the bleeding the Big 10 should be uneventful. So, lets heading back out west and stop in on our Big 12 friends. Another conference were the biggest story is can a traditional power at least stem the tide momentarily. Here the answer is yes Texas may not be Texas but Kansas is still Kansas Longhorns big. The PAC 12 has a couple more games of interest. First what's up with Washington they like UCLA have been in zombie mode, we will know a lot more after they play Stanford. The other question is will USC rebound or is this the week the Beavers kick things into drive. Oregon State has developed a bad habit of slow starts to seasons with strong finishes. I guess that's better than the reverse but a loss hear leaves either team considering future schedules in huge trouble for any conference aspirations.
Biggest Games: (from here out top 25 only)
Georgia VS Tennessee: Dawgs should handle their business but like the rest on this list closer than people think
Florida State @ NC State: Seminoles survive their personal house of horrors
Texas A&M VS Arkansas: Aggies the 12 man is the difference
Games of Interest:
Duke @ Miami: Canes this is the one I had Duke losing but like them in the long run for their division
Army @ Yale: Army only those who love college football history would understand why its on this list, as much as the Black Knights have struggled the Ivy's have not beaten an FBS team in around 30 years
UCLA VS Arizona State: Bruins a brutal schedule and its time to separate yourself
Upset Alert:
Michigan VS Minnesota: Gophers, big problems with big blue
South Carolina VS Missouri, Tigers the Gamecocks should have lost to Georgia and look bad against Vandy
Illinois @ Nebraska: Illini, probably wont happen but Nebraska has not had a unpredictable or ugly loss yet their in the Big 10 it's bound to happen why not this week