The middle of October brings more college football showdowns. The college football polls are starting to weed out the early season’s overrated teams and make upsets that much harder to come by. But there’s still one BCS championship contender that needs to be on upset alert this week, and a few more matchups that could change conference races substantially.
Shaking Up The College Football Rankings: Alabama Should Survive, Arizona Might Not
With the help of numbers and science, we figure out the chances that Alabama, Arizona, Stanford, and other teams succumb to upsets this week.
The Crimson Tide are clearly the best team in the nation at this moment, and have proved as much against what look like the second- and third-most talented teams in the SEC. (Sorry, Auburn fans: Would you settle for being the second-best team?) But this is where the Alabama slate gets tougher: the Tide have to play six straight games against teams coming off bye weeks. Nick Saban’s the sort of coach that doesn’t permit preparedness deficits, so I worry less about scheme and more about freshness.
The Tide weren’t overly taxed in rolling Florida, so that freshness should be less of an issue at South Carolina. The Gamecocks have a solid defense, an offense that can be dangerous at times, and a hostile home crowd, but Arkansas was better, punched Alabama in the mouth, and still walked off its home field with a loss. There’s a chance Steve Spurrier’s charges engineer an upset, but it would take a better performance than South Carolina has shown itself capable of delivering to this point.
Chances of Upset: 10 percent. Stephen Garcia could have the game of his life, and Marcus Lattimore could rush for a ton of yardage if the Gamecocks' underrated line has a great day. But it's highly unlikely.
Stay with me: Nebraska is obviously a better team than Kansas State, but the Wildcats may be the second-best team in the Big 12 North, are probably acutely aware of that fact, and have the 13th-ranked pass defense in the Football Bowl Subdivision, which might trouble the Cornhuskers' embryonic quarterback, Taylor Martinez.
The Wildcats’ chances likely rely on that defense flummoxing Martinez and Daniel Thomas toting the ball. Thomas, much-ballyhooed entering the season, has produced against bad rush defenses (UCLA, Iowa State) and struggled against a decent one (UCF), and Nebraska’s defense is ranked just 52nd in FBS. If he runs wild, there’s a chance Nebraska goes down.
Chances of Upset: 15 percent. Nebraska has already beaten Washington on the road and K-State hasn’t played a non-home game. So there’s a little less doubt about whether the Huskers can be great than there is about whether the Wildcats are any good.
If nothing else, Oregon State is probably the nation’s best 2-2 team: the Beavers’ losses came on the road at the hands of TCU and Boise State, and they were in those games into the second half. Unfortunately, they’re very likely to be the nation’s best 2-3 game after this weekend.
Arizona's just better than Oregon State, and that's mostly thanks to Nick Foles, who has triggered the 11th-ranked passing offense in the country and given the Wildcats leads for their stout third-ranked scoring defense to hold. Anyone who stayed up to watch that defense batter Iowa's Ricky Stanzi late in the Hawkeyes' trip to Tucson knows that the Arizona front seven will eat up even good quarterbacks. Oregon State's Ryan Katz may be a very good quarterback someday, but the freshman's not there yet.
Chances of Upset: 35 percent. There's always the potential for Jacquizz Rodgers and James Rodgers to break a few runs, passes, or returns in the open field. But the Beavers may need several to stun Arizona.
Weren't Christian Ponder and Jacory Harris supposed to be Heisman candidates? Instead, Ponder is averaging 168.8 yards per game through the air and Harris has thrown eight interceptions while completing just 57.1% of his passes. These are not the polished upperclassmen passers fans hoped they would be.
Instead, this should be a defensive struggle: Miami allows under 270 yards per game, and Florida State hasn’t permitted a team that isn’t Oklahoma to gain more than 304 yards or score more than 14 points. In addition, we’ll probably see a slew of sacks, because Florida State leads the nation in that category with 25, seven clear of second place, and Miami is tied for third with 17.
Chances of Upset: 35 percent. Miami’s home-field advantage is always dubious, but ‘Canes fans typically get fired up for Florida State, and FSU’s terrible day at Oklahoma, not its routs of four teams without winning records, would seem to be the better model for a night game at Miami.
Three years ago today, as 41-point underdogs, Stanford upset USC, 24-23. It says a lot about how rapidly the college football landscape can change that not only is Stanford favored to win this week’s game, the Cardinal may have the more talented roster.
USC's best chances of keeping this close require riding Allen Bradford. The senior has been en fuego of late, as the kids from 1999 say, rushing for 10.95 yards per carry in his last three games. Stanford gives up 4.39 yards per rush, which slots the Cardinal into the bottom third of FBS, and Oregon's 388 yards of rushing last week showed that there are holes and seams to be exploited.
Chances of Upset: 20 percent. Do you trust Lane Kiffin to feed 30-35 carries to the workhorse he couldn't install as a starter in preseason? I don't. Do you trust Matt Barkley to beat a good Pac-10 team on the road? I don't.
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