TimKesten.com

Three weeks (and one Thursday night game) into the college football season and there are now 28 teams without a loss, including two teams from non automatic qualifying conferences that are ranked in the top 25, and thirteen undefeated teams that are not in the top 25.  Twenty eight teams have a chance this weekend to keep the dream alive or be cast off with the also-rans.  Some, like Texas, who plays UTEP this weekend, are a pretty safe bet to remain undefeated.  But I will tell you who I think will get their first loss this week and some teams on the rise that may survive the weekend with a perfect record.

Dunzo:

Indiana, Southern Miss, Colorado State, Iowa, South Florida, Kentucky, Arizona State, North Carolina, Wisconsin

Indiana plays at Michigan after beating Eastern Kentucky, Western Michigan and Akron.  Southern Miss has a shot against Kansas but it’s a long one, as their three wins have come against an FCS school and two really bad FBS teams.  Colorado State has improved greatly this season under second year coach Steve Fairchild, but not enough to win at BYU, as the Cougars look to rebound from their embarrassing loss to Florida State last week.

Iowa upset Penn State last year and ruined their national title hopes, but this year the game is in Happy Valley and I don’t see them doing it again.  Kentucky hosts a Florida team that is unhappy about its performance last week against Tennessee and is getting several key players back from injury or sickness.  The Wildcats will put up a fight at first, but it will not be enough in the end.  South Florida goes to Tallahassee to play a Seminole team that looks as though it may have gotten the wake up call it needed against Jacksonville State.  Without the Bulls’ quarterback Matt Groethe this one could be a laugher.

Arizona State is ranked first in the country in total defense, but mostly because they have only played Idaho State and Louisiana Monroe.  This week that defense will be tested as they go between the hedges to play at Georgia, who scored a combined 93 points in their last two games.   I think the Dawgs will cruise in this one.

North Carolina and Wisconsin are both favored this week, but I think they will both lose.  UNC has a very good defense but they play at Georgia Tech this week.  The Tarheels have not played anyone with a rushing offense like Tech’s this season and have lost at Georgia Tech five straight times.  Wisconsin is undefeated but could easily be one and two.  Their only convincing win came last week against Wofford, an FCS school.  The Badgers host Michigan State this week, who is one and two but could easily be undefeated.  The Spartans can not afford to lose another close one, and I think they’ll upset Wisconsin.

Still Undefeated (but don’t get your hopes up)

Texas A&M, Missouri, UCLA, Auburn, Pitt

Texas A&M is an unconvincing 2-0 after beating New Mexico and escaping Utah State.  The Aggies will win again this week against UAB, but the next two weeks, against Arkansas and Oklahoma State they will be exposed.  Missouri has been surprisingly good after the loss of Jeremy Maclin and Chase Daniel.  They will continue to impress this week against Nevada, and they will win more games down the road, but don’t expect them to navigate a schedule that includes Nebraska, Oklahoma State, Kansas and Texas without some bumps and bruises.

Auburn will improve to 4-0 this week against Ball State, and after wins against Louisiana Tech, Mississippi State and West Virginia, but the rest of their schedule is ridiculous.  The Tigers will play at Tennessee, at Arkansas, host Kentucky, at LSU, host Ole Miss, at Georgia and host Alabama.  That may be the toughest schedule in the country.  I do not think that Auburn has enough to get through that stretch.

Pitt has yet to play an FBS team with a winning record.  They will when they travel to NC State this week.  The Wolfpack have righted their offense against two FCS teams after it looked terrible in week one against South Carolina.  I think Pitt will win this game easily, and I think they can compete inside their conference, but that’s about it.  UCLA will remain undefeated by default; they are on a bye.

Still Undefeated (and look out!):

Cincinnati, Houston, Miami (FL)

Cincinnati hosts giant killers Fresno State this week, and if they had to travel to Fresno for the game, I would probably see this one differently.  In the last four weeks Fresno State has had to travel from California to Wisconsin, back to California, and now to Cincinnati.  I think this one will be close, but I generally don’t like teams that have to cross time zones.  After this week Cincinnati’s schedule is very manageable, as they will likely not play a ranked team for the rest of the year.

Houston already has one signature win against Oklahoma, this week they will be looking for their second against Texas Tech.  I don’t necessarily think that Houston is better than Texas Tech, but the Red Raiders are going to be fighting the Texas hangover, and both games they lost last year came away from home.  This is another game that I might pick differently if it wasn’t a home game.  If Houston does beat Texas Tech, they have an incredibly easy schedule the rest of the way, including several games against very bad teams.

Miami (FL) is two games into a brutal four game stretch.  They survived Florida State and then thumped Georgia Tech.  This week they play Virginia Tech, a team that I think, because of lack of production by quarterback Tyrod Taylor is totally over rated.  Taylor is completing just 47.6 percent of his passes this season.  The game is in Blacksburg, and that will certainly help the Hokies, but quarterback Jacory Harris seams like the real deal and Miami’s defense will try to make Taylor make bad decisions.  The last game of Miami’s gauntlet is next week against Oklahoma.  There’s no indication that Heisman trophy winner Same Bradford will be able to play in that game, and if (and that’s a big if) Miami wins these two games, they will undoubtedly be a top-five team and will only have one ranked team remaining on their schedule.

I’m Not Sold:

Michigan, Kansas, TCU

Michigan has looked impressive so far, but they’ve played a couple teams from non-automatic qualifying conferences, and until someone from the Big Ten conference does something to convince me otherwise, I’m not going to count a 3-0 start by a Big Ten team as impressive.  At this point, for a Big Ten team to be considered worthy of a national championship bid, they must run the table.  I don’t see Michigan doing that.

Kansas is 3-0 after beating Northern Colorado, UTEP and Duke.  In other words, they haven’t proven anything yet.  This week I believe they will remain undefeated as they play Southern Miss, but wee really won’t know much about the Jayhawks until October 24th when they play Oklahoma.  Kansas has a very good shot at being 6-0 before they play the Sooners, but after that they play at Texas Tech, host Nebraska, play at Texas and host Missouri.  This could be a 7-4 type of team at the end of the season.

TCU has been close to busting the BCS before but, have never succeeded.  This year they are 2-0 and ranked 15th in the A.P. Poll.  They have already beaten one ACC team, but that team was Virginia, who is 0-3 and already had lost to an FCS school.  This game is a toss up for me, but I’m inclined to pick Clemson because they are at home.  Even if TCU wins this game, however, they still have games remaining against Colorado State and Utah and at BYU.  Never mind the championship game, to play in any BCS bowl TCU must win every game.  I’m not convinced they can.

At the end of every college football season you look back at certain wins and realize that they were not as good of a win as you thought at the time.  Similarly, there are losses that do not seem as bad.  When LSU beat Auburn 26-21 last year, it was perceived as a big win for the Tigers.  At the end of the season, it looked like they should have beaten them by more than five points.  Similarly, Florida’s home loss to Ole Miss looked a lot worse on September 27th then it did on January 2nd, after Ole Miss had beaten Texas Tech in the Cotton Bowl and completed a nine-win season.

This season will be no exception, and after week one it’s hard to definitively say that we truly know much about any team.  Michigan and Notre Dame have to be thrilled with their convincing wins over Western Michigan and Nevada, respectively.  However, if Michigan beats Notre Dame this week and Nevada gets hammered by Missouri next week by Missouri, it suddenly won’t seem so impressive, and the same goes in reverse.

Ohio State, meanwhile survived a scare from Navy at home, needing an interception on a two point conversion late in the game to preserve a victory.  With USC coming to Columbus next week that result made a lot of Buckeye fans very nervous, and maybe they should be.  But, I don’t think that ten wins is out of the question for Navy this year, and come December that result may demonstrate more about Navy being better than most expected than it does about Ohio State being worse.  We’ll know a bit more about the Buckeyes after they host USC, but even if they beat USC some will question the weight of that victory if true freshman quarterback Matt Barkley struggles playing in only his second college football game, and his first on the road.

Oklahoma State scored a huge win when they defeated Georgia and they look like they are ready to back up the hype surrounding their program this year.  The Bulldogs were ranked thirteen coming into the game, but nobody really knows how good Georgia is at this point.  They lost Matthew Stafford and Knowshon Moreno to the NFL draft, and Joe Cox, Stafford’s replacement had the flu on Saturday.  I think Oklahoma State needs to beat a more seasoned team before they are considered an elite team in the Big 12.

The SEC is hanging its hat on Alabama’s victory over Virginia Tech.  The common theory is that it was Alabama’s toughness on defense that limited the Hokies to only 155 yards of total offense.  We really will not know if that’s the case until Virginia Tech plays Nebraska next week and then Miami after that.  If their offense sputters in those games, the accomplishments of the Crimson Tide’s defense will be diminished.  If, on the other hand, the Hokies are able to move the ball on those teams, then you would have to consider Alabama to be a contender for the BCS championship.

The final wait-and-see scenarios produced by this weekend’s games are Washington and LSU.  The Tiger’s fans are panicking because they watched a team that was winless a year ago go toe to toe with their team for three quarters before LSU finally took control of the game.  But Washington may surprise some people this year.  The Huskies have a new coaching staff and returned talented quarterback Jake Locker who missed most of last season due to injury.

All of this will work it out on its own; it always does.  The SEC and Big 12 will slug it out in conference play, leaving one team from each conference standing.  But I think the most intriguing situation in all of this is the sort of round-robin tournament that will play out this season between Ohio State, Notre Dame, Michigan and USC.   As I said before, Notre Dame and Michigan will have a chance to knock each other off this weak, as will USC and Ohio State.   Next month, Notre Dame and USC play each other and Michigan and Ohio State face off in their season finales.  Each of the four teams will play two out of the other three before the end of the year.  If any of those teams wants to be selected for the BCS national championship over a Big 12 or SEC team, winning those two games would be a good place to start.