College Football always has some teams that outplay their preseason expectations. Unfortunately, sometimes, these teams aren’t recognized until much later in the season. Sometimes they don’t get recognized because all the attention is on the ‘good’ teams that lost. For example, if we look back at this past week, Notre Dame got all the attention for losing to NIU. Hardly any headline went to the idea or possibility that NIU might be just a much better team than anyone thought possible.
NIU isn’t the only team outperforming expectations. Here are three under-the-radar teams that may need to be on one now.
1. BYU – Wins over SMU and Southern Illinois
BYU Football entered the season with an expected win total of 4.5 games. The Cougars are almost there, off to a 2-0 start, and they face a Wyoming team that looks very beatable this upcoming week. Now, you may think that being 2-0 is hardly an indicator of what a season may look like, but consider this: this past week against SMU, the Cougars did not give up a single touchdown to SMU. SMU, who had averaged over 50 points over the past year at home,, could not get into the endzone despite forcing three turnovers.
Again, this is only one game, but BYU’s defense was ranked near the bottom in every statistical category last year. Suppose this defense (traditionally much more dependable in college football) can continue to play at the same high level as it has the past two games. In that case, the Cougars won’t only get over six wins; they could be an eight-win team, especially if they can produce more offense.
2 – Arizona State – Wins over Mississippi State and Wyoming
Arizona State was supposed to be the worst team in the Big 12, yet they already have a win over the SEC and blew out Wyoming by more than 40 points. Yes, it was Mississippi State, but considering ASU was projected to go 0-3 in their nonconference games, beating any SEC team is very impressive. Arizona State may not be a contender to win the Big 12, but the expectation coming into the season was that the Sun Devils would win 3.4 games, according to ESPN’s FPI. They are already nearly there and are now projected to go 7-5.
Even more crazy, according to ESPN’s FPI, they are ranked ahead of Arizona, which was projected to be a contender to win the Big 12 conference.
3 – Northern Illinois – Wins over Notre Dame and Western Illinois
In what has been the upset of the season, Northwestern Illinois is now in the driver’s seat to play in the College Football Playoff if it wins its conference. This is despite that the MAC is viewed as one of the weaker G5 conferences. The belief has been that if there is a team from the MAC and the MWC or the AAC at the end of the season have the same record as a team from the MAC, those conferences would likely get the auto-bid since their conferences are considered much tougher.
However, there is not going to be a single team in the G5 that will have a win on their resume as impressive as going to Notre Dame and knocking off the Irish. That win along becomes a tie-breaker over any other team or conference.
Coach Thomas Hammock is a real man and REAL MEN CRY. He has worked so hard to get Northern Illinois to this point. You can feel all that hard work pouring out of him throughout his post game interview after knocking off #5 Notre Dame IN THEIR HOUSE. It’s worth 2 min of your time. pic.twitter.com/C1u3QmicgY
— Robert Griffin III (@RGIII) September 7, 2024
