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College football Week 1: 5 teams on upset alert

By Cody Williams

JACKSONVILLE, FL - OCTOBER 29: Jacob Eason #10 of the Georgia Bulldogs in action during the first half of the game against the Florida Gators at EverBank Field on October 29, 2016 in Jacksonville, Florida. (Photo by Rob Foldy/Getty Images)
JACKSONVILLE, FL - OCTOBER 29: Jacob Eason #10 of the Georgia Bulldogs in action during the first half of the game against the Florida Gators at EverBank Field on October 29, 2016 in Jacksonville, Florida. (Photo by Rob Foldy/Getty Images) /
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Week 1 of the 2017 college football season has finally arrived, but which teams could have an unwelcome opener as they’re on upset alert from the jump?

There are numerous things that get fans excited about a burgeoning college football season. It’s time for the bright lights, the voice of Kirk Herbstreit in primetime, the big-time individual performers stepping up and so on. However, it’d be a disservice to the sport to say that the best part of college football isn’t the upsets.

Yes, it’s always brutal if your favorite team is on the wrong end of an upset. However, that’s part of the beauty of college football as a whole. There is parity throughout and the youth of the players makes each week unpredictable. You never know which team is going to rise up and knock off an opponent that they weren’t “supposed” to have a chance against.

It looked like we might see one in the small opening slate last week as No. 19 ranked South Florida fell behind by two scores early to a vastly inferior San Jose State team. Ultimately, Quinton Flowers and company were able to come back and get the win. But it reminded us of the upsets that we’ve missed over the past eight months without college football.

So as the sport gets ready to go full-swing into the 2017 season with a slate of big games in Week 1 on Labor Day Weekend, let’s take a look at five teams that need to be on upset alert.

5. Tennessee Volunteers

Rank: 25, Opponent: Georgia Tech

Last season was supposed to be “the year” for the Tennessee Volunteers. If you talked to any orange-clad fan coming into the season, they would’ve told you that Josh Dobbs and company were going to compete for a spot in the College Football Playoff. Instead, they were a team mired by injuries, inconsistency and having to skate by on the seat of their pants in many instances. They were fun, but fell short of expectations.

Now they enter this 2017 season with a lot of question marks. Dobbs is gone, as are weapons like Alvin Kamara and Josh Malone. Subsequently, their biggest strength from last year now becomes an unknown. Obviously this is Tennessee we’re talking about, so they have talent to replace them. But this is a team that is unproven largely and that could experience growing pains early in the season.

Though the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets aren’t necessarily the same team they were a year ago, what they are is a team that knows who they are. The Yellow Jackets are always going to stick to their option game and that being their bread and butter. Against a Tennessee team that may struggle to find an identity early in the season, that could be a nice recipe for an upset on Labor Day.

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