College football Week 4: 5 teams on upset alert
With a slew of marquee games in Week 4 of the 2018 college football season, which teams find themselves on upset alert heading into their matchups?
There was the potential for quite a few upsets last week across the country in college football. From Ohio State having to go down to Texas to face the TCU Horned Frogs to the Alabama Crimson Tide taking on a high-powered SEC offense, there was a chance for great teams to be pushed. And while some were, teams like Alabama were not. Yet, the big upset of the day came from an unlikely place.
Given the methodical style and talented roster of the Wisconsin Badgers, no one seemed to think that this team would be tested outside of Big Ten play — if they would even be tested in that regard. However, that wasn’t the case last week. Instead, the Badgers came out completely flat and found themselves on the wrong side of a BYU Cougars victory, potentially dashing their College Football Playoff hopes, or at least taking them out of the conversation to this point.
What Wisconsin’s loss last week proved is simply that this is college football. This is a sport where, just when you think you know something, the unthinkable happens. It’s what makes Saturdays in the fall so entertaining and why the majority of fans are glued to the couch for 8-10 hours every weekend.
Despite how unpredictable this 2018 college football season is already proving to be, we’re still going to try and take what we know and what we’ve seen and project the teams that could be in danger of suffering an upset this week. With that, let’s look at five teams that should be on early upset alert heading into Week 4.
5. Washington Huskies
Rank: 10 | Opponent: Arizona State Sun Devils | Time: 10:30 p.m. ET
Still ranked as the No. 10 team in the country, you might be led to believe that the Washington Huskies are still one of the best teams in college football. But when you really look at that, what evidence is there to prove that? To this point in the still-young 2018 college football season, I truly don’t see what they’ve done that’s been that impressive.
Their “marquee” win to this point came last week as they were able to go on the road and top the Utah Utes, 21-7. The week before that, they did what any good team should do by trouncing North Dakota at home. But before that, they lost to the Auburn Tigers and, while Auburn is a good team, the Tigers played pretty poorly in that game, but still somehow controlled almost everything as Washington looked quite lost.
Now the Huskies will welcome the Arizona State Sun Devils to Seattle on Saturday night and, frankly, that’s not good new for them. Sure, many people might be saying that the Sun Devils were proven to be pretenders after losing their first game following their inclusion in the top 25, falling to San Diego State. Having said that, this is still a highly dangerous team under Herm Edwards.
While much will be made of Manny Wilkins against the Washington defense, I think the key to this matchup is a quality Arizona State defense against a suspect Huskies offense. I have little faith in Jake Browning when pressured and, with Trey Adams out for the year, I believe the Sun Devils can get after him. And if that happens, Arizona State can win this game late on Saturday night.