As the 2018 college football season starts to separate the contenders and pretenders, these five teams need to be on upset alert in Week 6.
Throughout the country last week, we were exceptionally close to seeing the college football world turned a bit upside down after five weeks of the 2018 season. Both big and small, we saw upsets or potential upsets transpiring throughout the land. At the end of the day, none of the major ones ultimately came to fruition, but the outcomes were certainly in question for some time.
This was abundantly true in the case of the Clemson Tigers. Fans will certainly point to the fact that new starting quarterback Trevor Lawrence was knocked out of the game as to the reason why the Syracuse Orange were pushing the Tigers, but the Orange were already leading at the time of the injury. If not for heroics by running back Travis Etienne, the Tigers could’ve suffered a loss to ‘Cuse for the second-straight year.
Elsewhere in the college football landscape, Virginia Tech did bounce back to upset Duke, Florida came up big over Mississippi State, Michigan found themselves pushed by Northwestern and needing to come back and, of course, Ohio State needed a second-half comeback and late-game sparks to avoid getting knocked off by Trace McSorley and Ohio State.
The type of week that we saw last week in college football was wild, but it’s about to become the norm in a way. With conference play really heating up and teams getting worn down, the idea that anything can happen in this sport is even more in play that it often is.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at five teams on upset alert in Week 6 of the 2018 college football season.
5. Oklahoma Sooners
Rank: 7 | Opponent: 19 Texas Longhorns | Start Time: Noon ET
It’s that time of year when the Red River Rivalry is ready to take over the sport of college football, and for good reason. There are few rivalry games in all of sports that consistently offer the palpable excitement that’s in the air when the Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners face off, regardless of what each team looks like in a given season.
What’s fortunate in 2018, however, is that the Longhorns and Sooners both have looked good through five weeks, especially with the former bouncing back from a loss in the season-opener and starting to prove themselves. Thus, not only are we getting a rivalry game, but we’re getting a matchup between two top-20 teams in the country.
Having said that, the talent for Oklahoma, on paper, does seem like it will be a lot for Texas to handle on Saturday in Norman. Kyler Murray not only has an MLB caliber arm attached, but he’s proven to be lightning quick and capable of making plays with his feet. With weapons like Marquise Brown and CeeDee Lamb at his disposal, the offense is lethal. And truthfully, the defense overall has looked much better than expected.
While that all may be true, this is still a rivalry game that we’ve seen be close time and again. I think that’s again the case with a talented Texas offense keeping pace against the Sooners in a semi-shootout. And in that type of environment with that type of game-flow, you can never count anything out, even a big-time upset.