Burning questions for Week 8 of the college football season, including how the ACC will be affected in the College Football Playoff if Clemson loses to NC State.
Week 8 of the college football season is setting up to be another intense week of highly touted games between top 25 teams. Michigan goes to fight Michigan State in East Lansing, NC State plays at Clemson in a battle of unbeaten teams, Mississippi State travels to LSU with the hope of pulling off an upset like LSU did last week, and Oregon faces off against Washington State with Oregon needing a statement victory to prove they deserve a shot at the College Football Playoff.
Week 8 also showcases the talents of Heisman candidates Tua Tagovailoa of Alabama, Dwayne Haskins of Ohio State, Kyler Murray of Oklahoma, and McKenzie Milton of UCF. All of these big names are facing off against opponents that are not currently ranked, setting up for another week of impressive performances.
5. Can Purdue make Dwayne Haskins look human?
Do not be surprised if they do. We saw Tagovailoa come back down to earth against Missouri throwing a career-high 10 incompletions before leaving after aggravating a knee sprain. Haskins, on the other hand, threw for over 400 yards in the second consecutive game and was able to avoid any interceptions while throwing for three touchdowns. Ohio State travels to play against a Purdue team on a three-game winning streak. Purdue’s defense has been sneakily efficient this year, allowing 23 points and 267 passing yards per game. Haskins will put up a little less on the stat sheet as the Buckeyes focus more on attacking the Purdue run defense with J.K. Dobbins and Mike Weber.
4. What top 10 team is on upset alert against an unranked opponent?
Oklahoma at TCU. TCU is a team that had high expectations coming into the season and they looked like a legitimate power early on. This narrative has completely flipped as TCU has lost three of their last four games. The way TCU can pull off an upset this week is with their defense. TCU has a defense that is only giving up 20 points per game and 311 yards per game. These numbers are small in comparison to the nationwide perception of what Big 12 defenses should look like. If TCU can string together some turnovers that help provide the offense with scoring opportunities, Oklahoma may be in for a defeat on Saturday.
3. Best sneaky-good game between unranked teams?
Virginia at Duke. Virginia is currently 4-2 after upsetting Miami last week and Duke is sneakily 5-1 behind the arm of Daniel Jones. The ACC Coastal is a wide open division right now and the winner of this game will see themselves in the top 25 of the AP Poll next week and within the top three in the division. Whichever team wins will be only a game behind Virginia Tech and be in a position to make a late season run. Both of these teams are holding their opponents to less than 20 points, so expect this game to be a low scoring affair with the team making fewer mistakes offensively coming out on top.
2. What happens to the ACC’s Playoff hopes if Clemson loses to NC State?
The ACC will be with the Pac-12 as a conference on the outside of the playoff. Clemson is the best chance the ACC has of making the College Football Playoff and a loss to NC State at home would seemingly derail those chances. This would be NC State’s only key win of the season and it will be hard for the team to prove themselves with one of the weaker schedules in football. NC State was supposed to play West Virginia, but the cancellation of that game has only hurt the Wolfpack in their push to be known as a true contender this year.
1. Will all three undefeated teams in the AAC win this weekend?
Yes, providing the conference with three teams ranking in the top 20. UCF and USF had scares last week, both only coming away with one point victories over lesser conference competition. This was the wake-up call they needed to put up big victories this week with USF playing Connecticut and UCF playing East Carolina. Cincinnati is currently an underdog at Temple this week, but Cincinnati has a dominant rush offense this year and that is where the Temple defense is the weakest. Look for all of these teams to pull off victories and continue their rises in the rankings.