With the two top-ranked teams in college football in top-25 matchups in Week 11, which five teams are on upset alert this week?
We’re coming into the home stretch of the 2018 college football regular season. Some conference championship matchups have already been set, but others remain wide-open as to what could transpire over the remaining few weeks. More importantly, we’re also looking at a tight race for the College Football Playoff as anything has yet to be firmly decided and one loss could change anything.
That’s especially true at the very top of the rankings with the Alabama Crimson Tide and Clemson Tigers leading the way. What’s more, both of these teams find themselves going up against ranked opponents in Week 11 of the 2018 season. Thus, the potential for an upset to transpire may seem like it’s there. For one of those teams, that’s the case — for Alabama, not so much.
After the dominant performance that Tua Tagovailoa and the Crimson Tide displayed last week in shutting out LSU, they will be up against another stout defense in the Mississippi State Bulldogs this week. However, there will be no upset bid. Not only is Mississippi State’s defense not as good as LSU’s, but their offense seemingly stands little chance against this Alabama defense. Simply put, that game is more likely to be a blowout for the Tide than and upset bid by the Bulldogs.
That, however, is not the case for every ranked team that will be in action on Saturday in Week 11. There are several potential upset bids looming and, at this point in the season, the pressure will be on.
With that in mind, let’s put the following five teams on upset alert in Week 11 of the 2018 college football season.
5. Ohio State Buckeyes
Rank: 10 | Opponent: 18 Michigan State Spartans | Time: Noon ET
We’re going to get this out of the way from the jump: The Michigan State Spartans are not a good football team — or at least not as good as their 18th spot in the latest rankings would have you believe. While their defense has been impressive, this is an offense that has wholly underwhelmed throughout the entire year, even seeing quarterback Brian Lewerke get benched on numerous occasions in recent weeks.
Given that, you would think that Dwayne Haskins and the Ohio State Buckeyes would be clearly in the driver’s seat coming into this matchup, even if they have to go on the road to play in East Lansing. With how they’ve played over their last two games, it’s hard to have confidence in what the Buckeyes are right now.
Two weeks ago, Ohio State went on the road against a lesser Purdue team (one Michigan State beat 23-13, for the record) and were simply dominated for their first loss of the year. Then, the Buckeyes responded to their first loss by getting taken to the brink by a Nebraska Cornhuskers team that is 2-7 overall on the season. The Buckeyes have looked nothing like a possible contender we once thought them to be.
As little faith as I have in the Spartans, their defense has been enough to win some big games. When you throw that into how Ohio State has played of late and the Buckeyes going on the road, this stinks to high heavens for the group coming out of Columbus. Unless they turn it around, they could unquestionable drop their second game out of their last three.