College football upset picks: Penn State and 5 teams on upset alert in Week 3

College football Week 3 upset alert No. 1: Penn State Nittany Lions

Rank: 10 | Opponent: 22 Auburn Tigers | Time: Saturday, Sept. 18, 7:30 p.m. ET

Let’s get this out of the way; I don’t believe Auburn upsets Penn State this week. Quarterback Bo Nix has traditionally struggled mightily to produce consistently enough to win against good defenses throughout his career and the Nittany Lions have proven already that they are stout on that side of the ball. It will be a dogfight but James Franklin’s team is my pick to win.

However, if we’re talking about conceivable upsets in Week 3, this game has to be mentioned as part of that equation for a couple of reasons.

The biggest of those is that Auburn truly enters this game as an unknown quantity. Anyone telling you that they can glean something about the Tigers because they put up 60 points on Akron and Alabama State is lying to you. All that means is that they have the athletes to dominate the vastly inferior competition, not that they are on the level of Penn State.

On top of that, though, Sean Clifford is another quarterback that hasn’t warranted a great deal of faith. I would argue he’s been better than Nix, but the margin isn’t wide. And if nothing else, Auburn has defensive talent to potentially force the Penn State quarterback into mistakes.

So yes, this isn’t a game I would predict will end in an upset. However, it’s most certainly plausible and possible, which is enough to put Penn State on upset alert this week.

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