College football upset picks: Alabama and 5 teams on upset alert in Week 5

College football upset pick No. 3: Iowa Hawkeyes

Rank: 5 | Opponent: at Maryland Terrapins | Time: Friday, Oct. 1, 8:00 p.m. ET

When it comes to execution, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better team in college football at exacting their plan of attack week-in and week-out than the Iowa Hawkeyes. That’s why they’ve climbed into the top-five of the AP Top 25 with impressive wins over Indiana and Iowa State already.

However, the inherent flaw with Iowa comes with their plan of attack itself. This offense is extremely limited and putt-putts down the field with regularity. Because of how good their defense is, it often doesn’t matter. Yet, it does make them susceptible to an explosive offense getting hot at any point and possibly putting the game out of reach for a limited Hawkeyes offense.

Though Maryland hasn’t played a murderer’s row this season, their offense is undeniably impressive. Taulia Tagovailoa is quietly playing like one of the best quarterbacks in college football and they did notch an impressive win over West Virginia to start the year, a team with a great defense in their own right.

The Terps average 181.5 more passing yards and 44.7 more rushing yards per game than Iowa. While the Hawkeyes defense could definitely slow them down, all it could take would be two or three explosive plays, something Maryland is more than capable of producing, to get a leg up on Iowa that the No. 5-ranked team in the country can’t recover from.