Red Flags: 5 college football teams on upset alert in Week 13

Upsets and college football rivalry week go hand-in-hand. One team is vastly superior to their biggest rival? Doesn't matter when these games in this week are being played. Much of what we know is off the table. Having said that, if we look for the Red Flags like always, we can start to see the spots where college football upsets might be brewing.

Whether we're talking about the Big House or a late-November afternoon in Jordan-Hare, among many others, we haven't had the full-blown chaos week just yet. And it would make so much sense for those upsets to come in a flood on rivalry week.

We struck out with our college football upset picks, even if we were close in some spots. Louisville got a scare from Miami while Oregon State pushed Washington for 60 minutes. But we're back at it having correctly predicted 17 ranked teams who lost that week out of 60 picks for the season to this point. Yes, it's not a great winning percentage, but this is a risky proposition!

So let's take the risk one more time and let chaos absolutely reign. These are the college football upset picks for Week 13, the teams on upset alert as they could feel the heat of rivalry week.

2023 Upset Picks Record: 17-43

Note: All lines are courtesy of FanDuel Sportsbook. For more college football odds, picks and predictions, visit BetSided.

5. Oklahoma Sooners

Opponent: TCU | Time: Friday, Nov. 24, Noon ET (FOX) | Spread: OU -9.5

Let me go ahead and address the elephant in the room: No, TCU is not that good. The Horned Frogs have fallen off precipitously from where they were last season. We expected that as forecasting Sonny Dykes' team to be national runners-up again would've been foolish given all they lost. But they come into the season finale against Oklahoma needing a win to become bowl eligible.

That, however, is where we start. Yes, the Sooners should be motivated as they still have a chance to make the Big 12 Championship Game with some help from Oklahoma State and Kansas State (and Texas, to be sure, as well). Is that outside shot, though, as motivational as TCU trying to fight for a bowl berth? I would argue maybe not.

On top of that, we've really seen Oklahoma fall off quite a bit over the past four weeks. That run includes a loss to Kansas, a loss to Oklahoma State, a win over a West Virginia team running out of gas, and barely beating a reeling BYU team last week.

Perhaps the biggest worry is that the Sooners run defense has been abysmal as of late. With TCU starting to see Emani Bailey get comfortable and hit his stride (five rushing scores in the last three games) while Josh Hoover continues to improve as well, this is an OU defense that seems like it could be had.

Granted, TCU's defense might not be good enough to stop Dillon Gabriel and the Sooners offense at its best -- but we've also seen that offense simply not deliver consistently. As such, with all of this going on, Oklahoma is certainly in danger of getting upset.