College Football Picks Week 4: Predictions for Top 25 Games on Upcoming Schedule

College football visited upset city in the 2015 season's third week, shaking up the Top 25 considerably ahead of an important Week 4 full of marquee conference battles.

Amid big upsets like Ole Miss' second-straight win over Alabama and another road victory for Stanford against USC, the college football elite have been given notice that anyone can go down on any given week. Also proven by Northern Illinois in a near upset of top-ranked Ohio State, the giants can't get caught sleeping against an unheralded foe.

Only two matchups between fellow Top 25 teams are on the slate, but the schedule is still flooded with potential upsets and big bouts that will decide conference hierarchy. Let's take a look at them.

Week 4 Schedule, Predictions for Top 25 Teams

Time (ET)	Matchup	Prediction
Fri., Sept. 25	-	-
10 p.m.	No. 21 Stanford at Oregon State	Stanford
TBD	No. 18 Utah at No. 13 Oregon	Oregon
Sat., Sept. 26	-	-
Noon	No. 22 BYU at Michigan	BYU
Noon	Central Michigan at No. 2 Michigan State	Michigan State
Noon	No. 8 LSU at Syracuse	LSU
Noon	No. 20 Georgia Tech at Duke	Georgia Tech
Noon	Southern at No. 7 Georgia	Georgia
3 p.m.	Rice at No. 5 Baylor	Baylor
3:30 p.m.	No. 24 Oklahoma State at Texas	Texas
3:30 p.m.	Western Michigan at No. 1 Ohio State	Ohio State
3:30 p.m.	Massachusetts at No. 6 Notre Dame	Notre Dame
4 p.m.	Louisiana Monroe at No. 12 Alabama	Alabama
4:45 p.m.	No. 3 TCU at Texas Tech	TCU
7 p.m.	Arkansas at No. 14 Texas A&M	Texas A&M
7 p.m.	Vanderbilt at No. 3 Ole Miss	Ole Miss
7:30 p.m.	No. 25 Missouri at Kentucky	Kentucky
8 p.m.	No. 9 UCLA at No. 16 Arizona	UCLA
8 p.m.	Hawaii at No. 22 Wisconsin	Wisconsin
8 p.m.	Ball State at No. 17 Northwestern	Northwestern
10:30 p.m.	No. 19 USC at Arizona State	USC

No. 3 TCU at Texas Tech

Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press

A surging Big 12 squad riding high on confidence hosts an in-conference foe currently reeling off a subpar performance. And the confident one isn't the team in the top five nationally.

After avoiding a catastrophic upset Saturday against SMU, the TCU Horned Frogs head to face Texas Tech in the hopes of starting their conference slate off 1-0. But they don't face a typical Red Raiders squad.

Instead, Kliff Kingsbury has his team surging after pounding Arkansas on the road 35-24. In the wake of that upset, Jake Trotter of Sports Illustrated noted Texas Tech should have a rowdy home-field advantage:

TCU's hopes for making the College Football Playoff are still very much alive after starting 3-0, but things went sour for long stretches of the Horned Frogs' win over SMU. As noted by Phil Steele, TCU struggled mightily as SMU rattled off 20 straight points:

Texas Tech's sizzling pass attack led by Patrick Mahomes has the weaponry to match TCU blow for blow, especially with how susceptible both secondaries look. That should make this a high-scoring affair.

But those sorts of games always bring out the best in Trevone Boykin, who is putting together the early stretches of a Heisman Trophy campaign. He won't be derailed against a shoddy Red Raiders defense.

Prediction: TCU 51, Texas Tech 40

Arkansas at No. 14 Texas A&M

David J. Phillip/Associated Press

Speaking of Texas Tech, the Arkansas Razorbacks team that they just took to the woodshed has to hit the reset button after two shocking home upsets. Arkansas will try to turn things around on the road at Texas A&M.

Unfortunately for Arkansas, it faces another squad with the ability to pass the ball all over the place and make things difficult for opposing defensive backs. After quarterback Kyle Allen's sizzling start to 2015, he's even being favorably compared to NFL quarterbacks, as Mark Passwaters of Rivals.com noted:

If there's one saving grace for Bret Bielema's squad, it's that its biggest strength correlates with the Aggies' worst weakness. Defensive coordinator John Chavis is revamping the defense, but A&M's allowance of 153 rushing yards to Nevada last week only illustrates its issues.

With that said, that's not nearly enough to match what A&M will be able to do through the air. Allen is confident with his receivers making plays for him, and against an Arkansas defense that is still reeling, that will be enough.

Prediction: Texas A&M 31, Arkansas 20