Beware College Football's Cinderella Teams in 2015
EVANSTON, Ill. — At some point, there's going to be a harsh realization about what’s going on in college football right now. It hasn't come yet. The college football world is in denial. It always sees everything from the top down. So Utah's win over Michigan was proof that Jim Harbaugh hasn't worked magic yet. Northwestern's win over Stanford was evidence that Stanford still isn't Stanford.
Toledo's win over Arkansas? Arkansas is overrated.
There's a point-of-view problem here. The mountaintop of college football seems to always be occupied by Ohio State or Alabama or some other major program. And in the end this year, it might stay that way again. But here's a thought: What if Utah's win was a reflection not of Michigan, but of Utah? Maybe when Northwestern manhandled Stanford, that was a sign of how good Northwestern is, not how bad Stanford is.
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The truth is, several of the programs on the mountaintop of college football are looking like they might come tumbling down in an avalanche. They just aren't that good. Even the mighty SEC is overrated and without top quarterbacks to bail its teams out.
So this is a golden opportunity for several schools that no one was even talking about three weeks ago.
Like Northwestern. Coach Pat Fitzgerald fights that kind of talk with the usual reservations of a coach. He told Bleacher Report he's not a proponent of preseason in college football, but that without one it’s impossible to know how good or bad or surprising or disappointing anyone is this early in the season.
"You're three weeks in. I wouldn't evaluate where any team is at until seven, eight weeks into the season. And then you can really evaluate where you're at."
So three weeks in, Auburn seems to have lost it. Texas has imploded. USC is about to do the same. Alabama has no quarterback. Fitzgerald’s point: Take the early impressions with a grain of salt.
Besides, Fitzgerald said, for the past few years, "We stink in October. We're terrible and I'm sick of it."
He says any discussion about the College Football Playoff right now is from people who "want to have a discussion about everything that doesn't matter."
Well, welcome to how people talk about sports, Pat Fitzgerald. Too early? Of course it's too early. But Fitzgerald is plenty familiar with teams emerging out of nowhere to get all the way to the top. And teams and fanbases that usually have no hope for such a thing have it now.
Fitzgerald was the nation's top linebacker as a player for Northwestern when the Wildcats went from zero expectations all the way to the Rose Bowl in 1996.
"Many moons ago," Fitzgerald said.
Look, college sports is all about momentum. Northwestern found it that year, won the Big Ten and went to the Rose Bowl. This season, the landscape is perfect for someone—maybe even Northwestern—to do something like that again.
Last week, I wrote about the surging underdogs in college football. Teams that aren't even at the top level were scaring, or even beating, top major college programs. I'm talking about schools you've never heard of, like Portland State, Jacksonville State, South Dakota State, Texas-San Antonio.
What city do you think Cal Poly is in?
"The reality is, there's a lot of good football players in the United States, and Auburn can't take all of them and Arizona State can't take all of them and USC can't take all of them," Tim Walsh, coach at Cal Poly (which is located in San Luis Obispo, California), told me. "Our level [FCS], at the top level, plays really good football and deserves more respect probably."
But those schools won't get more than one game here or there against the big boys. At the next level up, Toledo of the Mid-American Conference can push Arkansas around one week then beat Iowa State this past weekend. But it can't get into the College Football Playoff no matter what. The rules are just too slanted against anyone who isn't in one of the Power Five conferences.
A prediction: If those schools, including Northern Illinois, start making too much noise and beating the big boys, then the Power Five will just step on them, stop sharing any ESPN money with them at all and knock them out of the major college level altogether.
But that doesn't mean the traditional powers aren't vulnerable. USC lost to Stanford two weeks after Northwestern pushed Stanford all over the place.
Utah is at Oregon this week. A win there and it will be clear: Oregon lost all it had when Marcus Mariota graduated.
No wait, what am I saying? Utah is 3-0 and ranked No. 18, and a win at Oregon should move it up close to the Top 10. Ahead of Alabama.
Media members who cover the Pac-12 picked Utah to finish fifth out of the six teams in the conference’s South division. But the Utes are just so well-coached by Kyle Whittingham: In three games, just six penalties. Last week, Utah had a 98-yard kick return, a 77-yard punt return and two punts inside the 10-yard line.
Northwestern's defense has been even more dominant, giving up one touchdown all year, against Stanford, Eastern Illinois and Duke. The Wildcats drew an incredible schedule that manages to miss Ohio State and Michigan State. Every game seems winnable, though neither Northwestern nor Utah is solid at quarterback.
This isn't to predict an underdog national champ. But it’s possible. Just don't let the collapse of the big boys color your view.
Greg Couch covers college football for Bleacher Report.
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