10 College Football Teams That Have Improved the Most Since Week 1
First impressions matter, but over the course of a long college football season, so much can change from that opening game. Plenty of teams that looked impressive during Week 1—Texas is back, baby!—have since shown their true colors, and the same goes for ones that looked bad coming out of the gates.
These are the 10 teams that have shown the most improvement since the 2016 season began. Some were written off after uninspiring initial efforts but have since become more formidable, while others that didn't come out of the gates as hot as projected are now hitting their strides.
BYU Cougars
1 of 10
BYU (3-3) badly wants to get into a power conference—so much so that it loaded its future schedules with power opponents to show it's worthy of inclusion. Five of its first six foes have been from those leagues, and with each game, the Cougars are looking more and more battle-tested.
They started 1-3, edging Arizona on a field goal at the buzzer in their opener and then losing to Utah and UCLA, averaging only 17 points in those first three contests. The offense started to turn around in a 35-32 loss to West Virginia at FedEx Field. It followed that effort with 55 points against Toledo and then Saturday's surprisingly easy 31-14 win at Michigan State.
Dedicating itself to the run has been key to BYU's improvement. The Cougars have run the ball 134 times for 878 yards and 11 touchdowns in their last three games, with senior Jamaal Williams leading the charge. Williams is second in the FBS with 866 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns this season and is 64 yards from surpassing Harvey Unga, a graduate assistant at BYU, for the school's career rushing mark.
Clemson Tigers
2 of 10
Clemson began this season ranked second in the Associated Press Top 25 poll, but its results early on weren't what you'd expect from a team so highly rated. Winning 19-13 at Auburn and then 30-24 at home against Troy caused voters to drop the Tigers to fifth in the poll.
Maybe the Tigers were just waiting for the important games to arrive on their schedule to perform as expected. Namely, games in the ACC that they'll need to win as the first step toward getting back to the national championship.
Clemson (6-0) is 3-0 in the conference with a pair of dominant road wins—26-7 at Georgia Tech and 56-10 at Boston College—that came on short weeks. In between, though, was the effort that is most indicative of the Tigers' improvement: a 42-36 home win over red-hot Louisville. Though they blew an 18-point lead to fall behind by eight in the fourth quarter, the Tigers didn't sweat, rallying late and then making a key defensive stop at the end to clinch.
Now back at third in the rankings, Clemson controls its destiny and is starting to resemble the team that rolled through the 2015 season on its way to the title game.
Hawaii Rainbow Warriors
3 of 10
Hawaii's travel schedule would put Bruce Springsteen to shame, having already played games in Australia and Michigan in the first half of the season. But in addition to racking up the frequent flyer miles, the Rainbow Warriors have started to collect wins after a sluggish start to 2016.
First-year head coach Nick Rolovich has Hawaii at 3-3 after its 34-17 win Saturday at San Jose State, its first road win in the conference since November 2014 (also at San Jose State). The Warriors are 2-0 in the Mountain West and lead the West Division after losing their previous nine MWC games.
Since getting outscored 114-34 by California (in Australia) and Michigan, Hawaii has averaged 35.3 points per game. Sophomore Dru Brown is 39-of-51 for 509 yards and four touchdowns in the last two games since taking over as starter.
Hawaii, which hasn't qualified for a bowl game since 2010, needs to win four of its last seven games—it's allowed to play 13 because of the travel issues—in order to be eligible. Home games against UNLV (2-4), New Mexico (2-3) and Massachusetts (1-5) are all winnable, as is a Nov. 19 game at 1-5 Fresno State.
.jpg?w=256 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
Iowa State Cyclones
4 of 10
It has yet to show up in the standings, but Iowa State is a far better team now than it was when debuting under new head coach Matt Campbell. A 25-20 home loss to FCS foe Northern Iowa was followed by a 42-3 thumping by rival Iowa en route to the Cyclones opening the season at 0-3.
They're 1-5 now and 0-3 in the Big 12, having lost seven consecutive league games, but the last two outings have shown signs that a turnaround is possible in Ames.
Iowa State led Baylor 42-28 entering the fourth quarter two weeks ago, only to fall 45-42 on a last-second field goal. Then on Saturday, it held a 31-14 edge at Oklahoma State in the third before allowing 24 unanswered points to lose by seven.
"Iowa State has shown substantial improvement over the last few weeks," Tommy Birch of the Des Moines Register tweeted. "The next step in this process has to be finishing off a win, yes?"
Kentucky Wildcats
5 of 10
Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops began the 2016 season, his fourth in Lexington, on the hot seat. His pants nearly caught on fire after the Wildcats lost 44-35 at home to Southern Mississippi after leading 35-10.
That was followed by a 45-7 loss at Florida and then a near-disaster against New Mexico State, as the team trailed 28-21 in the first half before winning 62-42. Stoops might not have made it to Kentucky's next game had he lost that one.
The Wildcats are now 3-3 overall and 2-2 in the SEC, having beat South Carolina and Vanderbilt at home in the past three weeks. They also lost 34-6 at Alabama, but that's the fewest amount of points the Crimson Tide have scored this season, and defensive improvement is what has saved Kentucky.
After allowing 131 points in the first three games, Kentucky has yielded 57 in the last three. If that defensive improvement continues after a bye week, the Wildcats have enough winnable games on the second half of the schedule to get to that elusive six-win mark after consecutive 5-7 seasons.
North Texas Mean Green
6 of 10
North Texas went 1-11 last season, firing its coach midway through and ranking near the bottom of the FBS in most offensive categories. A 34-21 home loss to SMU to open 2016 was a better effort than most of last year's contests, but it still was not the best thing for the Mean Green to build off with a trip to Florida coming up.
They lost 32-0 in Gainesville in Week 3, managing only 53 yards in the process, but in the three games since, the Mean Green have won twice and found some offensive consistency.
Saturday's 38-21 win over Marshall moved North Texas to 3-3 overall and 2-1 in Conference USA, which is good for a three-way tie for first in the West Division with Louisiana Tech and Southern Mississippi. It's averaging 25.8 points per game, an increase of 10.6 from 2015.
Oklahoma Sooners
7 of 10
Oklahoma's nonconference schedule provided it the opportunity to make an early impact or fall flat on its face. The Sooners did the latter, losing to Houston and Ohio State in September to effectively eliminate themselves from the playoff conversation.
Despite arguably the best one-two rushing combination in the country, Oklahoma ran it only 26 times for 70 yards in that opener. It averaged 44.2 carries per game in 2015 and never had fewer than 33 in a game.
Returning to the run has been key to two high-scoring wins in Big 12 play—52-46 at TCU and then Saturday's 45-40 Red River victory against Texas. In those games, the Sooners ran a combined 103 times for 542 yards and eight touchdowns, with bruising junior Samaje Perine getting 52 carries for 312 yards and four scores in those games.
Shoddy defense remains an issue, with Oklahoma giving up 5.79 yards per play (compared to 4.79 a year ago), and Baker Mayfield hasn't been as crisp at quarterback. But as long as the run game is part of the formula, Oklahoma should continue to improve.
Virginia Cavaliers
8 of 10
Many wondered what Bronco Mendenhall was thinking when he left a good thing at BYU to take over a rudderless Virginia program. And that was before the Cavaliers lost to an FCS school in Mendenhall's debut to spark an 0-3 start.
Virginia didn't just lose to Richmond; it got pounded. The Cavs were outgained 524-302 with four turnovers in a 37-20 home setback. They then played consecutive road games on opposite coasts but showed a little more pluck in losing 44-26 at Oregon and 13-10 at Connecticut to set the stage for two straight wins.
The Cavs beat Central Michigan 49-35—though it blew a 28-0 lead—and then won 34-20 at Duke for the program's first two-game win streak since midway through the 2014 season.
Virginia plays its next three at home, but the going won't be easy. It first faces Pittsburgh before squaring off against ranked teams North Carolina and Louisville.
Wake Forest Demon Deacons
9 of 10
Wake Forest is 5-1 for the first time since 2006, something that didn't seem possible after a listless performance in its season opener. Though the Demon Deacons beat Tulane, they managed only seven points and 175 yards.
Since then, the Deacons have averaged 27.8 points and 380.8 yards per game—not earth-shattering numbers but good in comparison to the first game, as well as how the offense performed during most of head coach Dave Clawson's first two seasons in charge. Wake averaged 14.8 points and 216.3 yards in 2014 and only slightly improved to 17.4 points and 334.1 yards last season, going 3-9 both times.
Wake needs one victory to be bowl-eligible for the first time since 2011.
Washington State Cougars
10 of 10
Starting the season with a home loss to an FCS school isn't the normal recipe for success. But then again, not every cook is as eccentric as Washington State head coach Mike Leach.
The Cougars have opened with a dud in each of the last two seasons, losing 24-17 to Portland State in 2015 and falling 45-42 to Eastern Washington as part of an 0-2 start this year. But since Leach referred to his unit as a "JC softball team," per Andrew Joseph of USA Today, the Cougars have been a different outfit.
Three straight wins have Washington State on the rise, the last two coming against traditional Pac-12 North Division powers Oregon (51-33) and Stanford (42-16). Winning at Stanford in such dominant fashion was among the biggest surprises of the season, though that result may be as much a product of Stanford not being as good as projected.
Leach has a well-documented aversion to running the ball, ranking last nationally in rushing attempts per game in each of his first four seasons at WSU. Yet the ground game has been a big part of the turnaround, as the Cougars have averaged 35 carries for 203 yards with 11 rushing touchdowns during the three-game win streak.
WSU had run 30 or more times in just five of Leach's 52 games as coach.
.jpg?w=480 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
