A shout-out for college football's biggest surprise teams
Yardbarker's Kate Rooney and Michael Weinreb address some of the hottest issues in college football. This week's topic: surprising teams.
Rooney: It's hard to believe that we're already a third of the way through the college football season. In some ways, we're right where we thought we'd be -- Clemson, Alabama and Georgia remain atop the AP poll, their records pristine, and without any difficult hurdles in the rear-view mirror. No one expected different. But what of the teams that, four weeks into the season, have overachieved?
The most notable of these is probably Cal (4-0). Before the season, the Bears were about as close to an AP ranking as the Dolphins are to a Super Bowl appearance. Cal was projected, pretty much across the board, to finish fifth in the Pac-12 North Division. Fast forward to Week 5 and Justin Wilcox's squad has rattled off four straight wins, including victories over 14th-ranked Washington in Seattle and at Ole Miss. The win against the Rebels made Cal the first Pac-12 team to defeat an SEC opponent at home since 2010. Now the Bears are the only undefeated team remaining in their league, and sit at No. 15 in the AP Top 25.
There are a handful of other teams in surprisingly great positions. Like Virginia, which has started 4-0 for the first time since 2004. Or Boise State (4-0), the highest-ranked Group of Five squad, with a seemingly legitimate shot to run the table. Outside of the top 10, there are six schools with unblemished records in the AP poll. Two of those, Cal and Kansas State, didn't receive a vote when the preseason poll was released.
Now that conference competition is beginning in earnest, it's only a matter of time before the landscape shifts again. But among that second-tier of undefeated squads, who has surprised you the most? Are any of these teams the real deal, or should chalk their successes up to momentum and favorable scheduling?
Weinreb: You could sort of tell that Justin Wilcox knew what he was doing last season at Cal, but it always kind of catches me off guard when the Bears are actually good, because Berkeley feels so utterly removed from the real-life college football universe. (Maybe it’s not a coincidence that Cal is best known not for any sort of collective team greatness, but for the apex of weirdness in college football history.) But Cal has real talent this year, particularly on defense: Linebacker Evan Weaver is a tackling machine (he has 63 through four games), and safety Ashtyn Davis anchors one of the best secondaries in the country?
Seriously.
Now, I think there’s about as much of a chance of Cal making the Playoff as there is of Berkeley suddenly becoming a Republican stronghold (shout-out to the funniest clip of the season to date during Cal’s win over Ole Miss), but if the Bears can win five of their remaining eight games, they’ll have their first nine-win season since 2008, when Jeff Tedford briefly built Cal into an actual Pac-12 contender (Aaron Rodgers helped, too). If that win over Washington — and a win on the road against an SEC team — were any indication, the Bears might be at that level again. Especially given the perpetual parity of a conference that no one seems to want to win.
And yeah, Virginia’s resurgence is a shock for similar reasons — that’s another campus where football isn’t exactly a high priority among the student body, and coach Bronco Mendenhall inherited a program that was nearly devoid of enough competent players to even field a full team. And Boise … well, the Broncos found a freshman quarterback in Hank Bachmeier, and then found a new level of confidence by outlasting Florida State on the road to start the season. With UCF getting Boise-d straight out of an undefeated season against Pitt last week, Boise could be the new UCF (which was once the new Boise).
But let me throw another one out there, because it actually ties back to Cal — SMU is 4-0 under Coach Sonny Dykes, who’s in his second full season after spending four years at Cal, where he fit in about as well as a Federalist Society member Last Saturday, the Mustangs upset TCU on the Horned Frogs’ home field, thereby taking home a coveted piece of cookware It’s the first time SMU — which was picked to finish fourth in its division in the AAC — has started 4-0 since 1984, which predates the death penalty shutdown that devastated the program. The Mustangs average 43.5 points (16th in the country), and quarterback Shane Buechele, a Texas transfer, has been solid enough that it’s not impossible to imagine SMU competing for a conference title. And as someone who grew up both despising and adoring those SMU teams, I’d find that swell.
Weinreb: So which of these early surprise teams do you take most seriously? And which appeals to you most on a gut emotional level?
Rooney: Garçon, I’ll take one glass of Klieman Kool-Aid, please. I guess it shouldn’t necessarily be a total surprise given his success at North Dakota State, but I love what Chris Klieman is doing at Kansas State (3-0). For fun, let’s revisit some of the stats that convinced the Wildcats Klieman would be a worthy successor to Bill Snyder, the sequel:
1. He was coming off 21 straight wins with the Bison.
2. His overall record at NDSU was 69-6.
3. He led the Bison to four FCS titles in five years. That’s some Nick Saban-level dominance.
But now that Klieman is in the same football subdivision as the most feared man in college football, it follows he’d experience growing pains. The sample size may be small, so forgive my overreaction, but … NOT SO FAR. Yeah, the Wildcats are supposed to beat the likes of Nicholls and Bowling Green, but to absolutely shellac them, well, it’s impressive. Kansas State averages 44 points per game, tied for 13th in the nation — not bad for a head coach who hangs his hat on defense.
Further evidence that this could be a program on the up-and-up is the win over Mississippi State. It’s sort of crazy to think that this was the first time since 2011 the Wildcats have defeated a fellow Power Five opponent on the road. And perhaps most impressive is that the team overcame a fourth-quarter deficit to do it.
Kansas State had a bye last week, and conference play will be a totally different beast. The Wildcats open as 7.5-point underdogs in their first league contest, at Oklahoma State. Am I willing to go so far as to say KSU is a conference contender? Probably not — a lot can change after playing Oklahoma and Texas just two weeks apart. Am I willing to go so far as to say KSU could be a serious trap game for the likes of those teams? Absolutely.
But the team I’m going all T.O. for is gonna have to be Boise State. Maybe it’s because the early Chris Petersen years coincide with the beginning of my personal love affair with the sport. Maybe it’s because I’m a sucker for an underdog, and continually enjoy the idea Group of Five teams hanging with the Power Five. Maybe it’s because the Broncos have provided us with so many fun moments over the years. Whatever the reason, Bryan Harsin has done an impressive job continuing the national relevance that Petersen established.
The Broncos haven’t quite managed a season like Harsin's first -- a 12-2 record and Fiesta Bowl win -- but maybe this is the year. Boise did suffer a big blow this week, losing its best defensive player, Ezekiel Noa, to a season-ending ACL tear. QB Hank Bachmeier has been impressive on the other side of the ball, but it’s always hard to know what you’ll get from a freshman down the stretch. So nothing is guaranteed, but I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say we could be enjoying BSU football come New Year’s time.
Rooney: We’ve just covered the undefeated squads here. Are there any teams with a loss that are on your radar for prolonged, unexpected, success this season?
Weinreb: Since we’re going crazy on North Dakota State, I kind of thought this might be the year Wyoming would break through under former NDSU coach Craig Bohl, who’s made a couple of bowl games in his first five years overseeing the sport’s most underrated color scheme but has yet to really break through. The Cowboys beat Missouri in Week 1, but a loss to Tulsa dragged them back to earth pretty quickly.
That said, you’ve already covered Boise, but the Mountain West is kind of loaded this year — as proven by the conference’s multiple wins over Power Five teams in the early season. Utah State quarterback Jordan Love is a potential top-10 NFL draft pick who could throw a scare into LSU in a couple of weeks; the Aggies are fifth in the country in passing offense, one spot ahead of Hawaii -- which has wins over Arizona and Oregon State behind quarterback Cole McDonald, who has thrown 13 touchdown passes through four games. There’s also San Diego State, which upended that complete Mystery Machine of a UCLA team a few weeks back, and Air Force, which beat Colorado in overtime and gave Boise a good run last weekend. (Even San Jose State, which has won three games in the past two seasons, beat Arkansas on the road last week.)
But pardon my Group of Five digression, playoff committee — I know you don’t care and never will care, even if Boise does go 12-0. The obvious choice for a major one-loss team the committee will be keeping an eye on is Notre Dame — the Irish looked waaayyy better than most of us anticipated (meaning “me”) in last Saturday’s loss to Georgia, and they have that undefeated Virginia team (4-0) at home this weekend. If they bounce back strong and survive a tricky schedule, it’s not impossible to imagine the Irish slipping back into the playoff, now that they’ve proven they can actually go toe-to-toe with a potential playoff team.
And just for good measure, I’ll give you one early undefeated we haven’t discussed yet: Baylor. The Bears are 3-0, the Big 12 seems pretty wide open behind Oklahoma and Texas, and they get preseason darling Iowa State at home this weekend. Baylor’s run the ball well, and quarterback Charlie Brewer has yet to throw an interception. They ain’t played no one yet, but they might be ready.
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