Week 5 Preview

Notes on the upcoming games:


* California at Oregon -- Now this should be a fun game to watch. Two undefeated Pac-10 teams with elite offenses going head to head. The winner will have an inside track to at least second place in the conference. I think Oregon has the slightly better team and the game is at Autzen Stadium, so they are my pick.

* West Virginia at South Florida -- Two ranked teams battle it out on Friday night in front of South Florida's first sellout crowd. Look for the fast South Florida defense to try to contain the athletic West Virginia playmakers like they did last year. Besides the mediocre offensive output, turnovers killed the Mountaineers in this matchup last year. If they can hold onto the ball, I say they win a close one.

* Southern Miss at Boise St -- Two of the best non-BCS teams square off in a great non-conference game. Southern Miss is a consistently good team, as they haven't had a losing season since 1993. The most recent losing season for Boise St was in 1997 under head coach Houston Nutt. I bet you didn't know he coached there for a year before going to Arkansas.

* Michigan St at Wisconsin -- A battle of Big Ten unbeatens in one of the more underrated games this weekend. Everyone seems to be ignoring Michigan St and bashing Wisconsin. Unfortunately that means that no matter who wins, they won't get enough credit for a really good victory.

* Auburn at Florida -- Look for Florida to bounce back in a big way against an Auburn team that can't handle good fast defenses (South Florida, Mississippi St).

* Clemson at Georgia Tech -- Is Georgia Tech going to fall to 0-3 in conference? I expected them to be one of the favorites in the ACC by this point in the season.

* Alabama vs. Florida St in Jacksonville -- Nick Saban and Jimbo Fisher were brought in during the offseason to help underachieving teams. This game will be the test to see who is doing it quicker.

* Penn St at Illinois -- The remaining conference slate works out well for Penn St, with home games against Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio St and Purdue. They just can't afford to look past a road date with a dangerous Illinois team.

* Northern Illinois at Central Michigan -- What should have been a matchup of two MAC West contenders is looking more like a pillow fight each week.

* Western Michigan at Toledo -- I have been high on Western Michigan since the preseason. Hopefully this is the week they start proving me right (ignoring last week's win over Central Connecticut.)

* Kansas St at Texas -- Does anybody else think the Longhorns are going to want revenge on last year's loss? Plus Texas will need a big game going into the Red River Shootout next week against a seemingly unstoppable Oklahoma squad.

* Maryland at Rutgers -- Everyone is saying that this is Rutgers chance to prove themselves, but next week against Cincinnati will be the game that truly shows us how good they are.