Brian’s College Football Top 5: Week 5

Photo from Idaho Football

The night slate for this weekend was kind of a dud, eh?

These damn TV executives.

The season is nearing the halfway point, and the picture of who is a contender and who is a pretender is getting clearer and clearer.

But here, we don’t just talk about contenders for the playoff. Because that’s boring. And that’s not what college football is about.

What college football is about, is the team at our number 5 slot.

5. Bowling Green Falcons

Year 2 under Eddie George has been a disaster for Bowling Green.

0-4 to start the season, including a loss to FCS Tarleton State.

But against in state rival Miami Ohio, the Falcons got their first win of the year, coming back from down 3 with under 2 minutes to go, and scoring the game winning touchdown with 8 seconds left.

0-4 is a bad way to start the season.

A clutch win like that is a great way to start conference play.

4. Missouri Tigers

Two weeks ago, Ole Miss got a big home win against LSU, and were then brought back down to Earth by a Florida team who demolished them in Gainesville.

That same Florida team then took a trip to Columbia, Missouri, and got absolutely demolished by Mizzou 45-17.

And for that, I’d like to officially apologize to Missouri for using them consistently as a middling SEC school that will make a 24 team playoff nobody wants.

I still feel that way, but this win does enough to make me apologize for it.

3. San Diego State Aztecs

San Diego State had a mumps outbreak.

They were outgained by over 300 yards.

They were 1/10 on 3rd down.

They won by 2.

Excellent stuff, Aztecs.

2. Northwestern Wildcats

Northwestern made waves this offseason when they hired Chip Kelly to be their offensive coordinator. It was a move that made people very excited.

And on Friday night, on the debut of brand new Ryan Field, we saw why.

Northwestern had 506 yards of offense.

413 (!!!!!) rushing yards.

Just an absolutely dominating offensive performance, and Northwestern is now 3-1 with their only loss being a close loss to Indiana on the road.

The Wildcats are legit, y’all.

1. Idaho Vandals

Let me tell you about my Friday.

I saw Digger with my wife. I then came home and put on the end of the Pitt-Virginia Tech / Penn State-Northwestern games and watched the end of those.

As Virginia Tech missed the kick to win the game against Pitt, ESPN then went to their second game of the night.

Defending FCS champion 5-0 Montana State on the road against 0-4 Idaho.

Very likely going to be a horrible game, but I was awake. So I figured I’d watch it.

And as the game progressed, Idaho kept hanging around.

And at the end of the game, with one second left, Idaho scored a touchdown to go down by 1, and they didn’t even think twice about their next move.

They went for two, they got the win, and got the biggest upset of the college football season so far.

Long live the Kibbie Dome.