College Football Coverage: Week 5 In The Mid-Majors

The marquee games of the college football Week 5 card are the quartet of LSU-Georgia, Oklahoma-Notre Dame, Ole Miss-Alabama and Wisconsin-Ohio State. But underneath the glitter are lot of games worth at least checking out, especially with more conference games now on the docket.

TheSportsNotebook’s college football coverage will be back later this week with a look at the four marquee games. For now, let’s whet our appetites with a look at the most notable games on the undercard. Here we’ll step out beyond the power conferences and check out what’s going down at the midmajor level…

The Friday night Utah State-San Jose State game is between two teams that have legitimate hopes of winning that conference, and showcases two good quarterbacks. Chuckie Keeton for Utah State is the more modern read-option type of quarterback and is a dual threat. David Fales for San Jose State is one of the best pure dropback passers in the country. The teams are on opposite sides of the league—Utah State has an opening in a year where Boise looks down. San Jose needs to keep pace with Fresno.

Any hope Bowling Green had of being a BCS-buster was gone when they lost to Indiana a couple weeks ago, but the Falcons are still aiming at a MAC title. They host Akron on Saturday. The Zips came off their near-upset of Michigan and gave Sun Belt contender UL-Lafayette a good game last week before losing. Both Akron and Bowling Green are in the MAC’s Eastern Division. Toledo and Ball State each anticipate challenging Northern Illinois in the Western Division, and that makes Saturday’s game a preliminary bout in that race.

And as long as we’re on the subject of Northern Illinois, the Huskies go to Purdue. The Huskies are not likely to get serious BCS consideration this year after the backlash from last year, and their subsequent mediocre showing in the Orange Bowl, but if they go undefeated, perhaps they can make people think twice. Which makes the visit to West Lafayette a must. 

OTHER COVERAGE OF THE WEEK 5 COLLEGE FOOTBALL UNDERCARD
SEC: Good Games Beyond The Glitter
Pac-12: An Interesting Saturday Night Trifecta
Big 12: Looking To Quietly Build A Resume
ACC: Coastal Division Showdown
Big Ten: Angling For Bowl Position