It can be a little bit tricky to keep up with everything happening in college football every week, especially if you’re a fan of a Power Five team that would like to follow the Group of Five more but struggles to track down all of the games needed to stay fully up to date on the middle of the MAC or the bottom of the C-USA.
That’s where the Outside Zone comes in. Four times this season (quarterly), I’m going to take a newsletter to break down what you may have missed from the previous three weeks, what you need to know heading forward and the teams you can expect to see atop each of the five conferences we love on here. Let’s get right into it.
The Contenders
AAC
Cincinnati
SMU
Memphis
No real shockers here, at least not thus far. Cincinnati hasn’t yet been quite as good as advertised, struggling a little bit to put away Murray State before depending on a strong fourth quarter to beat Indiana on the road, but the Bearcats are 3-0. That means they’re on pace, especially in a season where so many of the presumed playoff contenders are full-on dogshit – hello, Buckeyes, Sooners and Tigers.
It’s a good time for an off week, too. Cincinnati has the chance to figure out its first-half offensive woes and a weirdly janky rushing attack before heading to South Bend. Notre Dame stinks out loud, so I’m still feeling pretty confident about UC there, but improvement in this week off could go a long way.
SMU and Memphis have been similarly shaky, but are both undefeated as well. The former required a hail mary to knock off Louisiana Tech and the latter a missed call against Mississippi State, but as with the Bearcats, wins are wins. SMU’s passing attack is about as good as advertised (though the rushing attack needs to be better) and Memphis has taken the steps forward that it needed to at the skill positions. The defense is still bad, but with an injured Dillon Gabriel at UCF, I’m not sure there’s a team short of maybe Tulane that can really challenge the top three here.
Conference USA
UTSA
UAB
Marshall
Again, no big shockers here. We knew coming in that these were the big three, and to this point, that has held strong. The order, however, has shifted slightly.
First things first, UTSA looks excellent. It has a huge game this week against Memphis to prove that further, but the Roadrunners have one of the league’s best wins against Illinois, and have done so even with a slow start from star halfback Sincere McCormick. Quarterback Frank Harris has been better than expected, and that raises the ceiling here considerably. UTSA is the new favorite until proven otherwise.
As for the other two, UAB has played exactly to expectations, Marshall has been a little worse than I anticipated. That loss to East Carolina is really, really bad. Charles Huff is a good coach with a good staff and this is easily the most talented team in the league. It shouldn’t be taking losses like that. It’s not the end of the world, especially given that it’s not a league loss, but it drops my opinion of Marshall until it proves otherwise, perhaps against Appalachian State tomorrow night.
MAC
Who knows!
There’s really not much to be said here for contenders, because this league schedules so many buy games in the nonconference. I would assume that Kent State is pretty good, but it played Texas A&M and Iowa, and has Maryland next, so I have no fucking clue. Toledo lost to Colorado State. Ohio is awful. Western Michigan looks like an early favorite here because it actually won one of those games, but I’m not confident in any sort of pecking order here.
Mountain West
Fresno State
San Diego State
Wyoming
Nevada
Man, Fresno State looks really, really good. If Jake Haenner is healthy, this offense is among the best in any G5 league with Jalen Cropper out wide, Ronnie Rivers at halfback, a strong offensive line and Kalen DeBoer calling the shots. This team was right there with Oregon and went blow for blow with a good UCLA team and came out on top. The Bulldogs are on top here until proven otherwise.
San Diego State has impressed as well, specifically on defense, and it too holds a Pac-12 win after knocking off Utah. The defense is as good as advertised, and though the offense still just cannot get going, this is looking like an extremely difficult out once again because of that defense.
Wyoming is a bit of an unknown because I do not yet trust this offense, but early signs sure are encouraging. I need to see it against better opponents and I need to see more from what was supposed to be a good defense, but that 44-13 win against Ball State was very impressive, and the Pokes are 3-0. Not bad at all.
Nevada is the lone group with a loss here, and the defense is still going to be a problem, but this passing attack is good enough to keep the Wolfpack in the game against anybody – and a win over Cal certainly doesn’t hurt its case.
Sun Belt
Coastal Carolina
Louisiana
Appalachian State
They are who we thought they were. The Sun Belt is off to a little slower of a start than I would have liked, but the pecking order here is identical from the beginning of the season. Coastal is the class of the conference with more room than expected, and is almost guaranteed an undefeated regular season after surviving against Buffalo.
Louisiana has been a disappointment to start, but is still the favorite to play CCU in the title game because I have not yet seen a team in this league from 3-10 that I think can beat the Cajuns.
That is, short maybe of Appalachian State. The Mountaineers nearly toppled Miami and have impressed outside of that game. Shawn Clark needs to prove that he can hold on in a close game, but that’s pretty much the only ding for his tenure thus far. Appalachian State at Louisiana on Oct. 12 and Coastal Carolina in Boone a week later looms large.
The Pretenders
AAC
UCF
Houston
Tulsa
UCF is only on here by proxy of the Gabriel injury, which should just about end any hype around these guys. Plus, that loss to Louisville is going to look quite a bit worse in November than it does right now.
Houston stinks.
I can’t really blame Tulsa for its slow start, but Phillip Montgomery coached like a coward against Ohio State and probably nabs the biggest win of his career if he gets his tail out from between his legs before that game starts. This defense is better than expected and the offense has a little bit of juice to it, but they’re not going to repeat as contenders – especially not if Montgomery keeps coaching like that. Let loose, baby.
Conference USA
North Texas
Southern Mississippi
Louisiana Tech
The Tech inclusion may not be fair here, but expectations were high around all three of these teams, at least internally. Seth Littrell looks to be on the way out at North Texas after an excellent start, the Will Hall era at Southern Mississippi is off to a really brutal beginning, and Louisiana Tech just does not have the guys that it used to have. I don’t think any of the three will challenge for their conference crowns.
MAC
Toledo
Ball State
Ohio
That Toledo loss to Colorado State has thrown a serious wrench into my thinking with this league. That team is absolutely awful, and Toledo was just embarrassed by it. You can’t have that kind of loss this far into the Jason Candle era, especially as a preseason conference favorite. Carter Bradley hasn’t been bad at quarterback, but the rushing attack leaves a ton to be desired, and the defense isn’t what it needs to be. The near Notre Dame win doesn’t do a whole lot for me here. Can’t lose like that to CSU.
I have less fury for the latter two. Ball State’s 2020 is looking more like a glitch, which… happens. It’s good for Mike Neu to get the good year after several seasons of chipping away, but the offense here just cannot get the job done consistently enough to help a defense that took advantage of a lot of turnovers last year.
As for Ohio: Go out, hire a real coach with a real search, and try again next year.
Mountain West
Boise State
Perpetually disappointing. Should still be an 8- or 9-win team, but Hank Bachmeier just isn’t what we thought he could be, the rushing game is average, and Khalil Shakir can’t do it all by himself.
Sun Belt
Georgia State
Georgia Southern
The former’s offense has been shockingly stale given the talent in the passing game, while the latter just cannot run the system that it wants to run in the way that it needs to run it. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the triple option, but Georgia Southern needs to rethink the way its attack is designed before it falls completely off this cliff.
The Surprises
AAC
Tulane
A little less so after the loss to Ole Miss, but this Tulane team has really impressed me early in the season. Michael Plitt was outstanding against Oklahoma and nearly manufactured the upset; the defense has been better in general; and the skill position talent is finally improving. If there’s a No. 4 team in the AAC right now, it has to be the Green Wave.
Conference USA
Charlotte
Western Kentucky
Florida Atlantic
Three questions marks entering the season, all with pretty promising answers thus far. Charlotte has taken a step forward with continuity on offense and pulled off a big-time win for the program over Duke. It’s not a C-USA contender yet, but I think Will Healy gets his proof of concept this year with improvements across the board and potentially a bowl berth in another down year for the league.
Western Kentucky’s Houston Baptist air raid experiment has yielded pretty encouraging results thus far – though an upset of Indiana this weekend would go a really long way to confirming that the Hilltoppers are ready to be among the league’s best again. Bailey Zappe has looked the part, though, and this team is certainly improved after a bad 2020.
I’m not yet fully sold on FAU, but it is competent and moving in the right direction. After I had some fears of malaise under Willie Taggart this offseason, that’s an encouraging development.
MAC
Northern Illinois
Western Michigan
NIU isn’t likely going to be bowl bound or really especially good this season, but it upset Georgia Tech and nearly pulled off one hell of a comeback against Wyoming. Thomas Hammock’s youth movement has paid off at least a little bit after a brutal 2020 campaign. Let’s see it in conference play now.
WMU, meanwhile, is every bit the explosive offense I wanted it to be. Kaleb Eleby looks the part, and as mentioned earlier, the Broncos are as much a favorite in the MAC as anyone else right now.
Mountain West
Utah State
How about Blake Anderson, huh? The long-time Arkansas State needed a change of scenery and took it in a major way, and has immediately raised the floor at Utah State with the help of quarterback Logan Bonner. I’m not yet ready to buy into the Aggies as a contender in the MWC, but the days of awful USU seem to be over with Gary Andersen out of town for good.
Sun Belt
South Alabama
Troy
Early returns on Kane Wommack: encouraging. The Jags are 3-0, and though those wins aren’t pretty, that’s halfway to a bowl berth. Jake Bentley has been getting the job done at quarterback, this defense is already making plays, and again, three more wins get Wommack a year one bowl. Texas State, Georgia Southern, ULM and Arkansas State are all still on the schedule.
Troy, meanwhile, has not completely collapsed as I expected it to. I’m still no fan of Chip Lindsey, but his team is 2-1, his defense looks really good, and these guys almost beat a good Liberty squad. I don’t trust the rushing attack at all, but Taylor Powell has been really good at QB, and they’ve allowed 11 points on average through three matchups. Not bad at all.
Unaffiliated
BYU
Army
BYU hasn’t fallen off a cliff without Zach Wilson. Instead, it has a trio of Pac-12 wins. The defense is mashing, the offensive line is excellent, and Kalani Sitake has reworked his program’s identity in just one offseason, again. Bravo.
This is a damn good version of Army. That’s all I have to say on it thus far. Keep an eye on the Black Knights.