College Football 2018: 3 under-the-radar games in Week 4

In Week 3, we were 3-for-3 at identifying important games that were under-the-radar. Here are the college football Week 4 games that should be getting more attention.

Now “under-the-radar” doesn’t necessarily mean on “upset alert”. For example, Notre Dame may be on upset alert, however, many people know of the possibility that this game could go sideways.

Under-the-radar means the game likely has extensive circumstances that, should it go one way or the other, will tell us a lot more about one, or both, of the teams that may not have been previously recognized by the common fan.

Last week we identified then-No. 22 USC heading to Austin to take on the Texas Longhorns as a possible under-the-radar game.

Sure a lot of people had this game on their radar but the majority of people were more interested in the TCU vs. Ohio State game played at the same time. Ohio State eventually won that game and we learned really nothing more than we already knew, Ohio State is a little bit better than a pretty good TCU team — 12 points better to be specific.

But, after looking over the weekend’s scores, fans started to realize what a blowout loss for USC really meant, both for the team and the Pac-12 as a whole.

Texas lost to Maryland in Week 1; Maryland lost to Temple last week; Temple lost to both Buffalo and Villanova; Villanova lost to Towson. So USC is worst than Towson, Villanova and the rest? And USC only lost to Stanford by 14 points at Stanford. So Stanford is only 14 points better than the rest at home?

OK, let’s not get too crazy now. Of course that’s not how football works. However, you can now see how one game can have massive implications on how we view and analyze teams across college football. Do we have any games like this in Week 4?