The road to the College Football Playoff makes its way through Week 5 this weekend and features some unusual names.
Week 4 of the college football season featured some heavyweight bouts. It was without a doubt the best slate of games in this young 2019 season. Notre Dame and Georgia played out a rather ugly affair, Texas A&M did everything it could to keep it close against Auburn, and Wisconsin didn’t even give Michigan the courtesy of hope.
We saw a few upsets too. The biggest of which was USC giving dagger after dagger to Utah in the Coliseum. Utah out-gained USC and won the turnover battle, but it was three huge passing plays from backup quarterback Matt Fink that went for touchdowns that changed the game drastically.
UCF also lost its first regular season game in over two years on the road to Pitt. Pat Narduzzi seems to have a knack for winning these kinds of games. You can never count Pitt out as big underdogs against ranked teams. And UCF found out the hard way.
Week 5 offers a nice slate of games, too, but it isn’t as great as last week, at least on paper. And the names in these key matchups this week aren’t some we’re used to seeing. We’re getting closer and closer to October. The deeper we get into the college football season, the more normal these crazy things seem to get.
Before we dive into the five games during week five that have the biggest implications on the College Football Playoff, I want to give an honorable mention to what could have been. Washington State and Utah were ranked Nos. 19 and 10, respectively, just a week ago. Both were upset by LA teams, and now what was likely the top matchup of Week 5 isn’t even going to crack this list. Undefeated Mike Leach going to Utah to face undefeated Kyle Whittingham would have been an absolute treat. Oh well.
Without further ado, here are the top five games of Week 5 as they relate to the College Football Playoff.