College Football 2019: 5 teams that will be on upset alert in Week 8

SMU is off to it’s best start since 1982 at 6-0. The Mustangs are one of three Group of Five teams left undefeated. They look to continue their winning streak this week by hosting Temple. The Mustangs are 7.5-point favorites.

The last time SMU started a season like this, Eric Dickerson and Craig Jones were part of the Pony Express in the early 1980s. It was the pre “death penalty” era for SMU and a start like this has been a long coming. The question now is can they keep it up. The Mustangs have been involved in some close contests, including needing three overtimes to dispose of Tulsa two Saturdays ago.

Temple is coming off an upset last week, defeating the previously undefeated Memphis Tigers 30-28. The Owls are 5-1 and could have been undefeated too for their match-up against the Mustangs had it not been an upset victim against Buffalo earlier in the season. The Owls are playing good football right now and have a passing game ranked in the top 30 in the country, averaging 280 yards per game through the air.

SMU is slightly better than Temple in the passing department, averaging 291 yards per game. However they have trouble shutting down the pass, whereas Temple has done a better job at containing it. This will be the difference in the match-up. The Owls stop SMU’s prolific passing just enough to pull the upset.