College Football 2020: 3 potential trap games with CFB Playoff implications

After an unorthodox offseason, some strong college football teams may be left off balance. What are the biggest trap games in 2020?

No matter who’s playing, every single sports fan can enjoy a college football matchup where a powerhouse team is on the verge of a loss against a lower tier team. Every sports fan other than the team in danger, that is.

As a Michigan State fan, I’ve experienced this situation during the Spartans’ more successful years with the 2015 Nebraska loss and it’s not fun.

These types of games draw the highest ratings and for fans of the winning team, it can be the greatest sports memory of their entire lives. As a Spartan fan, I’ve also experienced this side of the story during an emotional monsoon victory over No. 7 Michigan in 2017.

Obviously, in hindsight, this is essentially just an upset game. And in a lot of cases, upset games and trap games are not colloquial in any way. The difference is that trap games are almost impossible to predict and come out of nowhere. They’re games that could virtually derail another teams entire season. The game on a team’s schedule that they think shouldn’t be a concern.

Ohio State has fallen victim to this more than once over the past few years, as have other major programs.

Each team has a unique schedule, but every single top team has at least one trap game. For the sake of this list, we’ll just use the eight or nine-game conference schedule that’s already in play and we’ll be looking at three of best teams in the country.