College Football 2015: Things to Watch In Week 9

The last weekend of October – happy Halloween! – brings us another interesting week of games, and surrounding storylines. Here are a few things to keep an eye on as we enter the ninth weekend of football for the year:

The American Athletic Conference

The underdogs of the AAC are definitely punching above their weight range, with Houston, Memphis and Temple all ranked in the AP Top 25 coming into the weekend. Both Memphis and Houston have winnable games on Saturday – Tulane and Vanderbilt respectively.

An SEC scalp would be huge for first-year head coach Tom Herman and the Cougars, whilst the Tigers, with in-demand head coach Justin Fuente at the helm, are one of the more exciting teams in college football this year, thanks to their star QB Paxton Lynch.

Whilst Philadelphia goes crazy for the undefeated Temple squad, the Owls have a much tougher test, heading on the road to South Bend to face No. 9 Notre Dame. At present, that trip is one of the hardest in college football. A win is probably out of the question, but the Owls won’t be the easy-beat that perhaps Notre Dame envisaged when this match-up was set.

It’s fantastic to see smaller conferences putting teams in the AP Top 25 at this end of the season, and all things being equal, there’ll be at least two AAC squads still with undefeated records heading into the tenth week of the season.

Michigan

Their first game since the disaster in Ann Arbor against Michigan State. All eyes will be on the Wolverines, who have Minnesota this Saturday, to see how they bounce back from a loss that has surely cut the team deeply. In all the hoopla, we need to not lose sight of the fact that the Wolverines are still a good team.

Nebraska

The Cornhuskers are the kings of losing close games, and this week they will need to try and win against Purdue without experienced starting quarterback Tommy Armstrong Jr, who aggravated a foot injury last Saturday in their – yep, you guessed it, close – loss to Northwestern. Ryker Fyfe gets the start this week, and Armstrong’s streak of twenty-two consecutive starts comes to an end. Back-up quarterbacks and heartbreaking losses: things are going from bad to worse in Lincoln this year.

Iowa

The undefeated Hawkeyes are undoubtedly one of the surprise stories of the 2015 season, and have Maryland this week. The way things are going, they’re on pace for an undefeated regular season and a berth in the Big Ten Championship. That makes this game, and the rest of Iowa’s schedule – Indiana, Minnesota, Purdue and Nebraska – red alerts as far as trap games go. Kirk Ferentz will need to ensure his team is focused on only the game at hand, and keep all talk of possible championship games to a minimum.

I love Iowa’s game at the moment, and it’s great to see Ferentz, one of the good guys (and one of the longest-tenured coaches) in college football succeeding again.

Texas A&M

The Aggies quarterback situation is dire, and the signal-callers have been the chief reason for back to back losses – Alabama, then Ole Miss – that have seen Kevin Sumlin’s team plummet out of the AP Top 25 rankings. The Aggies have South Carolina this weekend, another SEC squad with it’s fair share of struggles, and will need to generate offense and cut down on brutal turnovers if they’re to get their season back on track this weekend.

Miami-FL

The Hurricanes lost 58-0 to Clemson last Saturday, a record loss for the proud program, and a shellacking that saw Al Golden’s not-so-gold reign as Miami head coach terminated immediately. The task at hand for the U this weekend – Duke, on the road – isn’t quite as daunting as the Tigers of seven days ago, but the Blue Devils are ranked and playing good football. Interim head coach Larry Scott has his work cut out for him, but, as often happens the week after a coach is fired, teams have a habit of winning a game out of nowhere. Using that logic, the ‘Canes aren’t without a shot. Win or lose, it will be interesting to see what their mindset is, and how they play at the end of a tumultuous week.

USC

Another team with an interim head coach in place, the Trojans come off a dominating home win against then-No. 3 Utah, and travel to Berkeley to play a dangerous Cal Golden Bears. It’s week three of the temporary Clay Helton era, and although Sonny Dykes’ squad aren’t ranked, the Trojans would be crazy if they didn’t take the Golden Bear threat very seriously. Jared Goff can embarrass teams if they’re not prepared. Doubtless, this is the message being preached by Helton and his staff this week.