Roundtable: Which unbeaten goes down, which winless team gets win in Week 4
Each week during the season, the Paste BN Sports college staff (Nicole Auerbach, Paul Myerberg, George Schroeder and Dan Wolken) will provide their answers to an intriguing question from college football. This week:
Which winless team will score its first W, and which unbeaten will fall this week?
Nicole Auerbach
Winless team that will score its first W: Rice. QB Tyler Stehling’s had a rough three weeks — against Western Kentucky, Army and Baylor — but he’ll gain confidence and yardage … and his first win of the season against North Texas.
Unbeaten that will fall:South Florida. I certainly don’t envy a team that is up against Florida State, which is coming off its worst loss of the Jimbo Fisher era. This could be ugly.
Paul Myerberg
Three winless teams are almost certain to net their first victories of the season this weekend: Rice (against North Texas), Northern Illinois (against Western Illinois) and Arkansas State (against Central Arkansas). I also wouldn’t be surprised if Iowa State netted its first win under Matt Campbell by beating San Jose State — though I’d probably pick the Spartans to win.
So which unbeaten team is about to lose its first game? There are a whole slew of options from Power Five and Group of Five leagues alike. I’m going to go out on a limb and pick a bigger name: Wisconsin to lose at Michigan State. (And as a backup, Wake Forest to lose at Indiana.)
George Schroeder
Wisconsin has one of the Big Ten’s signature victories, beating LSU in the season opener at Lambeau Field in Green Bay. But the Badgers were not impressive last week, and needed a quarterback shuffle to beat Georgia State. Now comes a trip to East Lansing, where never mind all the hype focused on Michigan and Ohio State, Mark Dantonio has Michigan State looking like a legitimate Big Ten East contender again. Spartans remain unbeaten. Wisconsin takes its first loss.
Not sure anyone has paid much attention, but it’s still odd to see Northern Illinois winless. It wasn’t that long ago that the Huskies were in the Orange Bowl (2012 season, vs. Florida State). The next two seasons they won 23 games. Even after dropping to 8-6 in 2015, 0-3 is startling (especially considering there were no Power Five juggernauts on the schedule). There are obviously issues in DeKalb, but a matchup with FCS-level Western Illinois will at least serve to remove the oh-fer from the record.
Dan Wolken
This is going to be a little bit of an upset pick, but I think Virginia gets off the schneid against Central Michigan, which is actually favored in Charlottesville. If you look inside the box scores, Virginia has been trending up since that disastrous opener against Richmond and played pretty well last week in a 13-10 loss to UConn.
Bronco Mendenhall is putting his imprint on the program, but it's going to happen in fits and starts. But I think this sets up well for Virginia to finally get a victory against a pretty good MAC team that obviously got that big win earlier at Oklahoma State.
For my undefeated team likely to fall, I have to go with Georgia. This is not a very good team at the moment despite the 3-0 record, and I don't think they will match up particularly well with Ole Miss. The Bulldogs could have/should have lost any of their first three games, and they'll get their comeuppance in Oxford.
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