College Football Top Fives and Week 5 Update

College Football Top Fives and Week 5 Update

By Jacob Waxman, Staff Writer

As we approach week six of the college football season, there are no surprises in either the top five in rankings or the Heisman race. ESPN College Football Analyst Todd McShay said the Penn State Running Back Saquon Barkley is “probably the most complete back since Adrian Peterson,” while also stating “If I had the 1st pick in a college football draft I would take @PennStateFball‘s Saquon Barkley…over any of the QBs” (via Twitter). Although we are only five weeks into the season everything seems to be falling just right for the top five teams in the country.

With Alabama at the top spot in the rankings for the sixth week in a row, no one seems surprised about how they have played so far. Quarterback Jalen Hurts is off to a good start, after coming off a fantastic freshman season while finishing with 2,780 yards, 23 touchdowns, and a quarterback rating of 139.1. Going into the season most people predicted that they would play in the National Championship this year.

After winning the National Championship last year with star quarterback DeShaun Watson, Clemson looks to get back to where they were last season, while only having 12 returning starters and Watson not being one of them. Kelly Bryant, a junior, won the job under center after having a great spring camp. Bryant has started off the season with a Heisman caliber campaign while throwing for 873 yards through the first four games putting Clemson at the two spot in the current rankings, but Baker Mayfield of Oklahoma is in his way.

Baker Mayfield finished fourth in the Heisman race last season, and is looking to win the trophy this time and lead third ranked Oklahoma to its first national championship since 2003. Unfortunately for the Sooners their typically run stopping defense has not returned to what it was last season. On the 23rd of September Oklahoma gave up 41 points to a scandalously bad team, Baylor. Oklahoma is a promising team this year under first year head coach Lincoln Riley who was the offensive coordinator for Bob Stoops at Oklahoma until he retired this summer.

Mayfield and Oklahoma have some tough competition below them with current Heisman front-runner Saquon Barkley and Penn State. The Nittany Lions are coming off a terrific season where they beat Ohio State in a four quarter thriller and ended up winning the Big Ten Championship. With Barkley already raking up over 1,000 all-purpose yards, Penn States offense is promising especially with fellow Heisman candidate, Trace McSorley under center. Barkley is on target to break Christian McCaffrey’s all-purpose yards record in a season setting it at 3,864 yards. After losing in the Rose Bowl to USC this past January, Penn State looks to repeat as Big Ten Champs and win a National Championship this season.

After having a dissapointing season in Athens last Fall, returning Senior running backs Nick Chubb and Sonny Michel look to help lead Georgia to a SEC Championship even with #1 Alabama in their way. Georgia has not had the easiest start to their season with quarterback Jacob Eason going down in the first game, and then having true freshman quarterback Jake Fromm step in to play. With Fromm in at quarterback Georgia has been dominate in their first five games going 5-0 while dominating Tennessee on Saturday with a 41-0 win at Neyland Stadium. Even with such a young and inexperienced quarterback at the helm, Georgia looks to improve on their season and give Alabama a run for their money to win the conference championship.

Also this past weekend in college football, Washington State took down USC, Troy beat LSU in a major upset on LSU’s turf. And in the primetime games Penn State beat Indiana, and Clemson beat Virginia Tech 31-17 in Blacksburg.