The party is thinning out quickly. Just two weeks ago, 15 teams remained unbeaten at the FBS level, and now we're down to only six.
Every college football season takes on its own personality in terms of how many powers avoid early upsets, how many upstarts make runs (and how long they last) and how many mid-majors threaten to run the table. Over the past 10 full seasons — from 2011 to 2021, minus the forever exception of 2020 — there are typically 8.5 unbeaten teams eight weeks into the season, 6.5 from power conferences and 2.0 from non-powers. We're running below average this season, primarily because of the lack of viable teams from the Group of 5. The last G5 members left the unbeaten party a week ago.
This week could thin the ranks further. Based on SP+ win projections, we should expect to lose an average of 2.1 of the six unbeatens, and there's only a 28% chance that all five active teams (Clemson is idle) survive the weekend unscathed.
Let's figure out who's most likely to go down and ask one big question about each team. More importantly, let's rank the unbeatens!
6. TCU
SP+ and FPI rankings: 15th and 15th, respectively
Odds of reaching 12-0, per SP+: 5.6% (last week: 3.7%)
What they did in Week 8: Defeated Kansas State 38-28. Things almost went awry for the Horned Frogs as K-State's backup quarterback Will Howard, in for the injured Adrian Martinez, led the Wildcats to four consecutive touchdowns and a 28-10 lead midway through the second quarter. But Max Duggan threw for two touchdowns, Kendre Miller rushed for two more and the TCU defense held the Wildcats scoreless, with two turnovers and two missed field goals, over the final 38 minutes. Howard began the game 8-for-10 for 185 yards and two touchdowns plus a rushing score, but he went just 5-for-10 for 40 yards and an interception from there.
Week 9 opponent: at West Virginia (SP+ win probability: 72%). Neal Brown's Mountaineers collapsed last week in a 48-10 loss to Texas Tech, but they're overachieving SP+ projections at home by about six points per game.
One big question: Can the Horned Frogs avoid another Sonny funk? It's a bit unfair, really. Sonny Dykes is 78-63 in his head-coaching career, 32-10 since the start of 2019. He has clearly found a nice rhythm coaching in his home state, but we seem to be anticipating when a collapse is coming.
In the past three years of his stellar run at SMU, Dykes was 20-1 in games that took place before the last weekend in October and 5-9 thereafter. Part of that had to do with when the good teams showed up on the schedule, of course — of those nine late-season losses, five were to teams that finished with double-digit wins — but his Mustangs also lost to a 6-6 Memphis team in 2021 and a 3-6 East Carolina squad in 2020. (Both of those losses were on the road, as were seven of the nine overall.)
We can't really say that the schedule will get harder in the coming weeks because, well, it's already been pretty hard. The Horned Frogs have beaten four ranked foes in October alone, and three of those victims still rank in the SP+ top 20. There's not a gimme left on the schedule, and the Frogs are currently projected underdogs, per SP+, in upcoming trips to Texas (Week 11) and Baylor (Week 12).
Then again, almost no one has consistently overachieved projections more than the Frogs. They've only lost once against the spread, and they're overachieving against the line by 8.5 points per game.
Duggan remains 10th in Total QBR with a passing line almost identical to the one that has USC's Caleb Williams within reach of the Heisman (they're within 100 passing yards of each other with the exact same 19-to-1 TD-to-INT ratio). Three tricky road games remain in this rugged conference, but Dykes will have every opportunity to prove that his Mustangs' November fades were more fluke than trend.