Five under the radar college football teams to watch in 2023

We’re now less than two weeks away from the start of the 2023 college football season. And while we’re all anxious to see Mississippi State take the field once again, who are some teams flying under the radar that you should tune-in for this fall?

College football is back.

Well, almost. We’re a little less than two weeks away from “Week 0” action to get us back into the swing of things fully kickoff on Labor Day Weekend.

But camps are in session across the country. College football fans everywhere are anxiously logging on to message boards looking for updates about how our squad is performing in practice. We’re over-analyzing every 10 second highlight clip the marketing team puts out on social media as if it actually means anything to how the season will play out.

By the time the season opener will have arrived, we’ll somehow have convinced ourselves that this is the year everything comes together for our school. It’s a wonderful time of year.

As a Mississippi State blog, the vast majority of our content here at Maroon and White Nation, naturally, revolves around Mississippi State. We have been rolling out pieces breaking down the 2023 edition of the Bulldogs and will continue to.

But Mississippi State only makes up one small part of the college football universe.

There are 133 teams in Division 1 FBS, as well as plenty of entertaining teams at the FCS level. There’s a lot of football out there to be watched. So often as college football fans our tendency is to watch our team and then just tune-in for whatever big matchup is taking place each weekend, especially those involving our conference rivals.

And there’s nothing wrong with that! But there are tons of great games and fun teams to watch that don’t always get the national spotlight, especially when it comes to the Group of 5 level of FBS.

As conference realignment continues to create a seismic shift in the sport, the G5 leagues are amongst the last to truly embrace geography and rivalries as the foundation for their conferences. If that’s something you love about college football, you should take some time to tune-in for the G5 this fall. And I can promise you the games will provide plenty of entertainment as well.

So as we look ahead to the 2023 season, here are five teams from the G5 conferences that I believe you should watch this fall. If you’re already a diehard like myself, you may be plenty aware of these programs already. But for most, these teams are a bit under the radar. I’ve picked out one from each G5 league.