College Football Schedule Week 3: Under the Radar Games to Watch

Fresno State at Arizona State

9:30 PM CT on FS1

I said in the intro we’re scraping at the bottom of the barrel for really good games this week. We’ve completely broken through the barrel to find our under the radar options.

We’ve got a traditionally strong Mountain West program facing off with a Pac-12 school that is working to clean up the mess left by the last coach. And I have absolutely no idea what to expect here.

Fresno was tasked with replacing a stud QB in Jake Haener, and it seems they’ve done a good job of that so far. UCF transfer Mikey Keene is averaging just under 300 yards passing a game with six TDs in Jeff Tedford’s pro-spread scheme. The Bulldogs are 2-0, already with a road win over a P5 team, and averaging 36.5 points per game. But their defense has been lackluster, and they needed overtime to defeat FCS Eastern Washington last week.

Arizona State is in complete rebuild mode. The Herm Edwards experiment resulted in mediocrity followed by NCAA sanctions for the program. Kenny Dillingham, a ASU alum who led Bo Nix to the best year of his career as Oregon’s OC last season, is tasked with turning things around.

Understandably, they haven’t been impressive so far in 2023. They beat a bad FCS team 24-21 before losing a semi-competitive game with Oklahoma State. But there is excitement around true freshman QB Jaden Rashada, who’s shown a few flashes to this point.

If it weren’t for the fact that Fresno’s defense seems suspect, I’d take them to win this game fairly easily. But it is suspect, and Dillingham is a good play-caller. I will not guarantee anything for this game, but I won’t be surprised if it gets “pointsy”.