As a former mid-major college athlete, I'm always on the lookout for high-quality small program football games on Saturdays and I didn't have to look too hard this past weekend. A few days ago, a mid-major program made the number-one team in the country sweat and played hard with other top-25 teams. Here were two of the best mid-major games of week 4 of the college football season that you might have missed.
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UGA Remains Football King
Georgia: 39; Kent State: 22
I know, on paper, this game looks like a blowout, but it's noteworthy for Kent State for a few reasons. First, Kent State, who came into the game with a 1-2 record, hung with the best team in the country (and defending national champions) for nearly three quarters before the game got out of hand. Georgia, who prior to playing Kent, only allowed ten points all season, allowed 13 against Kent State in the first half alone. This was due in part to Kent State's scrappy style of play. The Golden Eagles pulled off a fake punt against the Bulldogs, forced three turnovers, and had they completed a two-point conversion to make it a one-score game in the fourth quarter, could have made the game a lot closer. Considering Georgia has blown out every other opponent this year, including a 49-3 routing of Oregon, a 48-7 slam on South Carolina, and a 33-0 beat down on Samford, Kent State may be a team to keep an eye on. If anything, you don't really know what to expect from the Golden Eagles, which makes for some entertaining football.
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The U…Who?
MTSU: 45; Miami: 31
Yes, you read that score correctly: this past weekend, the Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders upset the 25th ranked Miami Hurricanes. Both teams had a lot on the line, as MTSU has spent the past few weeks bouncing back from their season-opening loss against James Madison and Miami needed to come back from a loss against Texas A&M in Week 3. For MTSU, the first half of the game lived up to the stakes—the Blue Raiders struck first thanks to a field goal, a pick six, and a touchdown to pull ahead 17-3 in the first quarter, while making Miami look sloppy in the process. In spite of fumbling twice in the first half, Miami managed to score a touchdown and a field goal to bring the score to 24-10 at the end of the second, but were criticized the entire half for showing a lack of effort and heart on the field. That didn't change much in the second half…until the Hurricanes brought in backup quarterback, Jake Garcia, who helped bring new energy onto the field. MTSU and Miami tacked on a touchdown apiece in the third quarter, exchanged dramatic touchdowns in the fourth, and in the end MTSU went onto to beat its first top-25 opponent since the Blue Raiders went D1 in 1999.
If anything, the mid-majors pulled off some entertaining games this weekend proving you can't count the underdogs out. What games are on your radar for Week 5?
Katie (M.K.) Lever is a former Division 1 athlete and current doctoral candidate at the University of Texas at Austin where she studies NCAA discourse and policy. She is also a freelance sportswriter and creative writer on the side. She is the author of a new book Surviving the Second Tier available on AMAZON. Follow Katie on Twitter and Instagram: @leverfever.
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* Originally published on September 26, 2022, by Katie Lever, Ph. D
