Six weeks into the college football season, there are 12 undefeated teams remaining and at least five of those teams weren’t supposed to be here.

Teams such as Oklahoma State, Iowa, Florida, Texas A&M and Utah were not in the preseason rankings, but have made significant impacts not only on their respective divisional and conference races, but also could be highly ranked when the College Football Playoff rankings are released at the beginning of November.

This is one of the fun parts about college football.

It’s easy to label past favorites the favorites again, but when a team rises up out of nowhere and commands attention, it makes the season more interesting for everyone.

Look at Iowa. It hasn’t started a season 6-0 since going 11-2 in 2009. And really, every year since that campaign, Iowa fans have been calling for coach Kirk Ferentz’s job. Now his Hawkeyes lead the Big Ten West and are challenging powers Ohio State and Michigan State for the top of the conference.

Oklahoma State last started the season 6-0 in 2011 when it appeared poised for a national championship run, but was knocked out of contention by a late-season loss to Iowa State. It finished that year 12-1.

Texas A&M hasn’t started a season 5-0 since 1994 when its only blemish was a 21-21 tie with SMU. It’s had good seasons since, but never such a strong start. And with Alabama, Ole Miss and Auburn trailing in the divisional picture, A&M and undefeated LSU could be duking it out to play in the SEC title game against Florida, a team that hasn’t started 6-0 since 2012.

And of course, the Pac-12 has been one of the most interesting developments with Utah and Cal entering the night as the two most unexpected undefeateds in the conference. Utah is no stranger to undefeated seasons, but this is its first undefeated campaign as a member of a Power Five conference. There are many more pitfalls ahead for the Utes, but as of now, it’s sitting in the top five of the Associated Press Poll and has the most Cinderella feel of any of the aforementioned programs.

While there’s still more than half the season to go, it’s clear there’s a tectonic shift in the teams to watch this year. Sure, the traditional college football powers are still the traditional powers and many of them are still alive in their respective conference races, but it’s fun to watch some new teams get involved.

Hopefully, we’re still talking about them in Week 12.

Here's are the rest of the winners and losers from Week 6:

WINNERS

Texas Tech offense: Maybe the Red Raiders can really have some fun now that the two toughest games of the season are out of the way. After consecutive losses to TCU and Baylor, the Red Raiders piled up a school-record 776 yards of offense in a 66-31 win over Iowa State. Yes, that's more yards of offense than any Mike Leach-coached team. QB Patrick Mahomes threw for 482 yards and five touchdowns as six of Tech's touchdowns were plays of over 30 yards. The Tech defense is going to give up a bunch of points over the rest of the season, but the offense is going to make the Red Raiders a must-watch every Saturday.



Iowa State RB Mike Warren: While Iowa State's defense was getting torched, Warren was running wild once again. The Cyclones' redshirt freshman running back had 23 carries for 245 yards on Saturday and has 564 rushing yards on the season. After having nine attempts for 28 yards in Iowa State's first two games, Warren has increased his per-game rushing total from 126 to 175 and now 245 in the past three games.



Iowa RB Jordan Canzeri: While Warren had a heck of a day, so did Iowa running back Jordan Canzeri. The Hawkeyes moved to 6-0 with a 29-20 win over Illinois. Canzeri had a school-record 43 carries for 256 yards and a touchdown. In Week 5 against Wisconsin, he set a then-career high with 26 carries in the Hawkeyes' win. He obliterated that number on Saturday. It was the fourth game he's had more than 20 carries in 2015; he never had a game with 20 or more in his career before the season.









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