USA TODAY Sports

The USA TODAY Sports college football staff — Paul Myerberg, Lindsay Schnell, George Schroeder, Erick Smith, Eddie Timanus and Dan Wolken — weighs in with some bold predictions for Week 4 of the college football season:

Paul Myerberg

Let’s get really bold: No ranked team will lose to an unranked team and the higher-ranked teams will win the matchups of two ranked teams. That’s actually sort of bold, if you think about it. But it’ll be a weekend with no major upsets. Now watch No. 13 Miami (Fla.) lose at Duke and No. 5 Southern California lose to No. 16 Washington State on Friday night.

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Lindsay Schnell

USC won't just win at Washington State, the Trojans will dominate the Cougars.

This has been a popular upset pick since the Pac-12 schedule came out, and for that exact reason, I'm not buying it. USC has not really lived up to the preseason hype so far, needing overtime to beat unranked Texas and letting unranked Cal hang around for much too long. Washington State, by contrast, leads the Pac-12 in total defense.

And yet, I suspect this will be the breakout game we've all been waiting for with Sam Darnold, as he slices and dices the WSU defense and leads the Trojans to a three-touchdown win. Sorry folks, no Pac-12 After Dark action this time around.

George Schroeder

Everybody’s high on Georgia, and with good reason. After a 31-3 victory against Mississippi State, the Bulldogs look like the SEC East’s best team — and just maybe, the kind of team that could contend with Alabama. But hold on. All of that might be correct, and yet Saturday, a Tennessee team in dire need of a victory is going to get one, prompting at least a temporary pause in the Bulldogs’ march to prominence.

Erick Smith

Sometimes it’s hard to let go of what we believe. We expected Southern California to pick up right where it left off in the Rose Bowl. But teams are different in a new year. And after three poor performances in four games, it is time to readjust our perspective of the Trojans. The offense is good, but not great.

The offensive line needs to get better. The run defense has questions. So far, USC has overcome these flaws. But now comes a trip to Washington State. Mike Leach, Luke Falk and a raucous crowd will greet the Trojans. And they won’t get out of Pullman unbeaten.

Eddie Timanus

Minnesota will move to 4-0 Saturday under first-year head coach P.J. Fleck, but we still won’t know how good the Golden Gophers really are.

The Gophers’ 2017 slate began with a 17-7 decision against Buffalo in which they didn’t delve too deeply into the playbook. They followed that by rolling past a not-very-good Oregon State outfit on the road, then returned home to down Middle Tennessee, which was missing injured quarterback Brent Stockstill. Minnesota opens Big Ten play Saturday hosting an even more wounded Maryland team. The Terrapins got a huge win at Texas to begin the campaign but lost QB Tyrrell Pigrome to a season-ending injury. His replacement, freshman Kasim Hill, looked to be a star in the making. But then Hill went down early in last week’s game against Central Florida, and Maryland couldn’t recover in a 38-10 setback. With Hill also out for the year, the Terrapins are down to third-stringer Max Bortenschlager.

So Minnesota’s defense hasn’t really been challenged yet, and it isn’t likely to be again on Saturday. The unit has certainly done its job, holding its three opponents to a total of 24 points. Conor Rhoda, meanwhile, has run the offense efficiently and has a legitimate deep threat in Tyler Johnson.

It might still be another month, however, before we can get a true read on the Gophers. Minnesota’s next three games are quite winnable as well, at Purdue then home against Michigan State and Illinois. It’s conceivable they could row the boat all the way to 7-0 before their Oct. 28 visit to Iowa. Things get more challenging in the back half of the schedule, but their fans should enjoy the ride for now.

Dan Wolken

Baylor will get its first win this weekend, pulling an upset at Kansas State. The Bears were never as bad as those losses to Liberty and Texas-San Antonio, but it's a fragile program right now and there were going to be some major growing pains with a new staff and new system. It appears Baylor turned a bit of a corner in the second half last weekend at Oklahoma, showing some explosiveness on offense that wasn't there before.

Teams get better week to week, and it appears Baylor is improving at a pretty rapid pace. Though it's never easy to go on the road and win in Manhattan, it feels like the Bears are due for a win under Matt Rhule and Kansas State doesn't have the same kind of passing game that can really stretch their defense like Oklahoma and even Duke the week before.