One of the things that makes me laugh about my job is when I'm referred to as a college football expert. Whether I'm doing a radio hit, or somebody is just referring to me online, the phrase "CBS Sports college football expert Tom Fornelli" and it sounds so silly.

I'm not a college football expert. There's no such thing as a college football expert. There are plenty of people who know a lot more about college football than others, and I consider myself one of them, but that knowledge is mostly limited to the past and the present. When it comes to predicting the future, we're all just making educated guesses and a lot of the time we look stupid in the process.

So every season there are things that surprise not just the so-called experts like myself, but the college football fan in general. Even if we're only three weeks into the season, 2016 has been no exception.

Plenty of eyebrows have been raised, and through the first three weeks, these are the five biggest surprises we've seen thus far.

5. The Big 12's overall struggles: I went over this a bit already in The Monday After, but the Big 12 has had a nightmare start to the 2016 season, which comes on the heels of an offseason in which it was receiving attention for all the wrong reasons.

Oklahoma is receiving most of the attention because it's 1-2 to start the season coming off a College Football Playoff berth, and it was the preseason favorite in the conference, but Oklahoma isn't the Big 12's only problem. Hell, it's probably still the best bet to win the conference.

When you look elsewhere, things aren't any prettier. Baylor is the highest-ranked team in the conference at No. 16 in the AP Top 25, and it's the first time in the conference's history that it doesn't have at least one team ranked in the top 15. The reason nobody is ranked higher is because, as a whole, Big 12 teams have played 13 games against other Power Five conferences, the AAC and Notre Dame.

They're 3-10 in those games.

4. The best defense in the country is Florida's by a mile. Nobody is shocked that Florida has a good defense. Even when the Gators were struggling through Will Muschamp, they had a stout defense. What is surprising, though, is just how good it has been. It's not just the best unit in the SEC right now, but it's the best in the entire country -- by quite a bit.

Now, there are obvious caveats. Through three games, Florida hasn't exactly played a murderer's row of opponents in Massachusetts, North Texas and Kentucky, but the numbers its defense has posted are comically outrageous nonetheless. Here's a sample.

Through three games, the Gators are allowing 4.7 points per game, 2.59 yards per play, 1.31 yards per carry, and they have four interceptions without allowing a passing touchdown. Florida also leads the country in sacks per game at 5.33.

It'll be nearly impossible for the Gators to keep this pace throughout the entire season -- I say nearly impossible because we're all familiar with the quarterback situation in the SEC -- but it's been fun to watch so far.

3. Not that USC is 1-2, but how bad it's looked getting there. Nobody would have mocked you for saying USC would get off to a 1-2 start before the season began. With games against Alabama and Stanford in the first three weeks, there was a good possibility of it happening. The surprise is how bad the Trojans have looked in the process.

This is a team with some of the best talent in the country after all, but that talent hasn't meant much so far.

The Trojans currently have the worst offense in the Pac-12, and while the defense isn't the worst in the Pac-12 (Cal and Arizona State do still exist), it isn't exactly good, either. And while some of those stats can be explained away by the teams the Trojans have faced, you can't put this kind of stupidity on the opponent.

For the extra point after Christian McCaffrey's first score, #USC lined up for the PAT with EIGHT players: pic.twitter.com/LWhRUihu6Z — Shotgun Spratling (@ShotgunSpr) September 19, 2016

Throw in the fact that the Trojans are now making a change at quarterback, and, well, it's not pretty is it?

2. Lamar Jackson and Louisville are suddenly national darlings. It was a consensus opinion heading into the 2016 season. Sure, there was a chance that Louisville could be pretty good as it finished 2015 with a flourish, but the ACC was going to be settled between two teams Louisville had to share a division with -- Clemson and Florida State.

Looks like we're going to need a re-write there, huh? Louisville just finished off a 63-20 beatdown of the Seminoles on Saturday, and Lamar Jackson is just lighting the world on fire. San Diego State running back Donnel Pumphrey leads the nation with 599 rushing yard, but who is in second? That's right, quarterback Lamar Jackson at 464 yards. Maybe running back Brandon Radcliff feels bad about not even being the leading rusher on his own team, but he can take solace in knowing that his average of 10.96 yards per carry (ten point nine six) leads the nation.

In the span of three weeks, Louisville has gone from from preseason also-ran to a favorite to win it all at 5-to-1 odds (only Alabama and Ohio State have better odds), and Jackson has gone from a 100-to-1 shot to win the Heisman Trophy to the odds-on favorite.

1. Army isn't just 3-0, it's a dominant 3-0. OK, so Louisville's getting a ton of attention and for worthy reasons, but Army is far and away the biggest shock to me this year. Here's a quick history lesson for you.

The last time Army went to a bowl game was 2010 when it went 7-6 after beating SMU in the Armed Forces Bowl. Since the end of that season, Army has gone 3-9 in 2011, 2-10 in 2012, 3-9 in 2013, 4-8 in 2014 and 2-10 last season. So not only has Army not been to a bowl game since 2010, but it has only one more than three games in any season once since then.

And it has three wins right now in three games.

It's not just that Army is 3-0, either, it's how it's gotten to 3-0. The Black Knights opened the season with a 28-13 win on the road against a Temple team that won 10 games last season. They followed that up with a 31-14 win against Rice and last week beat UTEP 66-14.

Army isn't just winning games, it's winning them with ease.

Looking at how it's played thus far, and the remaining schedule it faces, this isn't just an Army team that could get back to a bowl game. This is an Army team that could win nine or 10 games.