The American Athletic Conference (AAC) has gotten off to an impressive start in the 2016 College Football season. After a week in which two ranked teams fell to unranked, the AAC has 6 undefeated teams and there are no teams with losing records. Talk about a strong conference! Out of all 12 teams in the AAC, one stands out from all of them. One is in the top 25. People believe that one will make it to the biggest stage of the game: The College Football Playoff.

The number one has a huge significance for the 6th ranked Houston Cougars this year, because Houston was predicted to deliver to win the conference, and they are delivering on that hype. Houston is also what people believe to be the number one group of five team in 2016 with the best chance to crash the playoff party, but that is only the beginning. Star quarterback Greg Ward Jr. proudly wears number one and has performed remarkably so far to put him in place for one of the top candidates for the Heisman Trophy. There is so much hype for the Cougars in the early stages of a new season, and with a huge target on their backs, Houston will fall short of the College Football Playoff.

Yes, Houston dominated Baker Mayfield and the Oklahoma Sooners in week 1, but take another look at that game. Oklahoma was actually beating Houston in mentality and physicality, but costly penalties and inconsistency on 3rd down is what caused the Sooners to be dominated. Houston deserves praise for what they did to a stacked Oklahoma offense, and praise they received. The fact remains, Oklahoma was not the only challenge for the Houston Cougars.

Next week will be the first road game of the year for the Cougars, and it will come against one of the six undefeated teams from the AAC, the Cincinnati Bearcats. While Houston should take every team in their conference seriously because of the big target, their next true challenge will come on the road against the Navy Midshipmen, who pulled off a wild win over Connecticut last weekend. Games like Tulsa and UCF should be hard fought, but the biggest challenge for the Cougars could come on November 17th against Lamar Jackson and Louisville. It is hard to see Houston getting through this slate undefeated with a big target on their backs, but their conference foes are not going to be the only ones after them...

As of right now, four group of five teams have an excellent chance of going undefeated. Boise State, Houston, San Diego State, and South Florida are the teams that have the best shot at going undefeated, but only one guy might be able to spoil what has been a magical season for Houston.

Sophomore quarterback Brett Rypien (number four) is the nephew of star NFL player Mark Rypien and currently plays for the Boise State Broncos. Rypien was thrown into the starting position last season after Ryan Finely went down and was simply marvelous. In 8 games, Rypien threw for 3,353 yards, 20 touchdowns, and only had 8 interceptions. The young quarterback has faced some fierce competition, with the latest being Washington State. While Rypien struggled in the second half, he was exceptional in the first half. He is one of the reasons that Boise State has the best shot of catching up with Houston.

Although Rypien is a very good player, he is not the only play maker that can help Boise State catch up with Houston. The Broncos also have a physical running back in Jeremy McNichols, who rushed for 116 yards and two touchdowns against a much improved Washington State defense. Thomas Sperbeck should also contribute for Boise State, catching seven passes for 133 yards and a touchdown. The Broncos have many players on both offense, and surprisingly defense, which is a plethora of freshmen. The schedule is favorable after the September 24th game at Oregon State, that is until the Thursday night showdown against what will no doubt be a hungry BYU team. If Boise State can get past the tricky game that they have lost the past two years against Air Force, then the Mountain West Conference Championship Game will likely future a 12-0 Boise State against a 12-0 San Diego State. The best team to catch Houston in the AAC Conference Championship would be South Florida, but it is highly unlikely that South Florida will be undefeated going into that weekend. So, a 12-0 Boise State San Diego State game would most definitely be more intriguing than a Houston vs South Florida game and if both Boise State and San Diego State are both in the top 20 if this game is played, it could just push the winner of that game over Houston. After watching the way Boise State has improved from last year, I really think that this is the year that they do something special and while 2-0 might not seem that big a deal to most, it is to the bronco faithful. For the first time since 2011 in Kellen Moore's final season with the Broncos, they are 2-0 and the two game home losing streak was also snapped with the win over Washington State. Everybody has always been critical of Boise State and there will be arguments made when this is said, but I strongly believe that the Houston Cougars need to watch out for the Broncos because Boise State is on a mission to become the top group of five team in the nation and not many teams are going to want to stand in their way.