Iowa is among many intruders in Unbeaten Land

Iowa is one of 20 unbeaten FBS teams in college football.

That's five weeks into the season. That's a lot of unbeatens.

It's an illustration of how surprising and weird this season has been so far. Would you have believed that five weeks into the season, the two remaining Pac-12 unbeaten teams were California and Utah, not Stanford and Oregon, or UCLA and USC?

Would you have bought Florida as an SEC unbeaten, but not Alabama?

Would you have believed Northwestern and Iowa would win their first five games when opposition included Stanford at home and Duke and Wisconsin on the road?

The American Athletic Conference has four unbeatens, all of whom have beaten teams from Power 5 conferences. Temple beat Penn State. Toledo won at Arkansas. Houston won at Louisville. Upset, upset, upset.

It all makes for a very good season so far in my opinion. There's enough old money (Ohio State, Oklahoma, Florida State, LSU) in the unbeaten ranks, but there are plenty of intruders like Iowa.

Northwestern is a decided underdog at Michigan Saturday, but what if the Wildcats win and Iowa does likewise against Illinois? Two 6-0 teams will collide next Saturday in Evanston. What a riot, though not literally. They don't riot in Evanston.

Here are the Perfect 20:

AAC

: Houston, Memphis, Navy, Temple

ACC

: Clemson, Florida State

Big Ten

: Iowa, Michigan State, Northwestern, Ohio State

Big 12:

Baylor, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, TCU

MAC

: Toledo

Pac-12

: California, Utah

SEC

: Florida, LSU, Texas A&M