College Football
Practice Game
By: Garrison Ryfun
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
On Monday last week, Hugh Freeze pitched the idea of playing a scrimmage in the Spring against another school: “Allow us to scrimmage somebody on a day.” Bringing up the attention and revenue it could bring, the decrease in risk of injury for both schools, and the benefits to seeing your guys in action against a different group of players.
Freeze even mentioned going against in-state teams like Troy, UAB, or Alabama State, to which new UAB Head Coach Trent Dilfer responded saying: “Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty please.” He saw the benefits of live competition between teams and perceived it to be a benefit for his team as well. Dilfer mentioned the benefits of scrimmaging a team that is seen as superior to yours. Troy Head Coach Jon Sumrall was also on board with the idea saying: “I wouldn’t have a problem with it. I’d go play.”
This is not the first time the idea of scrimmaging against another school has come up in college football.
Dabo Swinney publicly pitched the idea in 2012, with then Michigan Head Coach Brady Hoke publicly jumping on the train not long after. If this is such a popular move with Head Coaches across the sport, then why haven’t we seen it up for vote already?
David Cutcliffe, former Duke Head Coach, lays it out well in this 2012 quote: “That’s an old idea, that’s a good idea, but that’s very difficult to get the NCAA to move in those regards. Your best chance is if you can prove you can make some money, because then you have a chance for the presidents and the ADs to vote in favor of it.”
At the end of the day college football is a business, while it may benefit the coaches to see other teams in live competition with their own, if it doesn’t generate decent revenue then it is likely dead-on arrival for any vote. Something I am sure coaches have thought about in their pitches behind closed doors, but you do not see a lot of in past public pitches for the idea.
Which is why Hugh Freeze’s pitch makes a lot of sense, it may ultimately come to nothing but he is hitting the right chords. The focus on scrimmaging with a more local university, making the organization easier and less costly. The revenue that an in-state scrimmage could drive in for both Alabama and Auburn; Hugh Freeze understands what the pitch has to be if anything will come out of it.
It is a similar pitch to one Mike Gundy made in the spring of 2021, where he pitched a spring game against Arkansas.
Once again, his public comments did not really hit on the revenue generating aspect of the conversation, and it likely went nowhere because of it.
Other coaches, like Mike Norvell, said they were open to the idea during conferences this week. Could there be another major push for spring scrimmages against other schools?
One of the other major roadblocks is that while most major college football coaches seem on board with the idea, there were some pretty powerful dissenters to the push in 2012, namely Nick Saban and Bob Stoops.
The former is now a coach in the XFL, and the latter has adapted and changed his philosophy with his style of offense in more recent years.
Could Saban, and more importantly Presidents and ADs, come around to the idea, or will this die down for another decade before another push happens again?
Complicated Hero
By: Robert Craft
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
Stetson Bennett; the great story, has turned into something more complicated.
For so long he was the folk hero, the former walk-on proving everyone wrong, winning one and then two national championships.
All along there was an edge to him, but it manifested itself in endearing ways, especially to Georgia fans.
mic drop after throwing a touchdown, the telephone signal to taunt Tennessee fans who had lit up his cell phone. And the general competitive spirit that won over the Georgia coaches who kept trying to find another quarterback.
But since winning the second national championship, Bennett’s edges have come out in other ways.
Blowing off the morning-after news conference, being accused of not being warm enough with fans at the championship celebration, a slightly off-key speech at the celebration, then an arrest on a public intoxication charge.
By themselves, none of these put Bennett in red flag territory, but together- they’ve added up to an interesting narrative heading into the draft.
Bennett responded by retreating from public view, dodging interviews and press opportunities all together. He emerged and had a good showing at the NFL combine, as well as a pro day performance that reinforced Bennet’s arm strength, athleticism and accuracy.
Thus, the narrative has flipped: The physical attributes are there, the intangibles are now in question.
This drama-turned-screenplay is still being written. Will the next Act be in the NFL?
Admittedly, that’s a stretch. The idea of Bennett achieving a long NFL career is about as likely as … Well, feel free to ask a new employee of the Baltimore Ravens about doubting the kid from Blackshear, Ga.
Maybe it’s about being the best football player, but plenty else goes into the NFL Draft.
That’s why Bennett has to confront off-field questions. He said there have been “a lot of different questions,” not specifying which ones, but outlining his approach: being honest, and upfront, (NFL teams already know the answers to their questions). They want to see how Bennett, and any prospect in that matter, answers.
There’s a tired routine that’s played in the run-up to the draft: prospects being asked who they’ve met with. Bennett wasn’t asked that, pointing out that those meetings and media coverage is all a game.
Sometimes teams meet multiple times with prospects they have no intention of drafting, creating a smokescreen, then never meet a prospect they do draft until they’re drafted.
So Bennett takes the meetings, but doesn’t read into which team is talking to him, which team has concerns about his intangibles, and which team wants to pick the former walk-on turned folk hero turned complicated NFL prospect.
So, where will Bennett get selected on draft day? His résumé is impressive. He’s a back-to-back national champion. He is the first quarterback in Georgia history to achieve that accomplishment. It was a storybook college career for Bennett, as he grew up a die-hard Georgia fan. But the story may not have a happy ending if the goal is hearing his name early on draft night.
Ranked 10th at quarterback on my draft board, the 25-year-old is the same age or older than several NFL quarterbacks who have been in the league for a few years.
To put it in perspective, Bennett is older than the 24-year-old Jalen Hurts, who just led the Philadelphia Eagles to the Super Bowl … in his third NFL season.
That said, I believe Bennett will hear his name called before the NFL draft has concluded. He comes from a winning culture, and NFL teams love to be surrounded by winning.
From all accounts, Bennett would make a great addition to a locker room. On top of that, we know he is not afraid of the big moments should he ever be called upon.
Who knows, maybe Bennett’s legend will continue to grow, and he pulls off the unexpected. It wouldn’t be the first time.
The Measurables
By: Kenneth Harrison
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
The 2023 NFL Draft is later this month. Let’s take a look at the top quarterback prospects.
Bryce Young, Alabama: In his two seasons as the starter in Tuscaloosa his record is 23 – 4.
In 2021 he won just about every accolade you can imagine. He won the Heisman Trophy, Maxwell Award, Davey O’Brien Award, Manning Award, AP College Football Player of the Year, Sporting News College Football Player of the Year, Consensus All-American, SEC Offensive Player of the Year and SEC Championship Game MVP.
He’s thrown for 8,356 yards, 80 touchdowns, 12 interceptions and he completed 65.8% of his passes in his career. Young is 5’10, 204 pounds so he does not have the prototypical height for the position.
At his pro day he threw 50 passes and completed 44 of them. Four of the incomplete passes were not his fault. He has exceptionally good accuracy and he’s expected to be the top pick, going to Carolina.
C.J. Stroud, Ohio State: I think he’s the best prospect in the draft. Stroud is 21 – 4 in his two seasons as a starter. He’s 6’3, 214 pounds so he has the height to see over defenders and offensive lineman in the pocket.
In his career he passed for 7,775 yards, 81 TD’s, 12 picks with a 69.3% completion rate. He played the best game of his career in his final game in the College Football Playoff against Georgia.
It says a lot about his character that he was able to play his best on a national stage against the best team in the nation. He should be picked No. 2 by the Houston Texans.
Will Levies, Kentucky: After the first two quarterbacks I think there’s a precipitous drop off in talent. Levis started his career at Penn State from 2018 to 2020.
He redshirted his first year, then spent the next two as Sean Clifford’s backup. He transferred to Kentucky in 2021, after graduating that May with a bachelor’s degree in finance from Penn State’s Smeal College of Business.
In his two season’s starting in Lexington his record is 18 – 8, which is impressive for Kentucky. He’s thrown for 5,876 yards, 46 scores, 25 interceptions and he completed 64.9% of his passes.
He’s thrown double digit interceptions in both seasons so he does turn the ball over. Some people make the argument that the Wildcats lacked talent so he had to force some throws.
He is 6’4, 232 lbs. so he has good size. He’s now projected to go later in the first round, possibly as late as the No. 19 pick to Tampa Bay.
Anthony Richardson, Florida: He’s the example of possessing all of the measurables but the film does not match that. He’s 6’4, 244 pounds so scouts fell in love with his size. Then he ran a 4.43 40-yard dash and had a 40.5 inch vertical jump.
Now for what he’s done on the field. He’s only started 13 games, with a 6 – 7 record.
He’s passed for 3,105 yards, 24 touchdowns, 15 interceptions and completed 54.7% of his passes. He did rush for 1,116 yards and 12 scores.
He struggles with accuracy and turning the ball over. He also does not have much playing experience. He’s going to be drafted high based on his potential.
He has been projected to be drafted as high as No. 4. I think he will be picked in the top 10 by a desperate franchise, even though he is expected to be a backup as a rookie.
Falling Apart?
By: Robert Craft
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
Many talent evaluators around the NFL believe Jalen Carter is the best player available in the NFL draft.
Whether he goes first or fifth or somewhere significantly south in the draft depends in large part on whether: 1) He has a significant turnaround from his current physical and mental state , or 2) a team locks onto his raw talent only.
The best version of Jalen Carter was not on display at Georgia’s Pro Day. NFL personnel officials, coaches and media members in attendance saw an overweight Carter huffing and puffing through drills that were set up for defensive linemen. He did not participate in any other skills tests, nor the 40-yard dash.
Carter weighed 323 pounds, that’s 13 pounds heavier than he was listed at during Georgia’s season. It’s also nine pounds heavier than the 314 he weighed at the scouting combine two weeks ago. It was clearly not nine pounds of muscle. He looked flabby. He looked like a risk for any team that decides to hand him a $20 million-plus signing bonus.
After arriving in Indianapolis to undergo physical exams and meet with teams (Carter had already opted out of workouts), the arrest warrant was issued in Athens-Clarke County, Georgia. Carter left Indianapolis, turned himself in and was booked and released within hours. Then he returned to the combine and resumed interviews with teams.
No, Carter shouldn’t get brownie points for having to leave the combine in the first place. Yet, he returned when others might have stayed away. Which is an additional point for teams to consider in assessing one of the most intriguing prospects in the draft.
Carter is the most dominant defensive lineman in this draft, who had a viral moment in the SEC Championship Game when he lifted LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels with one arm while throwing up the No. 1 sign with his other hand.
Putting aside Carter’s two misdemeanors, the main questions about Carter that have been out there among pro scouts since during the season related to his consistency and work ethic.
Carter’s Pro Day was not a good look. There already were lingering questions about where Carter might be psychologically after the accident, and how he had handled himself in the suddenly negative spotlight.
All 32 NFL teams attended the Georgia pro day, including Falcons Head Coach Arthur Smith, Bears Head Coach Matt Eberflus and General Manager Ryan Poles and Steelers Head Coach Mike Tomlin and GM Omar Khan.
Carter helped lead the Bulldogs to back-to-back national championships and played at a dominant level despite dealing with knee and ankle injuries.
He has a month before the draft to get into shape and ease concerns. He has a month to realize he is in the midst of a job interview.
At The End Of The Rainbow
By: Garrison Ryfun
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
Just before Saint Patrick’s Day, Florida State and Georgia Tech announced they would play their 2024 season opener in Ireland as a part of the Aer Lingus College Football Classic.
This will be the 9th college football game played in Ireland, and one of the few times neither school playing in Ireland has had an Irish/catholic connection.
The Aer Lingus College Football Classic started in 2016 with a contest between Georgia Tech and Boston College, where the Yellow Jackets prevailed 17-14.
The Classic then took a five-season break and finally returned in Fall of 2022, with a matchup between Nebraska and Northwestern last season.
Now, The Classic seems serious about bringing a week 0 college football game to Ireland, with games set up to begin the 2023 and 2024 seasons.
Notre Dame, a more fitting brand for Ireland, is set to take on Navy to start the 2023 season at Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland for The Classic.
There are pros and cons to the more increasingly common, neutral-site season openers – even ones that take place outside of the United States.
The biggest pros are for the student athletes and brand of college football in general.
The student athletes get to go and experience a different country and different culture, something many of which likely have never done in their lives.
The brand of college football also gets to be put onto display for Irish citizens, who have likely never experienced American college football in their lives.
The cons for a college football brand is losing a home game and the revenue that the local businesses around your school usually get with a home game.
In this case, the home team would have been Georgia Tech, and the game would have been played in Atlanta, Georgia.
This is one case where I do not think local businesses will be as hurt with a neutral-site game. Though there is said to be a large alumni base of Florida State graduates in the Atlanta area.
This kind of classic abroad is also done in the National Football League with five games already set to be played out of the United States in the 2023 season: with the Bills, Titans, and Jaguars playing in London and the Chiefs and Patriots both hosting games in Germany.
This is all done in an attempt to grow the brand of American Football abroad.
Something that may wind up failing, but as long as the governments of these countries continue to advocate for it – American football will be there to show off in all its glory.
Greener Grass
By: Robert Craft
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
In a talk that generated headlines across the ACC, Florida State Seminole athletic director Michael Alford pointed out the difference in projected conference revenue between the ACC, the Big Ten, and SEC once their new media rights deals begin.
It’s true, FSU does not have a viable escape route anytime soon. In the Texas/OU and USC/UCLA cases, the schools waited to leave until their leagues’ Grant of Rights were up. (Two Big 12 schools have since negotiated an early exit.)
The ACC’s deal goes another 13 years. In that board meeting, FSU’s general counsel threw out $120 million as a cost to leave the ACC, but as best I can tell, that’s just the league’s exit fee.
The cost to buy back more than a decade’s worth of your own TV rights from the conference would be exponentially more.
It’s been suggested that FSU and Clemson (or others) could challenge the Grant of Rights in court, but contracts that deal with millions of dollars tend to be pretty ironclad. If they weren’t, someone would have challenged one already.
FSU, as well as Clemson, are posturing for unequal revenue sharing, under the premise they bring more value than the other 12 schools, the implicit threat is lingering: if you don’t pay us, we’ll leave eventually.
This story is similar to USC’s decade of largely behind-the-scenes grumbling, but this time the other schools have no short-term incentive to agree to it. The best case the pair could make might be,
“We’re your conference’s best hope of winning a national championship in football. The 12-team Playoff Model is expected to be more performance-based than presently, if a big money team like Clemson or FSU wins three games in the playoffs en route to the 2026 national title, everyone reaps benefits.”
I don’t think anyone wants to take in less money than they are currently making. The question is one of leverage. Do Florida State, Clemson and others have actual leverage in today’s negotiations?
They’re locked into a deal with the ACC through 2036 that could cost more than $300 million to break between just exit fees and the grant of rights.
If those schools do not have offers in hand to join the Big Ten or the SEC, can they really force the rest of the conference to acquiesce on this?
For what it’s worth, I’m not sure shuffling around a few million dollars per year actually closes the revenue gaps Alford was talking about with his board.
If FSU gets, say, $5 million more per year than it does now, does that actually close the gap it’s staring down with powerhouses like Georgia? Or is this more of a philosophical conversation?
The ACC should be thinking externally, not internally, and figuring a way to generate more revenue, because soon their schools are going to be sharing it with their athletes
I see the anxiety and hear the chatter from FSU fans every day. Everyone’s worried about revenue, stratification and falling behind. So it may help fans to hear your leaders fighting for more. But I’m also not sure there’s going to be enough of a force to force real change.
My two cents: Though I do recommend making some effort to keep your marquee programs happy, FSU does not have much leverage here. You’re talking about a “threat” that might not come to fruition for more than a decade, by which point the sport’s traditional conference model could be abandoned entirely.
Who knows what will happen in 13 years’ time, programs can only plan for the near future.
You’re Fired
By: Kipp Branch
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
The Florida Gators football team began their second spring practice under head coach Billy Napier last week.
With new players and coaching staff, there are many storylines and position battles to watch this spring.
The Gators have big questions in a lot of position groups entering spring practice. Who will replace Anthony Richardson at QB is a huge question mark.
Florida lost all three starters from 2022 at linebacker, who steps up there? Questions abound across the board with this program.
Here is the main question in my mind and it is one that Florida does not have a great track record in regards to. Will Florida be patient and allow Billy Napier to build this program the right way?
Florida was one of the founding members of the SEC in 1933. It took Florida 58 years for them to win their first SEC Football Championship in 1991. Florida has won 8 SEC Football Championships overall and none since 2008.
It has been 15 years since Florida has won anything of significance in football. In the same time frame Florida has had 5 head football coaches. Doing the math Florida hires and fires head football coaches every three years.
Florida is never going to be successful again until they give a coach a chance to build a program.
Napier went 40-12 at Louisiana in four years prior to taking the Florida job, which included a 7-7 season in year one.
Florida is a huge step up from the Sun Belt Conference, and in many ways Florida was in much worse shape than Louisiana was when Napier took over.
Napier had to improve his overall talent at UL which he did, but that isn’t the case at Florida.
Florida always has elite talent in football. Did you watch Anthony Richardson at the NFL Combine put up the best performance for a QB ever?
Talent is not and never has been an issue at The University of Florida. Vince Dooley used to say that Florida was the most talented team in the SEC annually when he coached at UGA from 1964-1988. Dooley’s teams went 17-7-1 against more talented UF football teams during his tenure.
Steve Spurrier was hired in 1990 and he came in with his innovative offensive mind and made Florida the best football program in the SEC while going 122-27-1 in a 12-year run that is the best in school history.
During that window Florida won 6 SEC Championships and a national title in 1996.
Urban Meyer came in and recruited Tim Tebow and won national titles in 2006 and 2008.
My point is that Florida’s entire football history is compressed into a 19-year window from 1990-2008. Other than that Florida football has been nothing special.
Billy Napier inherited a culture problem at UF that he has been working to improve since he walked on campus.
SEC coaches privately tell reporters that Florida has consistently been one of the most undisciplined teams in the conference over the past 5 seasons.
I believe Napier is the right man for the job in Gainesville. He just had a top 15 recruiting class and hit the transfer portal hard to address position groups like LB and QB.
Florida just opened an $85 million dollar football facility last summer that is state of the art.
The money, talent, and facilities are in place for Billy Napier to get UF back among the elite programs in the country.
Napier needs time to fix the culture and build the type of program that all associated with the University of Florida will be proud of. Billy Napier is the right man for the job at UF.
Will Florida give him the time needed to accomplish? Back-to-back 6-7 seasons while UGA is winning back-to-back National Championships makes the Gator nation impatient.
They must realize that it took Kirby 6 years to build Georgia into that status. Florida will not be elite anytime soon unless they stop firing head football coaches every 3 years.
Bad Rep
By: Robert Craft
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
Star defensive tackle Jalen Carter became the third member of Georgia’s 2022 national championship team to be charged with reckless driving.
A fourth bulldog was charged with a DUI and the fifth was reported to have gone 34 miles over the speed limit at the time of arrest.
In total, nine Georgia players have been arrested in the last 13.5 months.
These arrests don’t have to be blamed on Georgia. There’s nothing that’s come to light that suggests it is. With that being said, these incidents still reflect poorly on the program’s image, as a charge reflects poorly on all five player’s criminal records.
All of these are misdemeanors, but Georgia’s program is at their highest media coverage nationally in the history of college football. The microscope is more zoomed in than ever, and narratives will be longer if these habits continue.
The car crash that took the lives of Devin Willock and Chandler LeCroy is a terrible tragedy. The other parts of the story have always seemed irrelevant: I don’t care about staffers socializing with athletes. I don’t care very much about a university car being used. I don’t care that they were at a strip club.
I do care what directly led to the crash. Now, Kirby Smart should talk with his program and take a leadership role in athlete risk aversion.
Smart needs to get a handle on street racing and reckless driving. Police report the cause of the car crash to street racing and reckless driving.
A coach can’t take away anybody’s ability to drive, but they can take away a starting roster position. An athletic director may set an example by suspending or dismissing players for criminal offenses while eligible.
Smart has indubitably built an athletic powerhouse in seven seasons in Athens, going for his third consecutive National Championship next season. However, after their latest title win, the team has been marred with bad morale and criminal news headlines.
The one thing that could bring down Smart and the Bulldogs’ dynasty is legal actions and a criminal reputation. Anybody remember the facelifting SMU and Miami have been doing after their debacles?
University of Georgia athletic director Josh Brooks stated that neither Willock, nor the driver of the car was on “athletic department business” at the time of the accident.
Brooks added that his department “[conducted] a thorough review, in coordination with appropriate legal counsel, to fully understand the circumstances surrounding this tragic event.”
This sounds like Brooks is trying to minimize sue damage. In a wrongful death case involving a motor vehicle accident, it is sometimes possible to hold an employer responsible if their employee’s negligence was responsible for the fatal accident. This is a vicarious liability under Georgia law.
Georgia follows a “comparative fault” standard in all personal injury cases, which includes wrongful death claims. Basically, this means that when the negligence of multiple parties led to an accident, a judge or jury must apportion the blame accordingly. The judge will then reduce the victim’s damages to account for their determined percentage of fault.
Willock’s family has not filed any legal action arising from his death. High-profile accidents like this one often raise a number of questions regarding the law in this area. Dave Willock, who is the father of the late Devin Willock, said that he was not planning a lawsuit at this time.
“Georgia is working with us,” Willock told the AJC. “We have no reason to do that (sue Georgia), because they are compensating us 100 percent.”
I have a feeling that in the near future lawsuits will be filed, but until then, Smart and Georgia’s athletic department have to clean up their public image.
In scenarios like these, a little bit of prevention is worth a whole lot of cure- Georgia got lucky, but it won’t matter if these incidents keep happening.
The New Reality
By: Garrison Ryfun
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
In the upcoming age of super conferences in college football, major brands who are not a part of the Big Ten or SEC are trying to position themselves to be able to compete revenue wise with the brands in those conferences.
Currently, the Texas Longhorns and the Oklahoma Sooners are set to join the SEC in 2024, and the USC Trojans and the UCLA Bruins are set to join the Big Ten 2024. This is coincidentally the same year the 12-team playoff starts in college football, something that other Power Five conferences are likely happy about due to the massive changes happening in the landscape of the sport – with conference realignment.
Florida State’s latest board of trustees meeting gave insight to how teams are going to deal with this landscape going forward: Either the ACC gives more money to the teams that bring in more revenue, or those teams will do everything in their power to find a better situation for themselves.
Teams like Florida State, Clemson, Oregon, etc. will have to work out better deals for themselves. FSU AD Michael Alford pointed out that with the new television deals going into effect for the Big 10/SEC, schools like Florida State would be behind the curve by about $30 million annually.
This kind of gap will prevent these bigger brands from being able to compete for championships regularly, and in the coming months I expect more and more schools will start speaking about what needs to be done to stay relevant in college football.
This will, in all likelihood, create a very contentious relationship within conferences like the Pac-12, Big-12, and ACC. One way these conferences could help themselves out is by trying to create their own super conference.
The Big 12 is trying to lessen the impact of losing brands like Oklahoma and Texas by bringing in Brigham Young, Central Florida, Cincinnati, and Houston in Fall 2023 – a move that will not make up for the brand loss that will come after the 2023-2024 season.
Notre Dame will likely be a big target for those three conferences, as it is the only independent team left with a brand that big.
Teams may even be poached from one conference to the other, something that would mean the death of at least one power five conference. A thing that may be inevitable in the coming years, and may even help some of these conferences stay competitive or become super conferences themselves.
This struggle is not going to be solved overnight and its effects on football will likely not be seen for a few years.
There will be massive restructuring in the way some conferences are run and the teams that are within those conferences. All we can do as fans is sit back and hope your school understands their value as a brand within the sport.
The future of college football starts with changes made today. How will other big brands respond to the inevitable? There will be some fascinating off-seasons in the next couple of years, that’s for sure.
The Dirty Dozen
By: Kipp Branch
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
In 2024 College football expands to a 12-team playoff. Here are my top 12 teams going into the Spring practice for 2023.
Georgia: Back to national champions, and 29-1 in last 30 games. Where else do you expect the champs to be ranked?
No matter who wins the starting quarterback job Carson Beck, Brock Vandagriff or Gunner Stockton, the Bulldogs will be strong on offense and have TE Brock Bowers. Defense will be nasty as always under Kirby.
Michigan: Yes, they have folded like a cheap tent in the last two college football playoffs, but this team is the established king of the Big 10, and owns Ohio State currently. The Wolverines land here.
Ohio State: Ryan Day is 45-6 but it feels like this team does not live up to its potential.
Michigan has the upper hand over Ohio State currently. Marvin Harrison Jr. is back, and he is the best WR in college football.
Alabama: Alabama is still Alabama. People need to remember this fact. Nick Saban must be stewing inside about how 2022 played out. Who will be the QB? Once that is settled then look out for this team.
LSU: The Tigers land here. Brian Kelly is an elite coach, and this team has elite talent. Alabama vs. LSU will be for the SEC West Championship.
Penn State: Drew Allar is the QB now. Nick and Kaytron Allen return at RB. Is this team ready to compete with Michigan and Ohio State for the Big 10 Championship?
Florida State: Jordan Travis is back with weapons all around him to use. Mike Norvell seems to have turned the corner in Tallahassee.
Can FSU handle the mantle of being the favorite in the ACC? We shall see.
USC: The Trojans were one win away from the CFP in 2022.
Can USC win a Pac-12 title in 2023 with Washington and Utah breathing down their necks? Team defense will provide that answer.
Washington: Michael Penix Jr. makes this team a contender and he will be a Heisman candidate.
The Pac-12 needs a team to make the CFP desperately. It has been a long drought.
Utah: The Utes are the two-time defending Pac-12 champions. This team does not get the respect it deserves. Great head coach and talented players define this program. The Utes play a physical brand of football.
Tennessee: Hendon Hooker is gone. Joe Milton is the man now in Knoxville.
Josh Heupel has done a fantastic job in a short period of time.
This time the Vols must improve on defense.
Road games at Alabama and Florida will be tough. They get UGA at home in November, which is good, but UGA has won their last three visits to Rocky Top.
Defense is going to be the key in 2023.
Oregon: Dan Lanning won ten games in year one.
Bo Nix is back.
The Pac-12 could be an extremely competitive conference this fall.
This is a dangerous football team. As with most teams out west can they play defense at a level that allows them to compete with the big boys from the SEC or Big 10?
Just on the outside looking in: Clemson, Notre Dame, TCU, Texas, Tulane, and Kansas State. Can you imagine these debates when the CFP expands to 12?
Conference Breakdown:
SEC: 4
Pac-12: 4
Big Ten: 3
ACC: 1
Spring football is just a couple of weeks away. Let the debates begin.
