What is happening with the playoffs? Who will emerge as this season's star? Is Alabama ready to win another title? Questions similar to these swirl around as we enter the later months of summer, and the college football season draws increasingly nearer.
Last season was headlined by COVID news, and the play itself took a backseat. This season CFB can get back what makes it unique: playing in front of huge passionate crowds with every game meaning something. Though COVID will still be an issue, most schools have announced they will be back to full capacity.
Entering many seasons there is a major star who has already taken the college football world by storm. Last year we saw Lawrence and Fields enter the season with sky high expectations due to their previous success. This year we don’t really have that, there’s no clear favorite to be selected first overall. It will make the season even more fun as we see who emerges into this role.
QB's to Watch:
Sam Howell UNC
Howell is one of the early front runners for the Heisman due to his excellent passing skills. He loves to turn it all the way up in the second half of games.
Spencer Rattler Oklahoma
Rattler, a five star QB, sat a year behind Murray and was handed the reins to the Oklahoma offense last season. He initially struggled, even getting benched during the Red River Showdown, before finding his footing later in the season. If Rattler can improve his play in crunch time and stay mobile, he could become another Oklahoma qb top pick.
Malik Willis Liberty
Willis has been receiving plenty of media attention, but I am not completely sure why. Sure, he is a strong runner, but he couldn’t even beat out Bo Nix, who was a true freshman at the time, at Auburn, which caused his transfer. I am not sold on Willis yet.
Desmond Ridder UC
Ridder is the dark horse of this group. He may be on a group of 5 team, but they will enter the season ranked in the top 10 with high expectations. Ridder is very mobile and if he can sharpen his other skills he could be dangerous.
Despite teams losing tons of money, the coaching carousel was in full swing. Some notable coaches in new schools this season include Sark at Texas, Harsin at Auburn, Malzahn at UCF, Bielema at Illinois, and Heupel at Tennessee. I think it will be most interesting to see what Sark and Harsin do. Sark will be under tremendous pressure from the Texas faithful to bring them “back”. He has the resources, money, and talent in the state of Texas, so the questions lie in whether he can put it all together. Harsin is coming from Boise State, where he spent seven seasons known as a good offensive play caller. However, Malzahn was as well, and Auburn fans were not happy enough with him. It will be interesting to see how he adjusts to the SEC coming from the Mountain West.
Playoff Update:
Lately it seems as the whole CFB season focuses around the playoffs, and even through this offseason, playoff talk has dominated the media coverage. Seemingly out of nowhere the playoff committee has decided that sometime in the near future it will expand from four teams to twelve, tripling in size. This expansion could come as soon as the 2023 season or may not be implemented until the current contract expires at the end of the 2025 season. This expansion rewards winning your conference championship game and allows teams to have losses without ending their season.
The current suggestion allows the top four conference champions to have a bye, with the 5-8 teams hosting the first round playoff game on thier campus. The remaining rounds will be played at bowls and cities can bid to host the Natty.
I have mixed feelings on the whole playoff expansion. I am in favor of having more than four teams get in, but twelve seems like too much. With twelve teams the committee will do whatever they can to get as many SEC teams in as possible, which will give the conference even more money. This extra money will help to separate them from the rest even more. I also don’t like how only the first round games are on college campuses. I am in favor of having all games on campus until the finals but the entire expansion is just for more money, so having all the games on campus is not a real possibility.
It will be interesting to see how much of a fight the major bowls put up to this expansion. In the end money seems to talk, so I am assuming this twelve team expansion will go through soon.
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