Published by: AK98
College Football is finally upon us. It’s so close, I can practically smell the aroma of sizzling brats on a grill……taste the warm, flat Keystone Light……hear the cracking of colliding plastic……
I’m getting ahead of myself.
Navy & Notre Dame open the college football season on August 26th with their return to Dublin, Ireland for ND’s yearly “Shamrock Series” game. As a Catholic, recent(ish) college grad, & a self-proclaimed “Subway Alumni,” this game has me licking my chops. I already love college football more than the pros & I’m eager to see how year two of Marcus Freeman’s tenure evolves (particularly at the quarterback position with the landing of top transfer portal prospect Sam Hartman; previously of Wake Forest). Besides my homer-take, it feels like there are more storylines going into this season than any I can remember from previous years.
Knowing this, I figured I’d help our college football diehards sift through the pulp, making sure that the headline juice is definitely worth the squeeze.
College Football Preview
#1 Can Georgia complete the 1st “THREE PEAT” of the modern era?
The Georgia Bulldogs have officially surpassed the “Saban Dynasty” of Alabama, as they enter the 2023 college football season as the favorites to win the CFP, again. Seeing as they’ll be defending their back to back titles, it’s fair to say that they have become the big dawgs on campus (pun intended). While they lose their heartbeat & big-game hero in QB Stetson Bennet (not to mention a plethora of top-tier draft talent at the other 21 positions), it looks to be another “reload” year for a Bulldogs team who’s dominated recruiting since the arrival of HC Kirby Smart.
The question resting on the lips of every Bulldog fan of “Can this Carson Beck kid really fill in for Stets” should be answered fairly quick, as they welcome an SEC sleeper pick South Carolina “Between The Hedges” for the third game of the season; a team who is led by former media darling/#1 overall HS recruit/projected #1 pick in the 2021 NFL Draft in Spencer Rattler, who himself is amidst a career trajectory rebuild & salivating at the opportunity to go into Athens and resurrect his draft stock. Although, the transition of power will be aided greatly by top prospect TE Brock Bowers.
#2 Can the PAC12 bring home a CFP trophy before they dismantle next season?
(From right to left: Quarterbacks Bo Nix (ORE), Caleb Williams (USC), Jayden De Laura (UA), Michael Pennix Jr. (WASH)
It’s no secret that the PAC12 as a conference has the future of a turd baking under a desert sun. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’re fully aware that the PAC12 is losing its biggest names to super conferences BIG10 (UCLA, ORE, USC, WASH) & BIG12 (ASU, UA, CO, UTAH). They will be melted down to the bone.
With that being said, the PAC12 as a football conference has a very different outlook. They are looking to go nuclear in terms of offensive statistics with arguably the deepest QB pool of all the Power 5 conferences. The top QBs returning are (respectively) Heisman winner Caleb Williams (USC), Michael Pennix Jr. (UW), Bo Nix (ORE), Cam Rising (UTAH), and Jayden De Laura (UA) ; each helping to lead the PAC12 in overall QB efficiency in 2022.
Newcomers like DJ Uiagalelie (OSU), Carson Ward (WSU), Shedeur Sanders (CO), Dante Moore (UCLA), and Drew Pyne (ASU) should only add to the offensive legitimacy of the PAC12 as a whole. But will it be enough to win a CFP title?
The reality for the PAC12 is the only team with a legitimate shot to make the CFP before it implodes next season is USC. The powers-that-be will gift every opportunity to returning Heisman winner Caleb Williams (and #1 NFL Draft prospect) to be spotlighted in the biggest games this season. As long as USC doesn’t give the CFP voting committee a reason to, they will eagerly grant USC passage into the college football playoffs. The Oregon Ducks have an outside chance, but both teams have a history of getting egg on their face during weeks they are expected to win.
#3 Can Spencer Rattler resurrect his career & NFL future
(South Carolina QB Spencer Rattler after throwing a TD pass in a 45-38 losing effort in the Gator Bowl against #21 Notre Dame
Spencer Rattler was a media darling long before he set foot on the South Carolina campus. He was the highlighted star of the Netflix football documentary “QB1” (cameras follow the day-to-day of college football hopeful quarterbacks at the high school level). As the #1 overall prospect, he got plenty of airtime; but much like his career at Oklahoma, it came to a crashing halt (he was eventually suspended for cheating, although he pretended it was an injury that cost him his season).
Now, while my personal opinion is Rattler hasn’t flamed out as bad as QB1 Season 1 darling Tate Martell, others argue his is absolutely worse; and they have decent evidence to back their claims. He went from #1 overall college prospect to the #1 overall QB prospect going into his sophomore season at Oklahoma, to being benched in the biggest game of the year by an underclassman. He struggled as a sophomore, and his lackluster performances reached a tipping point in the “Red River Rivalry” game (a blood rivalry between Texas & Oklahoma) when then-HC Lincoln Riley benched Rattler for “his guy” Caleb Williams (another top-rated product from southern California).
Williams showed out enough in that game to win the job for the rest of the season. Never have we seen a #1 NFL QB prospect benched mid-season, losing the job to an underclassman who hadn’t played a significant snap to that point in his career. Rattler transferred to South Carolina over Ole Miss (which I thought was a massive mistake), Williams followed Riley to USC, and the rest is history.
In South Carolina, the first ¾ of the 2022 season for Rattler was nothing to brag about. But he went nuclear at the end of the season, beating the #5 Tennessee Volunteers at home before beating their in-state rival in Death Valley, #8 Clemson (the first SoCar QB to do so since Connor Shaw in 2013). While he finished the season with a close loss to my #21 Irish in the Gator Bowl (45-38), he showed glimpses of the in-game swag that made him a top prospect.
Personally, I’m cheering for the guy, and I would love to see him rebuild his brand. A meeting with Riley & Williams in the CFP would be an absolute dream matchup, and I know I’m not the only one dreaming this up. But they have one of (if not the most) difficult first month of college football of any team in the land. They travel to #13 Tennessee & #1 Georgia, plus a neutral home-opener against territorial rival #21 North Carolina. We’ll find out quite a bit about the Gamecocks before October even arrives.
#4: Will this season mark the return of the Blue Bloods of College Football?
Michigan….Ohio State….Alabama….LSU….USC….Penn State….Florida State…
These names are some of the traditional powers of college football. They also hold 7 of the top 10 available spots for the AP Top 25 with teams like Texas, Notre Dame, and Oklahoma sitting within striking distance. But can names like the Nebraska Cornhuskers and the Miami Hurricanes return to national prominence?
Whether fans of sports like to admit it or not, when the Blue Bloods are good, the sport is better. It’s not that there are more fans of those teams; quite the opposite. They happen to be the teams we love to hate, and will tune into just to see them fail. Take Duke Basketball for example. How many basketball fans root for Duke? Same goes for baseball fans and the New York Yankees, and coming full circle, this is the same case for college football fans with teams like USC, Notre Dame, or Alabama.
The reality is, the majority of people tuning into their games are cheering for them to lose. But, THEY TUNE IN. The television numbers prove this to be the case. Take the CFP Final the past two seasons for example: one final had a traditional Blue Blood (Alabama), the other had a Cinderella story (TCU). Guess which had higher ratings?
The 2022 CFP Final of Georgia v. Alabama had 22.56 million viewers.
The 2023 CFP Final of Georgia v. TCU had 17.2 million viewers (the least viewed championship game since the birth of the BCS in 1999).
The proof is in the pudding.
Like I said, it’s not because of their fans that the games get watched with such numbers, it’s because of their haters. If I’m being honest, I myself am guilty of rooting for my most hated rivals only for the opportunity to rip their hearts out with higher stakes. And I’m not alone.
While I don’t share the experience of decades upon decades on this planet, I have found one constant to be true:
Haters goin’ hate.
So, hate on, college football.
