College Football Season Is Here

The long spring and summer are over. The endzones are painted, the student sections are beginning to fill, and the boys of fall are prepared for war. It’s the best season of all – Football Season. 

As we head into the new season, not only do we have same faces in new places on the field, we also have same teams in new places. Countless teams have transitioned from their former conference to their new homes, hundreds of players have entered and exited the transfer portal, and we shall not forget the fact that there is a two-minute warning in college football now. Along with all of this comes the long awaited (long overdue), 12-team playoff. 12 of America’s best teams will square off in the new formatted College Football Playoff this December. 

Predictions: 

No one can ever truly predict how a college football season is going to play out. Upsets weekly, injuries, and just flat-out poor performances plague the best of the best and we can only hope to see the a good product on the field. But in the meantime, let’s make some predictions how the season will lay out. 

Group of 5 Conference Winners: 

• American
  • Memphis Tigers
    • The American is one of my favorite conferences in college football. Sneaky good teams, always a running back that is a stud, and just flat out fun to watch. Tulane and Memphis come into the season as the favorites, however  Memphis in my opinion is the more complete team. They are returning their starting QB Seth Henigan for his 3^rd year as a starter, coming off of a season in which he led the offense to a top-10 passing finish. Returning a 3^rd-year starting QB, and bringing in South Carolina’s rushing leader from a season ago, Mario Anderson, the Memphis Tigers have the upper hand this season. 

• C-USA
  • Liberty Flames
    • Conference-USA isn’t the best conference out there, but Liberty is one of the best Group of 5 schools out there. Returning both starting running backs that lead the nation in team rushing offense, they also bring back starting QB and C-USA MVP, Kaidon Salter. Head Coach Jamey Caldwell enters his second season, going 13-1 in his first, where he looks to repeat the success the Flames had in 2023. 

• MAC
  • Bowling Green Falcons
    • Bowling Green comes into the season with the 3^rd best odds (+600) of winning the MAC, behind Miami (OH) and Toledo. Miami (OH) has the best odds of bringing the title home, with multiple defensive starters returning and Brett Gabbert returning for his 5^th college football, while Toledo has the second best odds despite losing their starting QB and RB to the transfer portal. Bowling Green is returning a slew of their players including their starting QB and RB. 

• Mountain West
  • UNLV Rebels
    • Boise State is the favorite to win the conference (with negative odds at that), but UNLV is sneaky. Two of the top FCS QB’s transferred in, Matthew Sluka from Holy Cross and Hajj-Malik Williams from Campbell. Going into week 1, neither has been named the starter which is a question mark as to what is going on in Sin City, but none the less the Rebels with their returning 12 starters and new head coach have the talent to overcome the blue turf team. 
• Sun Belt
  • Appalachian State Mountaineers
    • Coming up short in Sun Belt championship against Troy last season, App. State comes into the season returning their starting QB Joey Aguilar who performed well enough during the season to warrant a P5 transfer, but chose to remain at App. State. The Mountaineers are just about the only Sun Belt school to not suffer complete carnage in the portal and deplete their resources, making them the favorite to come out on top. 

Power 4 (sorry PAC-2) Winners: 

• ACC
  • Clemson Tigers
    • Dabo and the Tigers are the betting favorite in the conference. The ACC is weird this season with Cal and Stanford joining, meaning teams like Miami (second favorite odds) have to travel to California for a conference game. Clemson however, misses the west coast trip this season and plays a favorable conference home schedule. Florida State on the road is the biggest threat for the Tigers, however we saw what the Seminoles looked like in Week 0. Clemson is returning Cade Klubnik along with Phil Mafah at running back, and 6 other offensive starters, Clemson looks to get back to the Deshaun Watson/Trevor Lawrence days. 
• B1G
  • Oregon Ducks
    • Writing that the Oregon Ducks are going to win the B1G title this season feels a little…odd. The new look college football sphere is due in large part to the B1G, when they went and picked up USC and UCLA, causing the chain reaction of schools leaving the PAC-12 for greener pastures (and by greener, I mean whatever color the dollar bill is). In Eugene, Dillion Gabriel is the Heisman favorite and the crazy thing is he isn’t even the highest ranked QB to transfer to Oregon this year, that title belongs to former UCLA QB Dante Moore. The two QB’s are just the tip of the transfer portal iceberg when it comes to the Ducks who were 3-points away from a PAC-12 championship and a CFP birth last season. There are countless worthy adversaries in the B1G, the top being Ohio State, who will be dealing with a new QB in Kansas State transfer Will Howard, who is good – but is he good enough to step right in and be the guy in Columbus? My money is on the “no” side. Ohio State and Oregon both brought in big time transfers, but Oregon won the transfer portal over just about every school in the nation. 
• Big-12
  • Oklahoma State Cowboys
    • Along with the B1G, the Big-12 has four new members. Bringing in the favorite to win the conference – Utah – is something that the Oklahoma State Cowboys are going to have to overcome. Lucky for them, 20 returning starters will be playing for the Pokes (TWENTY, you read that right). A team that lost 1 player on both sides of the ball, how can you bet against that? I understand that Utah has Cam Rising returning for his 39^th year in college football, but injury proneness you can’t count on him for the full season, and although they had success without him – 20 returning starters is enough for me to take OkSt.  
• SEC
  • Georgia Bulldogs
    • The Dawgs are out for vengeance. Georgia was the #1 team in the nation for 11 weeks last season, and missed the CFP after a loss to #8 Alabama in the SEC championship game – which propelled the Crimson Tide into the CFP. Georgia would go on to embarrass Florida State in the Orange Bowl, and now it’s their time to get back on top. Entering the season #1, it will be up to new SEC member Texas, the always threatening Alabama, and Lane Kiffin’s Ole Miss to dethrone the Bulldogs. All four of the top ranked SEC schools return their starting QB along with double-digit starters, but Georgia leads that race with 15. The #1 team is returning 15 starters… ‘nuff said. 
• PAC-2
  • Washington State Cougars
    • There are two teams in the conference. Not much to say here. Both teams lost enormous amounts of players to the transfer portal when the conference crumbled around them, leaving them as the only two members. This is really a toss up between the two teams, but Washington State has the upper hand. 

Welcome to Football Season!

Till Next Time, 
Trevor