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Any fan will tell you that there is no longer an off-season in college football. Here are five things to watch out for before the start of the season.
Ohio State without Braxton Miller
The best player on the Buckeyes team – who also happens to be both a team captain and their quarterback – went down with a season-ending injury more than a week before the first snap-in-anger of the 2014 season, throwing Ohio State’s plans into considerable disarray and throwing the Big Ten conference race wide open.
Coach Urban Meyer said recently in the press that he’d unconcerned with Miller’s absence, and that the Buckeyes are still a good team, and that might be the case, but there’s no doubt in the minds of anyone who saw Miller tear it up last year, that the Buckeyes aren’t going to be the same offensive threat without him under centre.
The beneficiary of Miller’s injury is J.T. Barrett, a redshirt freshman who has suddenly been handed the keys to the Buckeye offense, and who will be expected to make it is own quickly, before Big Ten play starts. Barrett’s backup is redshirt sophomore Cardale Jones, who’s thrown a grand total of two passes in his Ohio State career.
A lack of depth and experience at the quarterback position should be a huge worry for the Buckeyes. Sure, there’s plenty of good offensive weapons around Barrett, but there could be a corps of the best NFL receivers out there, and that wouldn’t matter if Barrett can’t hit targets. If the kid struggles, the running game for Ohio State becomes their biggest weapon, and defences are going to drill down on it going forward, daring Barrett to throw. The question is: can he make the plays?
Blake Bell at Tight End for Oklahoma
Remember a few seasons back when the lumbering dude they call the ‘Belldozer’ was a destructive force in goal-to-go situations for the Sooners? I mean, defenders had as much chance of stopping the Belldozer from the one yard line as they had stopping a runway truck, which was what Bell often resembled.
When Landry Jones departed the school, Bell was one of two quarterbacks Bob Stoops tried, and it’s fair to say that as a quarterback in general play, he didn’t exactly set the world on fire, though his short-yardage work was as good as ever. Of course, that’s where Bell could use his bulk to force his way into the end zone.
So, during the off-season, Bell switched to tight end and has impressed his coaches so much that he’ll be the starting TE for the Sooners, and that spells trouble for opposing defences. Good luck tackling him in the open field when he gets a run on. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him used as a quarterback in short-yardage situations, either. Bell at tight end represents another nice wrinkle in the Sooner offense, and a good way to keep a talented guy on the roster.
Texas A and M’s offensive output
How do you replace the mercurial Johnny Manziel? Well, you don’t, not really, but sophomore quarterback Kenny Hill faces a daunting challenge to carry the Aggie offense onward and upward. Their first game is against a tough South Carolina side, and rolling through SEC play, things won’t get any easier for Texas
Manziel was king of making big plays. Incredible escapism was his trademark, as was putting up eye-popping numbers. It’s not exactly a-grade analysis to suggest that the Aggies aren’t going to be as offensively robust this year as they were a season ago, but there are still weapons on the field for Texas and charting their total offensive numbers this week and going forward, will be interesting.
Big Ten versus SEC
There’s a lot made of the vast gulf between the SEC and the Big Ten in recent years. It’s been just about one-way traffic in Bowl games between schools from these two conferences – which some like to term a match-up between the power conference and the conference that wishes it was a power conference – in recent seasons.
Saturday night, the Big Ten’s Wisconsin Badgers have a golden a chance to start off a new era of college football in a rather strange way: that is, of course, beating an SEC opponent. They face Les Miles’ Louisiana State Tigers at NRG Stadium in Houston.
Ominously for Wisconsin, the Tigers are playing a ranked, non-conference opponent at a neutral site to start the season for the fourth time in five years. Even more ominously, Miles has never lost a season opener and just happens to be undefeated against ranked, non-conference opponents in the regular season.
Not good reading for Wisconsin fans, is it? Look, even if they don’t win, I’d love to see them play a competitive game – the Tigers and Badgers are ranked thirteenth and fourteenth respectively in the AP Top 25 to start the year – and, on the field, they look pretty well-matched. Surely there’s no better time for Wisconsin, under second-year head coach Gary Andersen, to pop up and make a bit of a headline. Beating LSU is nothing to sneeze at, and it’s going to be a nice season primer for the Badgers if they can get it done.
Watch for the same-old-same-old headlines out of the south if the Tigers get over the Badgers, particularly if it’s a convincing win.
Boise State’s new era
Long-time head coach Chris Petersen has departed Boise for the potentially-greener pastures of Washington, and former offensive coordinator Bryan Harsin takes over, promising, basically, more of the same from the Broncos.
Regardless, it will be interesting to see how Harsin, a former BSU quarterback who was offensive coordinator under Mack Brown for the last few years, before returning to become Broncos head coach, will take a team that under-performed last year as compared to previous seasons.
A decline wasn’t unexpected, not with the talent that they’ve lost over the last two years. Still, the Broncos have gone 19-7 since Kellen Moore departed Boise. That’s a pertinent stat, given you’d swear that the wheels have fallen off the Bronco bus since the record-setting quarterback departed.
Harsin and his team has a great shot at a Mountain West Conference title in his first season in charge on the Blue Rug (the Broncos went 8-5 last year), but it’s a stern test first up, taking on Bo Wallace and Ole Miss in Atlanta on Thursday night.
Going forward, all eyes will be on Harsin’s ability to get back to those giant-killing ways. 8-5 was once a good season in Boise, but it’s an underachieving one now. The development of jittery senior quarterback Grant Hedrick will be key to BSU’s chances of a big season and, their chances of starting 2014 1-0.
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