21 for 2021 College Football Topics, No. 21: 21 thoughts, wishes and hopes for the 2021 season.
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21. Oh yeah, COVID.
I’m in the camp that believes that by late August, going into a CVS to get a COVID vaccination will be as simple as buying a package of M&M’s – at least until the person behind the counter refuses to accept that I’m not a rewards member and demands to look up a phone number from 12 years ago.
I’m also in the camp that believes everything isn’t going to be 100% normal yet by the time the football season rolls around. However, there was a 2020 college football season.
It was twisted, weird, and borderline immoral, but it happened. If we could have college football through that, we’re getting something stronger and better this time around.
And we deserve it.
However, I have but one humble request …
20. “It’s so good to have (insert fans/band/whatever) back.”
Week 1.
Announcers, social media heads, and those who’ll romanticize this with plinky piano music and reverent tones, you get one week to go overboard with the gushing about how wonderful it’ll be to have the fans back in the stands, the sounds of the bands, and the feelings that one gets after something so loved was taken away.
And then that’s it. Just like it became nails on a chalkboard every time some play-by-play guy mused about how awesome it would’ve been if fans were around for some big play, it’s going to start to ruin every moment when it gets pointed out over and over again that most things are back.
19. The top three American Athletic Conference head coaches vs. the three top new guys the SEC hired.
“Dan Hawkins is the PERFECT fit for Colorado.” – 2006 me.
I’ve given up making any assumptions on whether or not a coaching hire is or isn’t going to work, so I’m 1000% certain that five years from now this might seem like a moronic take …
You take Bryan Harsin (Auburn), Josh Heupel (Tennessee) and Shane Beamer (South Carolina) and I’ll take Luke Fickell (Cincinnati), Gus Malzahn (UCF) and your pick of Ryan Silverfield (Memphis), Ken Niumatalolo (Navy) or Sonny Dykes (SMU) and my American Athletic Conference coaches are probably stronger than three of your new SEC head men.
Speaking of Mr. Malzahn …
18. The free pass time for coaches is over.
The conventional wisdom in the 2020 offseason was that coaches would get a bit of a break as they tried to keep everything rolling through a global pandemic.
Not really.
From Tom Herman to Lovie Smith, and from Kevin Sumlin to Jeremy Pruitt to Will Muschamp to Doc Holliday, some schools didn’t mind the whole buyout thing and just wanted to move on. That’s not to say that coaches who had miserable years – Jim Harbaugh, James Franklin, Dino Babers, Jeff Brohm, Les Miles – were given a break only because of the 2020 issues, but it was totally fair to give coaches a mulligan.
Not in 2021.
Because of the fun rule that seniors can return for another year – more on that in a moment – and because everything might be 78% back to normal, it’s win-or-bust time for any and all hot seat coaches.
17. A desperate prayer I know will go unanswered.
As social media gets worse and worse, and the stupid and jerky become more and more emboldened, here’s asking for any and all to realize that 1) college football is just a silly game 2) played by college kids who 3) are going to make college kid mistakes.
The missed the 37-yard game winning attempt, or the personal foul penalty on a linebacker doing a goofy dance or something, will be memory dumped almost instantly.
That suggestively-violent dillhole tweet pounding those guys will live forever.
16. The ACC world will be much better if Florida State and Miami are awesome.
I know, I know, North Carolina, but we know how this works. The Tar Heels are great, and then they lose to Duke or Wake Forest or some team it’s favored to beat by 39.
It wasn’t all that long ago when Florida State was a national championship-level superpower. It was that long ago when Miami ruled the world, but the ACC could and should be phenomenal if the Seminoles and Hurricanes – and Tar Heels – can really and truly be good enough to challenge Clemson.
That’s not going to happen in 2021, but it would be nice.
NEXT: Top 15 2021 College Football Thoughts, Wishes, Hopes
15. The college football world will be much better if the Pac-12 is awesome.
Rip on the Pac-12 all you want, but no Power Five conference played a more entertaining season on a game-by-game basis in a shortened 2020.
We can’t be allowed to ignore an entire time zone of college football.
Okay, Oregon. You recruited with the Bamas and Buckeyes of the world over the last few years – let’s go.
Okay, USC. You’re USC. Let’s go.
Okay, Chip Kelly. You’re Chip Kelly. Let’s go.
Okay, Washington. That was a great first – and very, very short – look at the Jimmy Lake era. Let’s go.
Okay, reloaded Utah. Okay, fun-looking Arizona State. Okay, Colorado, Stanford and Cal. Let’s go.
14. The Big Ten world will be much better if Penn State and Michigan are awesome.
It’s been totally forgotten, but 2018 Michigan went into the Ohio State game with the puck on its stick for a chance to play for the Big Ten title and the College Football Playoff.
It’s sort of been forgotten after the worst start to a season in Penn State history, but 2020 was coming off a run of three 11-win seasons in four years.
Indiana will be a hot offseason media crush in the East, but the division and the conference need two of the superpowers in the East – let’s throw the rerack of Wisconsin in the West, too – to at least make Ohio State sweat a little.
13. The Big 12 world will be much better if Texas is awesome.
Really? Iowa State is what the kids are slamming to now? I get it, but come on – at the end of the day, it’s Iowa State.
(Relax, Cyclone fans – a big hug is coming a few blurbs later.)
It’s always nice when Oklahoma State is great, and TCU should be a thing, and West Virginia is overdue to rise up and be a Big 12 player, but it’s the Big 12.
It’s Oklahoma, and it’s Texas.
There’s absolutely no possible excuse for the Longhorn program to be mediocre. Tennessee at least is in the nasty SEC, and Nebraska can legitimately fall back on the lack of a high-end local recruiting base, but as superpower-calibers of the recent past go, Texas should be ten-plus wins every year without blinking.
It’s fine if Oklahoma wins its 67th straight Big 12 championship, but the league needs the big badass anchor tenant to pay the rent.
12. The SEC world will be much better if there isn’t one awesome all-time great team.
Personally, I’m amazed by the ruthless excellent of Alabama – but the latest national championship didn’t seem to get more than a big fat yawn from the rest of the sports world.
The 2019 LSU juggernaut that turned in the greatest season in the history of college football might be remembered a bit more differently if the 2020 version didn’t fall off a cliff.
It’s been forgotten now thanks to – sorry, Tide fans – 44-16, but the 2018 Alabama team ripped through everything in its path until the debacle in Santa Clara against Clemson.
The SEC was more fun in 2017 when Alabama was terrific, Georgia was fantastic, Auburn was nasty, LSU was solid, and there was a real, live battle for the conference championship rather than a coronation.
Florida, Texas A&M, LSU, Georgia – make it something more than the Alabama Invitational.
11. The world needs to quit placating/teasing the Group of Five teams.
Cincinnati was never, ever, ever going to get into the College Football Playoff. That’s not to say it didn’t deserve it in 2020 – it didn’t; that fight is so four months ago – but the Power Fivers will always get every benefit of every CFP doubt.
I know how this is going to work, because this is what happens every year. There’s a Cincinnati, or a UCF, or a Coastal Carolina, or a BYU – which isn’t technically a Group of Five program, but sort of gets treated like high-end one perception-wise – or a Boise State that someone will take up as the lost cause team that deserves to be in the final top four.
That rock gets pushed up the mountain, only to have the kids in Grapevine, Texas shove it right back down with a final ranking somewhere around 6ish or so.
I’m not saying it’s necessarily fair – although I am a full-season Power Five schedule snob – or right, but no matter who that star Group of Five team is this year, let’s try to enjoy its greatness without always framing it about how it’s getting totally screwed by the system.
But to remedy that …
NEXT: Top 10 2021 College Football Thoughts, Wishes, Hopes
10. We’re WAY overdue for expansion talk to heat up.
Utah was a Group of Five program until the 2011 season debut in the Pac-12. TCU was a GO5er until joining the Big 12 in 2012.
How the Big 12 hasn’t snapped up the I-4 corridor, recruiting base, massive alumni following and TV markets of UCF and USF is 90 feet above my pay grade. And throw Cincinnati in there, too.
But it’s not just about the big fish swallowing up the smaller ones. We’re way overdue for a full-on corporate raid with something bigger than the Big Ten getting Rutgers and Maryland.
Come on, Big Ten – go after North Carolina. We know you want to.
Go after Texas – we know you were spitballing the idea at one point.
Come on, Pac-12. You have new leadership – go get Oklahoma like you sort of hinted at wanting to do a decade ago, and maybe go big with Texas, too.
Let’s go, ACC, and put a ring on it – make Notre Dame a sweetheart of a deal. How much fun was 2020?
We need wild and totally irresponsible suggestions flying around.
SEC, swallow up Florida State and Miami. And while you’re at it, your conference revolves around Atlanta and you don’t have Georgia Tech?
You just going to take that, ACC? South Carolina is in your geographic wheelhouse, as is West Virginia.
It’s time to shake things up a bit.
9. You’re going to care about this whole NIL thing whether you like it or not.
I have tried to get friends and family into the whole Name Image and Likeness thing, and their eyes glaze over like mine do when they start talking about the latest episode of WandaVision.
You’re going to care, college football fans. Oh yes, you’re going to care.
No, players being able to potentially be compensated with something more than the usual tuition, room & board isn’t going to mean much to you, and being in a video game won’t be without its charm, but all of this brings about other opportunities and ideas that you will care about, like players being able to declare for the draft, and then being able to come back and eligible if it doesn’t work like they wanted it to.
Speaking of which …
8. More and more players are going to opt-out in the middle of the season …
Or leave for the transfer portal.
Duke’s Jalen Johnson leaving the basketball team got him blasted in some circles for being a quitter in what seemed like a lost year, but if he wants to get ready for the NBA, okay.
Major college athletics is a business. Get used to it.
First it became a bit of a thing when college football stars didn’t want to risk injury by playing in a bowl game that’s really nothing more than an exhibition – and those who dogged them had no answer for why that’s not okay, but it’s kosher for a coach to bail for another gig.
Last year, some star prospects opted out citing COVID concerns, and others just simply didn’t play, or played a little and then stopped when it became clear that certain teams playing each week wasn’t a given.
Now, get ready for more and more top NFL prospects to realize that it’s just not worth the risk the second their team is out of the College Football Playoff chase, and/or if the season goes sour, and/or he just doesn’t want to play for whatever peanuts the NIL things throw his way.
7. The bowl season has to be better … and they will be.
I love bowl games.
I know they don’t really matter in a College Football Playoff world, and I know they’ve been devalued as top players and coaches are often gone for other things or have their hearts half in them, but I don’t care.
I love bowl games, and after last season, I need the bowl games to love me right back.
To be fair, most teams took a pass on the bowls after a rough regular season, and that created a whole slew of awful matchups.
A lot of the bowls were cancelled, 16 of the games were double-digit blowouts, and a bunch of the closer ones were tight in score only.
I’m sorry, the fricking Rose Bowl isn’t the Rose Bowl if it’s not played in Pasadena.
We’ll get a better bowl season with the tie-ins close to normal, the freebie pass to losing teams revoked, and – hopefully – all the games played again.
6. The Heisman race has to be better.
2015 was the last time I can remember getting into the Heisman arguments on a daily basis – and, yes, I was right that Derrick Henry deserved it over Christian McCaffrey, (sticking tongue out) nyah.
I fought the good fight for Deshaun over Lamar in 2016, but Baker, Kyler and Burrow were all obvious and anti-climactic.
Last year should’ve been a knock down, drag out battle around the greatest individual trophy in all of sports, and then DeVonta Smith won and the world moved on.
Maybe it’s because everyone’s attention was on that presidential election thingy, or maybe few had the fire to get into it, but there just wasn’t any real Heisman buzz like there was five, ten, 20 years ago. The College Football Playoff has sort of sucked the oxygen out of the room, but it’s not like the BCS debates were any less fierce back in the day.
I want people to get into the Heisman again. It’s fun.
NEXT: Top 5 2021 College Football Thoughts, Wishes, Hopes
5. The College Football Playoff has to be expanded.
No, it’s not like Cincinnati or Texas A&M or Coastal Carolina would’ve won the national championship last year – that’s not the point. Teams need and deserve a shot. That’s all.
If it’s Alabama vs. Clemson again, okay, but it’s not right that as you’re reading this, roughly 75 teams are already effectively eliminated from the CFP no matter what they do.
That’s just downright un-American.
The solution is so painfully simple. Power Five champs, top ranked Group of Five champ, top two other teams in the final CFP rankings all join hands for an eight team tournament with the first round played on the home field of the higher seed in mid-December.
And don’t argue that it’s during finals, or that it’s too soon after the season, or any other bullspit excuse you want to throw out there.
The 2020 SEC championship was played on December 19th.
4. This year will be the real test for the machine programs.
For all of those annoyed and already bored with the same tired old superpowers being predicted to be in the College Football Playoff again, here’s where the playing field gets leveled a bit.
Experience.
Thanks to the COVID season, seniors are allowed an extra year of eligibility. That means that team after team after team gets back a ton of starters – because what guy wouldn’t take living the college football life for one more year rather than go out into the real world?
That doesn’t mean a Central Michigan or Utah State will suddenly challenge for the national title, but it does mean that Alabama, Ohio State, and other top programs that lose stars to the NFL will have to retool and reload a bit – don’t include Clemson in that, by the way, with what’s returning on D – while others who might get back 20-something starters are going to be major players.
So …..
3. PLEASE don’t be so predictable, 2021 college football season.
There was some joy out of all the ugliness of 2020.
Who saw Coastal Carolina coming?
Ball State, San Jose State, and Liberty were top 25 powers?! The Sun Belt and MAC had multiple teams in the top 25, Indiana went off on the Big Ten, and Iowa State got to the Big 12 Championship.
Of course, Alabama beat Ohio State for the national championship after taking down Notre Dame and Clemson, respectively, in the chalkiest of chalky College Football Playoffs, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t some fun along the way.
With all of the experience returning across the board, and with so many programs having a real offseason again, and with the transfer portal providing instant help, maybe it’s not going to be the same old big name programs – or an LSU-level team – in it.
Maybe, just maybe …
2. Let’s do this, Iowa State.
Iowa State was a traditional college football doormat, and now it’s coming off a phenomenal season with almost everyone returning. The fan base is jacked, the program is having fun with it, and yeah, it’s awesome when a program that has never tasted any real success starts to shine.
Go on, Cyclones, and hope the program under Matt Campbell becomes what Kansas State turned into under Bill Snyder back in the 1990s.
Come on, Indiana. Yeah, the season ended with a weird bowl loss to Ole Miss, but prove that 2020 was no fluke and build on the wins over Penn State, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Let’s go, Cincinnati. Beat Indiana, take down Notre Dame, and storm through your slate to make the College Football Playoff committee work.
Go you, Northwestern, and do that again. Keep it going, Tulsa, Coastal Carolina, Liberty and San Jose State.
And let’s go all you teams that no one is giving a second thought to.
Rise up and rock, Maryland. Be a thing, Georgia Tech. Rip through the Pac-12 under new head man Jedd Fisch, Arizona.
And finally …
1. Let’s have some fun this college football season. PLEASE.
We’re still working through the nightmare of a global pandemic.
Mental health issues, physical well-being, depression, despair, poverty, unemployment, hunger, the latest season of Saturday Night Live – we’ve all seen and/or endured unimaginable horrors. Throw in anything political you’d like to get into, and we’re going to need and deserve a massive break.
Let’s get into the Heisman debate, and my-team-doms-your-team-sucks banter, and even more national championship talk, and all the joy and fun of the diversion.
That’s not to say that college football can’t and won’t and shouldn’t be at the forefront of the real issues of importance to make the world a better place, but, assuming everything COVID-wise is close to okay …
Let’s have some fun this college football season – and offseason. Please.
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