The Valentine’s Day edition of the Daily Five: Why You’re Going To Love The 2019 College Football Season
– Contact/Follow @ColFootballNews & @PeteFiutak
5. Welcome Back, Texas, Nebraska and USC
There was a time when you could put Texas, Nebraska and USC in the top three in some way, shape or form, and your rankings would be close to correct.
Three of the biggest, most successful, and most important college football programs haven’t quite been themselves lately, and that’s about to change.
Under Tom Herman, Texas came up with a brilliant season and amazing win over Georgia in the Sugar Bowl. There’s work to be done on defense, but replacing parts hasn’t been that big a problem so far under Herman.
Sam Ehlinger is going to be the quarterback you love/hate, and the talent around him has emerged to actually – maybe – win the Big 12 title this time around.
Can Scott Frost have a Year Two at Nebraska like he came up with at UCF? That’s asking for too much, but the offense caught on late last season, Adrian Martinez is about to rocket into college football superstardom, and there might actually be a defense on a consistent basis this season.
After going through the growing pains and lumps of a rebuilding year – and with some key injuries not helping the cause – USC should be more like the team that won the 2017 Pac-12 title and didn’t clunk so hard in a losing season in 2018. QB JT Daniels and the offense are about to be far, far better.
The three programs are at different stages, and they’ll have varied expectations, but college football is better when they matter.
These three programs will matter in 2019.
The Valentine’s Day edition of the Daily Five: Why You’re Going To Love The 2019 College Football Season
4. The CFP150
Spoiler alert … you’re not really going to care that the game of football went from three downs to get ten yards to four in the 1912 season.
You’re probably not going to be too interested in a deep dive about 1937 Heisman winner Clint Frank, or argue the merits of Hervey Cushman Pierce making the 1902 All-America team.
And it’s doubtful you’ll engage in too many online debates over whether Princeton or Yale was the true 1877 national champion.
But in the 150th season of the game, it’s going to be a year long celebration of college football from the roots to modernity, with several outlets about to create a whole lot of lists and a whole lot of content around the greatest this and the top 150 that.
And it’s all going to be fun.
How do you possibly rank Tim Tebow compared to Herschel Walker compared to players who played in the 1890’s like Alex Moffat and William Heffelfinger?
Oh, it’s possible.
If you like lists, and if you like college football, and if you like debates – and you do – you’re going to be kept busy this offseason.
NEXT: The Pac-12 Will Stop Being So Yuck At College Football
The Valentine’s Day edition of the Daily Five: Why You’re Going To Love The 2019 College Football Season
3. The Pac-12 Will Stop Being So Yuck At College Football
It’s not that the Pac-12 has been awful. It’s been, more like … irrelevant.
There haven’t been any real national title contenders since Marcus Mariota and Oregon made a run in 2014, several of the key games are played when most Americans are sleeping, and the Pac-12 Championship has been a rough go when it comes to gaining any interest or attraction.
It didn’t help when the league’s best team – Washington, last year – went down right out of the gate against an okay Auburn, and ended things by losing the Rose Bowl.
And it really didn’t help that USC was a big fat losing dud.
But here comes the pivot.
Last year, Arizona, Arizona State, UCLA, Oregon and Oregon State all kicked things off with new head coaches. The coaching carousel only had one rider this year – Mel Tucker at Colorado – and the new guys from last year should be even stronger in Year Two.
UCLA started to find something late in the season as Chip Kelly went really, really young on both sides of the ball. Mario Cristobal is creating a monster at Oregon, Herm Edwards is coming off a solid first run at ASU, and Arizona will absolutely go bowling this time around under Kevin Sumlin.
USC has a good enough team to make 2018 an aberration, but on the positive side, now it has a tougher Pac-12 South to deal with.
In the North, Stanford is going to be better, Cal is rising up, and again, the Ducks look amazing.
Washington and Utah? The two teams in last year’s Pac-12 Championship should be just as strong this time around.
NEXT: The SEC West Going To Be The Truth
The Valentine’s Day edition of the Daily Five: Why You’re Going To Love The 2019 College Football Season
2. The SEC West Going To Be The Truth
The SEC West is always nasty, and then Alabama goes and plays for the national title.
But this year, it should establish itself as the no-doubt best division in college football with what should be a fascinating season.
Arkansas appears to be tired of being bad. Chad Morris might not have a killer team, but it should start to have more of a positive identity, starting with SMU transfer quarterback Ben Hicks and the passing game.
With the bowl ban part of the NCAA sanctions puzzle over, Ole Miss gets to go bowling if it’s so worthy this year, and it’s still got the offense to turn it loose. Mississippi State won’t have as good a defense, but now that Joe Moorhead has a year under his belt, get ready for more O.
Auburn isn’t going to get a whole lot of early love, Gus Malzahn teams have a way of rising up when the expectations are low. The “no one respects us” line is going to be used, just like LSU was able to throw out there early last season.
The Death Valley Tigers have the team in place to pose a real, live threat to take down the SEC title and get to the College Football Playoff, and despite a brutal schedule, Texas A&M has something amazing coming into place under Jimbo Fisher in his second season in College Station.
And then there’s Alabama.
The team that ripped through the regular season – and then inexplicably took a nap the rest of the way after the first half against Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl – is going to be grouchy.
If you thought playing at Alabama under Nick Saban wasn’t exactly a soft serve cone with sprinkles before, now watch what happens when the program takes focus and preparation up a few notches.
It’s all going to make for dramatic theater.
NEXT: Why are you going to LOVE the 2019 college football season?
The Valentine’s Day edition of the Daily Five: Why You’re Going To Love The 2019 College Football Season
1. The Quarterbacks Are AWESOME
Oh really. You thought the quarterbacks were a thing a few years ago when Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold, Mason Rudolph, Lamar Jackson and Josh Rosen were getting all the attention? Thanks to the transfer portal and the grad transfer world, now we really get to see something special.
Let’s just say it. If this doesn’t become the greatest college football season ever for quarterbacks across the national landscape, be very, vey, very disappointed.
You really want to challenge this?
Three words: Tank For Tua.
That’s going to be one of the mottos in the 100th year of NFL football, as bad teams race for the bottom for the chance to draft Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa.
And why is this the Tank For Tua year? It’s because Tank For Trevor isn’t possible – Clemson’s national championship-winning quarterback Trevor Lawrence isn’t eligible yet for the NFL.
And if that’s not the theme before the 2021 NFL Draft, it might be Flop For Fields, if new Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields is the real deal.
And why did Fields leave Georgia? A slew of reasons, but it didn’t help that he wasn’t able to beat out Jake Fromm for the starting job. Fromm also beat out former super-recruit Jacob Eason two years ago, who’s now going to be the main man at Washington.
Speaking of being replaced, how did Lawrence get his chance at greatness? He was too good to keep off the field, meaning ACC Championship winner and leader of the 2017 College Football Playoff No. 1 seed, Kelly Bryant, was out. Now Bryant is going to start for Missouri.
With Bryant and Lawrence in place, five-star recruit Hunter Johnson was squeezed out. Now he’ll be leading the way at Northwestern.
Oregon’s Justin Herbert would’ve likely been the first quarterback off the board if he came out early this season, but if it’s not Eason, Stanford’s KJ Costello might be the best quarterback in the Pac-12 North. Or it might be Gage Gubrud, the big-time passer at Eastern Washington who was just declared eligible at Washington State.
Sam Ehlinger of Texas appears to be copying the Tim Tebow leadership and style playbook. With Ehlinger in place, Shane Buechele left Texas for SMU, who lost Ben Hicks for Arkansas. All three teams should be stronger.
Ian Book is back at Notre Dame. Shea Patterson will go against Book when his Michigan team faces the Irish.
Adrian Martinez is about to be the next big thing as Nebraska’s second year quarterback, and USC should be a whole lot better with JT Daniels going into his sophomore season.
Thanks to the grad transfer rules, West Virginia shouldn’t feel the loss of Will Grier after landing Oklahoma backup Austin Kendall. He left because Jalen Hurts – a two-time SEC Championship quarterback and veteran of three College Football Playoff National Championship games – is the most qualified transfer ever to take over the job at a program that can boast two straight Heisman winners.
And now the punchline …
You just know that some other quarterback will win the 2019 Heisman.
Happy Valentine’s Day. College football choo-choo-chooses you.
