Let’s leave Johnny Football alone for a second…
This off-season has been filled by three big storylines: Can Alabama three-peat as BCS champs? Can Manziel repeat his Heisman performance? And can Jadeveon Clowney do something that rhymes with peat? But there's a lot more than that to be excited about. Here are just a few of the topics we're interested in this upcoming season:
Which new coaches will look like great hires by the end of the year?
Last year, rookie coaches Bill O'Brien at Penn State and Kevin Sumlin at Texas A&M established themselves as potential stars by leading shaky teams to strong seasons. This year 31 college football teams have a new coach — most notably Gus Malzahn at Auburn, Mark Helfrich at Oregon, Bret Bielema at Arkansas, and the youngest coach in a BCS conference, Kliff Kingsbury at Texas Tech. Which ones will immediately announce that their programs will be (or continue to be) major players going forward?
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The Texas Longhorns are finally back. No, really.
Since Colt McCoy left, the Longhorns have gone 11-15 in the Big 12. If you call those "rebuilding" seasons, this is what the've built — a team with 19 returning starters and a potentially elite offense highlighted by QB David Ash (who finally gets it), a triple-threat RB rotation, and receivers (Mike Davis and Jaxon Shipley) with both speed and hands. This year is put up or shut up for Mack Brown's program.
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The debut of FSU quarterback Jameis Winston.
Jameis Winston is a 6'4" 225 lb. redshirt freshman, who was a 5-star recruit can throw a 100 mph fastball, and was recently called a "rock star" by Trent Dilfer, who also declared Winston to be the future "first pick of the draft." As a member of the FSU baseball team, Winston has his fair share of athletic highlights already, but now we're about to see what the dual-threat quarterback can do as the successor of E.J. Manuel.
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