A whole lot is going on with Northwestern football these days. Chip Kelly is the Wildcats’ new offensive coordinator. Former Michigan State and Oregon State quarterback Aidan Chiles is the Wildcats’ new projected starting quarterback. Ryan Field, Northwestern’s incredible new football stadium, is set to make its long-awaited debut on October 2 against Penn State. Did you also know that head football coach David Braun is about to begin his fourth season with Northwestern and that the Wildcats have gone bowling in two of the last three seasons?

As I said, a whole lot is going on with Northwestern football these days.

The Wildcats’ betting win total comes in at 5.5, per FanDuel, which would certainly be a disappointment for the 2023 Big Ten Coach of the Year’s fourth season in Evanston. If they win less than six games this season, it would continue the good-year-then-bad-year trend across Braun’s four seasons at Northwestern. The schedule is pretty kind to the Wildcats, though, as they should sweep their three non-conference games and all the games where they’ll likely be heavy underdogs are on the road, with those being Indiana, Oregon, and Ohio State. They get several coin-flip games at home, their new home at Ryan Field, against in-state rival Illinois, against Penn State, against Rutgers, and against Iowa.

If Northwestern accomplishes more than just going bowling for the third time in four seasons, it’s because the new combination of Kelly & Chiles clicks. For Northwestern to earn another trip to a bowl game this fall, Braun’s defense has to be around what it’s been in 2025 and 2023, a middle-of-the-pack unit in the Big Ten. We haven’t seen Northwestern in the top-3 in the conference in defensive yards per play allowed since 2020, when they went 7-2, but that was three years before Braun’s arrival in Evanston. The Wildcats’ defense has been mostly fine under Braun’s stewardship. It’s the offense, where his teams have finished 12th, 18th, and 12th, respectively, in yards per play in the conference. The Kelly and Chiles combination really needs to jumpstart this unit.

Give a gift subscription

For Kelly, it’s been an odd last two years professionally, filled with extreme highs and extreme lows. The last time he was an offensive coordinator for a collegiate program, he won a national championship with the Buckeyes. The veteran elite offensive mind parlayed that success into a return to the NFL, only to be fired by the Las Vegas Raiders before he even completed his first season as the team’s offensive coordinator. It was a gamble that ultimately did not pay off for Kelly. However, the last offense we saw Kelly call at the collegiate level finished No. 1 in yards per play. They were No. 4 in all of the FBS in 10-plus yard plays. The offense was second in third-down conversion rate in all of the FBS. It was a well-oiled machine across the board with a talented, first-year transfer quarterback under center in Will Howard.

Subscribe now

Enter Chiles, another talented, first-year transfer quarterback under center for Kelly’s first offense at Northwestern. Chiles followed his head coach, Jonathan Smith, from Corvallis to East Lansing. It was a rocky two years for the former four-star quarterback with the Spartans, but he showed some improvement last season, particularly with the frequency of his turnovers through the air. In nine games, but only eight starts, he cut down his interceptions to three. It was eleven the season prior. He also ran for six scores in those nine games, which could be huge for the Wildcats, particularly with new quarterbacks coach Jerry Neuheisel in the fold. The latter jump-started a UCLA Bruins offense when he took over after a brutal first third of the 2025 season, highlighted by their upset win over Penn State. UCLA quarterback Nico Iamaleava had three games in which he carried the ball more than ten times from the win over the Nittany Lions onward. For Neuheisel and Kelly, utilizing Chiles’ legs in the run game and limiting his fumbles, too, will be key to unlocking the talented quarterback’s full potential.

Share

If all goes right for Northwestern this fall, particularly the Kelly, Chiles, and even Neuheisel additions click, the middle-to-upper-tier of the Big Ten could get interesting. Iowa and Illinois have new quarterbacks. Who really ever knows with USC and Nebraska? Minnesota could have a 2027 top-5 pick quarterback under center. Penn State and Michigan hired longtime Big 12 head coaches who have never faced the kind of win-big pressure they’ll now face in Happy Valley and Ann Arbor.

Braun and Northwestern have just been quietly hanging around in the Big Ten. This offseason, though, they got a lot bolder with Kelly, Neuheisel, and Chiles. It reminds me a bit of when Lincoln Riley fired longtime defensive coordinator Alex Grinch and hired D’Anton Lynn as his new DC. You still weren’t sure of the ceiling, but you felt a whole lot better about the floor. I don’t know if this will all work out for Braun and the ‘Cats this fall, but I appreciate the big swing with Kelly in particular. If it doesn’t work, it’s hard to get too upset if you’re a Northwestern fan. There are a lot of worthwhile gambles on this Northwestern team and this staff for this upcoming season. No question, though, that Year 4 will be hardest to project thus far for Braun at Northwestern.

Leave a comment

The North Dakota State Bison and the Sacramento State Hornets will play in the FBS this fall. With their arrival, the FBS now has 138 teams to account for this upcoming season. The ethos of this newsletter is that it is for sports fans who want to know a little about a lot. With so many teams, and so little time, who could blame you if you might have missed one of the best stories in college football last season – Wake Forest won nine games under first-year head football coach Jake Dickert.

Before the season, FanDuel placed the Demon Deacons’ betting odds win total at 4.5 wins. It was the second-lowest win-total mark in the ACC – Stanford had the betting win total in the conference at 3.5 wins. The latter went 4-8 and was one of the worst teams in the conference. The former went 9-4 and was one of the best teams in the conference. The Demon Deacons were second in the conference in limiting touchdowns once opposing offenses got into the Red Zone. Wake Forest finished 18th in the FBS in DFEI, per BCFToys. Along that same line, the Demon Deacons nearly won double-digit games with an offense that finished 90th in FBS in OFEI, per BCFToys.

Subscribe now

First-year head coach Jake Dickert has now won a combined 17 games across his last two seasons at Washington State and Wake Forest. Interestingly enough, he has proven to have a knack for winning in two vastly different ways. In 2024, with star quarterback John Mateer under center, the Cougars won eight games, led by their offense, and finished 38th in OFEI, while the DFEI was 89th. The latter stat, DFEI, was one spot better than the 2025 Demon Deacon offense.

Dickert’s starting quarterback in 2025, the well-traveled Robbie Ashford, finished 15th in QBR in the ACC, 105th among qualified FBS passers overall. And Dickert’s Deacons were still a very questionable late-game call against Georgia Tech away from finishing the season with double-digit wins.

Subscribe now

Dickert’s presumed starting quarterback in 2026 is Gio Lopez, a North Carolina and South Alabama transfer, who reunites with his former offensive coordinator, Rob Ezell, from their time in Mobile, after a disastrous one-year pit stop in Chapel Hill last season. Interestingly enough, Lopez finished one spot ahead of Ashford in QBR last season. There are a lot of reasons for optimism as it pertains to Ezell reuniting with Lopez, as the latter posted the third-best QBR in the SunBelt in 2024. Lopez was second in EPA among qualified QBs in the SunBelt, too. A bounce-back season for Lopez with Ezell is certainly in the cards and could lead to another fun season of Demon Deacon football in Winston-Salem this fall.

Share

It was an odd year for the four North Carolina schools in the ACC. Duke finished the season with nine wins and won the ACC, but missed out on the College Football Playoff as a P4 conference champion. (They then lost their star quarterback, Darian Mensah, to the lone ACC team that made the CFP, Miami, where the Blue Devils’ current head football coach, Manny Diaz, was last a head football coach at. Phew.) Bill Belichick made his debut, and the Tar Heels went 4-8 in a brutal Year 1 for perhaps the greatest NFL head coach of all time. NC State bounced back from an out-of-character disastrous 2024 campaign, in which the Wolfpack went 6-7 and finished 15th in the ACC in defense, and developed and then retained its star quarterback, CJ Bailey, for at least one more season. You could also tell me that all four North Carolina programs feel most like 8-4 teams in 2026, and that would seem about right.

There are all sorts of intertwining storylines between these four schools. The Demon Deacons added the Tar Heels’ starting quarterback from last year. The Wolfpack, not the Blue Devils, returns its star quarterback from a season ago. The latter lost its star quarterback to Miami, where the former star quarterback starred in high school. The pressure is on Belichick’s Tar Heels to go bowling in 2026, while Dickert’s Demon Deacons are playing with house money after winning nine games last year when the program won a combined eight games the previous two seasons. Three of the four programs will start transfer quarterbacks in their first season at their new school, with NC State being the lone exception. Bailey at NC State is the best bet to be the best of the bunch this fall, but there is all sorts of intrigue around Lopez and Ezell, Billy Edwards Jr. and Bobby Petrino, and even Walter Eget and Jonathan Brewer. We know Kurt Roper and Bailey work — the latter was 3rd among ACC quarterbacks in passer rating last season, with only Mensah and Carson Beck ahead of him. There could be fun stories galore for all four of these programs on offense in 2026.

But I think Wake Forest was the best story of the bunch last year, and very well could be the best story of the bunch this year.

However, because there are so many great stories in the sport, particularly in their own conference with the Hurricanes’ CFP run, Clemson and Florida State’s continued decline, Virginia and Duke’s surprising surge, it was only natural to overlook Dickert and his Demon Deacons. Nobody thought that the ACC championship would pit the Cavaliers against the Blue Devils, and most folks didn’t think Wake Forest would be dangerously close to ten wins in Dickert’s first season in Winston-Salem.

Give a gift subscription

Could Dickert’s Year 2 surprise at Wake Forest be a trip to the 2026 ACC title game? It’s certainly possible because in the current makeup of the ACC, anything and everything is possible for so many different teams, it seems. If it were to happen, don’t be surprised that it was Dickert, who has won the last two seasons consistently, even with extreme deficiencies on one side of the ball, who was the head coach that pulled it off.

Leave a comment

It’s the middle of June as I type this, which means it’s that time of the year when I might write a piece with the 3 Thoughts On Tennessee’s Early Game Time Windows prompt. It’s a bit too early for some in-depth Tennessee football writing that I’m sure to do in the months to come. It’s the perfect time to write a piece, I think, about things like Tennessee football kickoff times for the upcoming season.

So, let’s dive into my midsummer thoughts on the matter of Tennessee football kickoff windows for the upcoming college football season.

Favorite Window: Texas at Noon EST

This is where I admit what I suppose might be a bit of a hot take for college football fans: I much prefer Tennessee playing at 12:00 PM EST over playing at 8:00 PM EST. Generally speaking, of course. Night games in Neyland are a delight, but give me two of those each season and more 3:30 PM EST and 12:00 PM EST kicks. I never want night games in Neyland Stadium to not feel special.

Football Saturdays, when your team doesn’t kick off until 8:00 PM EST, can make the day drag. If it’s a huge game, like a night game in The Swamp, the all-day anxiety in the lead up to the game is unpleasant, and that’s putting it mildly. To be clear, 3:30 PM EST is the sweet spot, particularly as we get later into the season and the sun goes down for the second halves of big-time ball games.

Subscribe now

With that all being said, I like that Tennessee will play Texas early. The night games you have to have on this schedule inside Neyland Stadium are both easy and obvious: It’s Kentucky for the Dark Mode game on November 7, and it’s LSU for the Lane Kiffin Return game two weeks later. You could sell me on Auburn for the Alex Golesh Return game being a better night-game fit than Texas, too.

Share

I understand it’s a Manning playing for the opposing team in Neyland, and that the Longhorns have the best roster on paper in the SEC this season. I get all of that, but I like the idea of kicking this thing off at noon. The Vols will already be tasked with winning on the road against a formidable P4 team, either with a redshirt freshman or true freshman quarterback under center, in Week 2 on The Flats versus Georgia Tech.

I also like the thought of George MacIntyre or Faizon Brandon having less time that Saturday to think about their first start in the SEC against the Texas Longhorns. Remember, Texas head football coach Steve Sarkisian’s team kicked off at 11:00 AM central in Columbus in Week 2 last year and lost 14-7 against a redshirt freshman former blue-chip quarterback, Julian Sayin, in the first big start of his college career for Ohio State. Tennessee will play many games between 3:30 and 8:00 PM EST this fall, so an odd noon spot for this game is just fine.

Least Favorite Window: Furman at 3:30 PM EST

You could not drag me kicking and screaming to this game on this day at this time. The first game of the season will likely be a scorcher in Knoxville at 3:30 PM EST on Sep. 5 against the Paladins. If there were a way to ensure that Tennessee’s buy-game openers only took place on Thursday night, under the lights in Neyland Stadium, if I were athletic director Danny White, I would do it in a heartbeat. I’ve been to two of those, one against Bowling Green in 2021 and one against Ball State in 2022. The Thursday night opener is a delight. The Sports Renaissance Woman and I would go to them every year if it were a yearly occurrence, no question. It frees your Saturday up to watch all the games you want to watch without having to keep the main TV on the Vols’ drubbing the poor Paladins across a four-hour slog. There is no doubt that Furman at 3:30 in Week 1 is the worst game time window for Tennessee this fall.

Give a gift subscription

Sneaky Great Windows: South Carolina at 3:30-4:30 PM EST, and Arkansas at either 3:30-4:30 PM EST or 6:00-8:00 PM EST

If I could only use one word to describe Tennessee’s 2026 football schedule, I would say that it’s ‘arduous’. I would not have used that word to describe Tennessee’s 2025 or 2024 football schedule. I would probably use the word ‘fortunate’ to describe those two Tennessee football schedules. Tennessee will have to scratch and claw its way to eight or nine wins this season, with a true freshman or redshirt freshman at quarterback. If Tennessee wins eight games this year, it’s a success. If they win nine, it might be head football coach Josh Heupel’s best coaching job in his six years on Rocky Top. If they win ten, you, the Tennessee football fan reading this, need to snap out of it entirely and remove those orange-tinted glasses.

Subscribe now

The march to eight or nine wins has so much to do with how the Vols play on the road in Fayetteville and in Columbia. The last time the Vols played the Razorbacks on the road, they lost and lost in quite a frustrating fashion. The last time the Vols played the Gamecocks on the road, they lost and lost in quite stunning fashion. Tennessee hasn’t won at Arkansas since 2001 and has lost four of its last five meetings against the Hawgs overall. Tennessee hasn’t won at South Carolina since 2020 and has lost three of their last four meetings against the Gamecocks on the road overall.

Tennessee will get South Carolina in the afternoon, which could prove to be huge. If the Vols can get Arkansas in the afternoon, too, that would be the kind of two-game break the team, and its freshman quarterback, could really need to win a 50-50 SEC game on the road. If Tennessee finishes the season with nine wins, I would be willing to bet they lucked out with both of these conference games falling in the afternoon rather than under the lights on the road.

Leave a comment

Fernando Mendoza was the best quarterback in the Big Ten last season. He was the best quarterback in the FBS. He won the Heisman trophy. He led the Indiana Hoosiers to a national championship. He was then drafted No. 1 overall in the 2026 NFL Draft by the Las Vegas Raiders. Mendoza led, without a doubt, one of the most impressive and stunning college football national championship teams of all time. However, this time last year, nobody saw any of that coming. That not even the most clairvoyant college football fans and analysts alike did not see any of it coming is one of the many things that makes sports great, how unpredictable all of this can still be, even with how much information we all have at our disposal.

This is why I have been thinking a lot about CBS Sports’ Mike Renner’s Way-Too-Early 2027 NFL Mock Draft, which he released last month.

It has the three usual suspects at the top – Arch Manning, Jeremiah Smith, and Dante Moore. It’s a pretty safe bet as we sit here in mid-June that these three collegiate phenoms will hear their name called in the first three picks, in some order, next April. Three stars on three different teams, each with national championship expectations this fall. These three are the best mid-June guesses as to who takes home the Heisman trophy next season, too.

And yet, those three stars are not the reason Renner’s mid-May mock has continued to rattle around my brain over the course of the last month. It was actually the player listed right after those usual suspects. It was Drake Lindsey, the starting quarterback at Minnesota, going No. 4 to the Cleveland Browns. In what is shaping up to be an all-time great year for an NFL team to need a franchise quarterback, Renner mocked Lindsey ahead of South Carolina’s LaNorris Sellers, Miami’s Darian Mensah, Notre Dame’s CJ Carr, NC State’s CJ Bailey, Ole Miss’ Trinidad Chambliss, Ohio State’s Julian Sayin, USC’s Jayden Mavaia, and the list goes on and on. There are so many potential big-time quarterbacks, depending on how their 2026 season unfolds, who could go early in a loaded 2027 NFL Draft.

Share

Lindsey to the Browns at No. 4 is the good stuff.

The Golden Gophers haven’t had a player taken that high in the draft since defensive tackle Carl Eller went No. 6 overall in 1964. The Gophers haven’t had a quarterback drafted since Craig Curry was drafted by the Miami Dolphins in 1972, who took him in the eighth round. The Gophers have developed several first-rounders in my lifetime, including Rashad Bateman, Laurence Maroney, Willie Middlebrooks, along with some other big-time guys like Marion Barber III, Antoine Winfield Jr., Boye Mafe, Eric Decker, et cetera. The Minnesota Golden Gophers have been a solid program for most of my time on this planet.

There is just no historical precedent for a Minnesota quarterback going No. 4 overall.

The former three-star recruit is listed at 6’5” and 230 lbs. As a redshirt freshman last season under the perpetually underrated PJ Fleck, he started all thirteen games for Minnesota. He guided the Gophers to an 8-5 final record, the most wins ever by a freshman quarterback at Minnesota. In six of his final seven games last season, Lindsey didn’t throw a single interception.

It’s hard to believe Fleck has already been at Minnesota for a decade. In that time, he’s quietly been extremely successful. He had an 11-win season in 2019. He’s won eight or nine games in four of the last five seasons. He’s built a sky-high floor for most Gopher teams under his watch in the Big Ten.

Sure, there was a lot of mystery and intrigue about Max Brosmer when he transferred in from New Hampshire, and Tanner Morgan was perfectly solid for several seasons. However, a 6’5” quarterback with a cannon for an arm getting top-5 pick buzz in the NFL Draft is uncharted waters for this program under Fleck and for Minnesota football.

Minnesota hasn’t been ranked since the 2022-23 college football season. Their preseason betting win total, per FanDuel, sits at 6.5 wins as of this writing. Minnesota lost its best player to Oregon in safety, and the former No. 1 overall player in the state of Minnesota as a prep player, Koi Perich. As I already wrote in this very piece, though, even with the loss of Perich, that betting win total seems low, especially when you take into account Fleck’s track record. If Lindsey is anywhere close to being worth the No. 4 overall pick in the 2027 NFL Draft, the Gophers are going to win eight or more games.

Give a gift subscription

They do return Darius Taylor at tailback, who rushed for over 100 yards in his final two games last season. He’s averaged nearly 5 yards per carry across three seasons. They brought in former blue-chip offensive tackle Bennett Warren from Tennessee. They took a flyer on another former blue-chip wideout in Perry Thompson from Auburn. Per ESPN’s Bill Connelly, the Gophers are No. 7 in FBS in returning production, borderline top-10 in both offense and defense. Simply put, there is a lot to like about Minnesota, before you even throw in a third-year quarterback with thirteen starts under his belt getting high first-round buzz.

Subscribe now

I don’t have any idea if Lindsey will end up being the No. 4 pick in the 2027 NFL Draft, but if he does, I do wonder what kind of season Minnesota will have as a result. Does Lindsey guide the Gophers to their first College Football Playoff appearance? Does that brutal 6.1 YPA inch closer to 9.1 in a pivotal draft year for Lindsey? It’s a sneaky huge year for offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Greg Harbaugh Jr. Minnesota gets Michigan, Mississippi State, Iowa, UCLA, and Northwestern at home. Could they steal one or two in Happy Valley, Seattle, or Madison?

I don’t know.

Still, I think I know the difference between the expected eight-ish wins and ten-ish wins is what Lindsey ultimately develops in his second year as QB1 for the Gophers. I love the boldness of Lindsey at No. 4 by Renner, and I love what that could mean for the Minnesota football program if he plays up to that billing this fall.

Leave a comment

I’ve grown accustomed to watching most sporting events a certain way. To write and podcast about sports, I have, rather, I get to watch a lot of sports. The thing is, though, that I don’t watch most sports live.

I love to read, I love to write, I love to walk, and, man, I love to watch my sports games after they’ve been recorded. I can fast-forward through commercials and fast-forward through halftime. It’s delightful, and it’s the overwhelming winner, for me, as to how I prefer to watch my sports.

Except, it does not work that way during football season. I watch most of my football games live. I have to watch most of my games live. Every weekend, I watch the Tennessee Volunteers and Atlanta Falcons live, and mostly every other college football and NFL game that I’m fascinated by the same way – live.

At 35 years old, football is the last sport standing that I will continue to watch live consistently. I love basketball, baseball, et cetera, but I love burning through an Atlanta Hawks game in two hours and continuing with my day or evening. When my wife and I vacationed in Maui a couple of summers ago, one of my first thoughts was how perfect the time zone difference was for sports fans, particularly retired sports fans. We were six hours behind, and man, I’d love to knock out the forthcoming Falcons game heartbreak before I’ve had my third cup of coffee.

Alas, that is not how things work back in East Tennessee. Indeed, the last Tennessee football game I missed live was against Akron in 2022 and for good reason – I married my lovely wife that third Saturday in September. Part of the reason football stands alone, particularly the Vols and the Falcons, is how impossible it is to avoid spoilers. If I don’t watch the football games I want to watch live, then and there, man, it is hard in 2026 to avoid the scores before I settle in and watch the taped game. I am in a couple of different group chats, and it is pretty dang hard to keep from reading through them before I’ve watched the game they’ve all spent the last several hours reacting to.

I also do enjoy participating in those group chats during the games, as it adds another fun element to the game while I take my notes on my trusted yellow Legal pad. The trade-off is so many additional commercials, instant replays, halftime shows, et cetera, that I breeze through the rest of the sports calendar that I have no choice but to sit through in the fall during football season. (But, man, it would be nice if most Tennessee football games could be closer to two-hour events than four-hour events. College football games, and the closing minutes to most college basketball games, are far too long.)

Subscribe now

I don’t have this problem for most other sporting events, outside of watching the NBA on Peacock, where watching recorded games, or even starting a game that already started from the beginning, is not a thing, somehow. (Watching Tennessee baseball games on ESPN+ behind or taped can also be an adventure.) I watch the Hawks, the Atlanta Braves, the NBA, the NHL Playoffs, and every other sporting event that I’m interested in on delay or already recorded. It’s a great way for a sportswriter who watches a lot of sports to live.

This is just not how it works during football season, but I love football season. I love football Saturdays in the South, even more so since I moved to Knoxville to attend the University of Tennessee for graduate school nearly six years ago. In a way, I think watching most everything else after the fact has made football season more fun. I never feel like an Atlanta Hawks season or a Tennessee baseball season flies by, but there hasn’t been a year that an Atlanta Falcons season or a Tennessee football season hasn’t felt like it has flown by. There are just over a handful of games played in Neyland Stadium every year, and I appreciate every one of them the best way I know how at this time in my life – I watch them all live.

Share

But it takes some getting used to. I really love watching my sports games after the fact, with no spoilers, of course. I love efficiently moving through a game and having more time to hang out with my wife and read my books. I love sports, and I love watching them, but I don’t love watching them live, for most of the year, anyway. Football season is different. High school football, college football, and the NFL, it’s all the same to me – I watch the games I want to watch live.

We’ve got a little over a couple of months to go until I transition into being a Live Sports Guy again. Late August and early September will be here before I know it, and my time as a Taped Sports Guy will be pushed aside for a while. (Outside of the Braves and the MLB postseason, of course.) Still, I’ve come to love and appreciate both times of the year in the sports calendar. I love watching most of my sports games on delay, and I do envy the sports fans on Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time, but I do love watching football live, too, ven if I’m never really ready for it.

Leave a comment

Rutgers joined the Big Ten in 2014. Since then, the Scarlet Knights have won zero games against ranked opponents. That’s over a decade of games since becoming a Power 4 football program with zero wins against a team ranked inside the AP Top 25. That’s a really long time for a fanbase to watch their team not win a big game. A really long time. It seems especially implausible with Rutgers in the Power 2.

Rutgers won eight games in their first season in the Big Ten in 2014 under former head coach Kyle Flood and hasn’t reached that eight-game threshold of victories since. It hasn’t been a disaster – Rutgers has gone bowling in two out of the last three seasons, but is that enough for the Scarlet Knight fanbase in 2026 and beyond? When you look at Rutgers’ 2026 football schedule, can you identify the most realistic path to ending their ranked-win drought? At Penn State on Nov. 21? USC at home in Week 3? Nebraska at home in Week 14? I don’t have the answer, but as every other fan of an NL East team not named the Atlanta Braves told themselves for much of the ‘90s and early 2000s, they can’t win the division every year, well, forever, right?

Subscribe now

One of my favorite college football podcasts, CBS Sports’ Cover 3, co-host Bud Elliott has this saying when it comes to matters like Rutgers, Maryland, or Nebraska in the Big Ten. His phrase is, “Take the checks, take the losses.” He’s right, whether it’s about Arkansas or Mississippi State in the SEC or Rutgers or Maryland in the Big Ten. From 2006-2009, Rutgers won an average of nine games a year in the Big East. The school has not won nine games once since joining the Big Ten. The Hawgs and Bulldogs aren’t anywhere close to winning the SEC, just like the Scarlet Knights and Terrapins aren’t anywhere close to winning the Big Ten. With the Big Ten being more top-heavy than the SEC, the prospect of a Rutgers or Maryland ever breaking through seems even more improbable than an Arkansas or Mississippi State doing so. Sure, the four schools are in the Power 2, ostensibly a great place to be in college football, but would Rutgers and Maryland not have more fun playing football in the ACC, or Arkansas and Mississippi State playing football in the Big 12?

Share

Before joining the Big East in 1991, the Scarlet Knights were an independent FBS program. They didn’t win big during that era of Rutgers football, but they did beat Penn State in 1988. In the 1970s, under Frank Burns, a former Rutgers quarterback himself, the Scarlet Knights won a lot, including an 11-0 season in which they finished ranked No. 17 in both the AP Poll and the Coaches Poll. A double-digit win season is plausible for Rutgers as an independent, but implausible as a Big Ten member.

Subscribe now

Former UConn head football coach Jim Mora, now at Colorado State, had similar success coaching the independent Huskies the last few years. Mora took the Huskies to three bowl games in the last four years. He won nine games in back-to-back seasons. Fan attendance is going in the right direction. The last time UConn won nine games was under Randy Edsall, back in 2007, when they were still in the Big East. Then Edsall left, the school joined the AAC, and they wandered the wilderness for years and years. If you were to poll the average UConn fan about the last two seasons under Mora, the feedback should be overwhelmingly positive, right? They beat the ACC champions in late November. They beat Boston College on the road, and, well, they won nine games. UConn football over the last couple of seasons has been a great story. Rutgers could be a great story as an FBS independent, too.

Subscribe now

If you’re a Rutgers fan, with over a decade of evidence now, how could you not want to be in UConn’s shoes, as an independent for football and in the Big East for basketball? That’d be the dream in 2026, right? A future football schedule that could include some combination of UConn, Delaware, Temple, Boston College, Syracuse, UMass, Pittsburgh, and maybe even Notre Dame would be a whole lot more interesting for a Rutgers football fan, right? You could go into most Saturdays with both the hope and the expectation of winning lots of football games. With the status quo, you hope you have Maryland and Purdue on the schedule. You hope, at some point, like Montreal Expos or Florida Marlins fans hoped in the early-to-mid-2000s, that this can’t go on forever. That the Braves can’t win the NL East every year, and Rutgers can’t lose to every ranked team they face every year. Everything ends at some point, but is that this year for Scarlet Knights football fans? I don’t know, but I do know that I have seen what UConn has done as an FBS independent program, and from the outside, it seems like a much better fan experience than being a Rutgers or Maryland in the Big Ten.

Leave a comment

It is very fitting that the Notre Dame Fighting Irish only trail the Ohio State Buckeyes on FanDuel for the best national championship odds for the upcoming college football season. It would not be a surprise at all if the two programs met in the College Football Playoff National Championship game this season. Again. The two teams are loaded on both sides of the ball, and each has a quarterback who very well could win the Heisman trophy this fall. The Irish have won fewer than 10 games just once since the start of the 2017 season, while the Buckeyes have won fewer than 10 games, pandemic-shortened season aside, just once over the last twenty years. What I wonder, though, particularly this upcoming season, for the Notre Dame faithful, is how much fun this fanbase can really have before the calendar flips to December?

Subscribe now

Last season, Georgia Bulldogs fans finally had the home schedule they dreamed of with Texas, Alabama, and Ole Miss all traveling to Athens for a road contest inside Sanford Stadium. Before the Bulldogs’ home loss against the Crimson Tide, head football coach Kirby Smart’s team had won thirty-three straight ball games at home. Even before the 2025 season kicked off, you looked at Georgia’s home slate of games and knew there was a strong possibility that the Bulldogs’ incredible home winning streak would end, but that’s what made the schedule so exciting for that fanbase. For the first time in years, there was a real chance they could walk out of Sanford Stadium following a Georgia loss. That’s what makes a great conference schedule, particularly at home, so much fun – a great schedule doesn’t necessarily mean a great result for your team.

Share

This season, Tennessee’s home schedule is extremely enticing. Texas, Auburn, LSU, and Alabama will travel to Neyland Stadium to face the Volunteers. With a freshman or redshirt freshman under center, I think every Vols fan would happily take a 2-2 split, with victories over the Bayou Bengals and Crimson Tide being the preferred two wins. Sure, the schedule is more arduous than what Tennessee had on the docket in 2025 and 2024, but as much as the powers that be try to fight it, the regular season is what makes this sport great. Huge games on college campuses. The more big games on your favorite school’s campus come with a price, though, and that is more losses, if you’re a glass-half-empty person. It can also come with more wins if you’re a glass-half-full person. I don’t know how many of those huge home games the Vols will win this fall, but I do know how electric the lead-up to each of them will be this fall, and, wouldn’t you know it, I’m way too ready to start next season, and it’s still just the latter part of May.

Ohio State fans haven’t experienced this for a long time. Notre Dame fans are experiencing it now. On one hand, it has to be a comforting feeling to have such a high floor every season, regardless of how many players from last year’s team move on to the NFL. On the other hand, doesn’t it kind of stink to know how high a floor your team has every season? With longtime rival USC off the schedule, Notre Dame has one big game at home this fall against the Miami Hurricanes, and that game doesn’t take place until November 7. It should be a fantastic game at a fantastic venue with a whole lot of extra juice after last season’s CFP last-one-in drama between the two schools.

But that’s it.

Wisconsin, Rice, Michigan State, Stanford, Boston College, and SMU are the remaining home games. Part of that is not their fault, of course, with both the Badgers and Spartans currently in rough patches for their storied programs, but which game outside of Miami are you really fired up about as a Fighting Irish fan this fall? This is what Georgia fans felt for years before last season’s home slate. I imagine it’s what Ohio State fans have felt for many years. Although the Buckeyes schedule, particularly early, is as dangerous as it’s been in the regular season in a long time. Ohio State has to play at Texas, Iowa, Indiana, and USC, along with home dates against Oregon, Illinois, and Michigan. There are more potential land mines on this schedule than there have been in a long time for the Buckeyes.

There aren’t many potential land mines on Notre Dame’s schedule. The Fighting Irish will play the four ACC schools with the worst projected conference championship betting odds this fall – North Carolina, Stanford, Boston College, and Syracuse. They will not travel to USC. Their biggest test, in a battle of national championship runner-ups the last two seasons, is in South Bend. There are no preseason CFP locks in college football, but the combination of Notre Dame’s talent, coaching staff, and schedule is as close as anyone in the sport this season.

But it’s the kind of season that if you’re a fan, you want to fast-forward to December. Texas could win it all, and they’re all-in, but their schedule is tough. Oregon has Michigan and Ohio State back-to-back. Indiana is as close as any contender to Notre Dame’s, but all this winning is so new that I don’t imagine the cupcake schedule is all that bothersome for Hoosier fans, at least for now.

Until that ostensibly inevitable CFP expansion, the regular season is still the most special part of the sport, but there is nothing special about Notre Dame’s regular schedule this fall. It’s the opposite. But head football coach Marcus Freeman’s team could win it all. The Hoosiers went undefeated with a similar schedule last year, and the Fighting Irish could do it this season, something Notre Dame hasn’t done in my lifetime. All of that is well and good, but I don’t think it’s fun or healthy to want to fast-forward your team’s regular season for a couple of postseason games on neutral sites. Do Notre Dame fans share this perspective? I don’t know, but I do know that I hope it never feels this way at Tennessee in late May.

Leave a comment

It was not that long ago that Florida State head football coach Mike Norvell was on top of the college football coaching landscape. Following the 2023-24 college football season, Norvell was not only reportedly in the mix to replace the greatest college football coach of all time, Nick Saban, at the University of Alabama, one of the greatest college football programs of all time, but he also had just gone 23-4 across two seasons in Tallahassee. It was understood at the time that Norvell was one of the best head coaches in the sport. (The same was true around that time for Wisconsin’s Luke Fickell, just a year early, but that’s a story for another day.) Now, from the outside looking in, it seems like the end of the line for Norvell at Florida State is as close as it’s ever been. Can you imagine telling a Florida State fan after the 2023-24 season everything that happened the following two seasons, actually, well, you know, happened?

At the time, Norvell not leaving Florida State for Alabama felt like a major win for the Seminoles. He even won the Bear Bryant Coach of the Year honor that same offseason. He won ACC Coach of the Year, something a Florida State head football coach had not done since Bowden won the award in 1997. It was all going great until it wasn’t. The contract extension to keep Norvell at Florida State long-term was massive, yes, but the huge financial commitment ostensibly signaled that the Seminoles, like where rival Miami is now with Mario Cristobal, were back.

Subscribe now

Flash forward two offseasons later, and Florida State is now coming off back-to-back seasons in which it went a combined 7-17, which included a brutal 2-10 blemish in the 2024 season, the school’s fewest amount of wins since the 1974 season, long before the school joined the ACC. In my 35 years of watching, writing, and reading about sports on this planet, the drastic pendulum swing between the 2023 Florida State Seminoles and the 2024 Florida State Seminoles might take the cake as the biggest head-scratching surprise. It was a disaster of a season in every respect, and this was a program exactly one year prior that could have very well won the national championship had its star quarterback not gotten injured and lost for the season.

Share

Last season, Norvell and the Seminoles got the train back on the track, at least a tad. The offseason hirings of Tony White to call the defense and Gus Malzahn to call the offense were both interesting and wise. The former is back for Year 2, while the latter rode off into the sunset as one of the best offensive minds this sport has seen this century. Although it was ultimately Washington’s Kalen DeBoer who replaced Saban at Alabama, it was Norvell who beat DeBoer in Tallahassee to kick off last season in a stunning upset. It was one of the best college football moments in the regular season last season. The ‘Noles smashed a nine-win Wake Forest team at the Doak. They lost a one-score game to the National Championship runner-up in Miami. They also lost to a dreadful Stanford team on the road. They got blown out in Gainesville against an interim Florida head football coach to conclude the season. All in all, it was a mixed bag for Norvell and the Seminoles.

2026 will be Norvell’s third season since the special 2023-24 campaign at Florida State. With all the changes to the sport, particularly NIL, it’s never been harder to gauge how good or bad a job any coach is doing right now. Did Fickell, who made the College Football Playoff as a G5 head football coach before expansion to twelve teams at Cincinnati, forget how to coach once he got to Madison? Did Mike Gundy or Dabo Swinney, two of the best coaches the sport has seen this century, forget how to coach the last couple of seasons in Stillwater or at Clemson? Norvell has seen the most drastic swings in Tallahassee, but had he been named the successor to Saban at Alabama, what are people saying about the guy who still maintains an overall head coaching record of 76-49? Was the guy who was regarded as a top-5 head coach in all of college football now one of the worst in the P4 two years later?

It all just doesn’t compute.

We’ll never know the answer to the question of how Norvell would have fared the last two seasons in Tuscaloosa. What we do know, though, is that Norvell’s comments at the ACC Spring Meetings were hopeful. With Malzhan’s retirement this offseason, Norvell will be calling plays for the Seminoles this fall. Norvell spoke about the upcoming season and reportedly said, “I expect this year to be the best year of his life.” This perspective is both a bit fascinating and a bit inspiring. The results of the last two seasons have put Norvell in what seems to be a perilous place going into this season. And yet, Norvell is seemingly choosing to take the last two years in stride and ride into the 2026 season with optimism and belief.

I don’t pretend to have any idea how successful the Florida State offense will be with Norvell calling plays and Ashton Daniels under center. However, I do know that I hope it works out for Norvell and for Daniels, the latter of whom has been in some truly awful offensive situations the last couple of seasons at Auburn and Stanford, respectively. The same was true last season when Malzahn and Norvell got the band back together and rolled with former Ware County great Thomas Castellanos under center.

I believe that Norvell is still a great head football coach. Maybe he reminds people of that this season in Tallahassee, or maybe he reminds people of that at his next stop, like Dan Mullen reminded folks in Las Vegas this past season. Norvell’s attitude is the right one to have, and his decision to bet on himself this fall and do so with both hope and joy after how much has gone wrong since that magical 2023 season is one of the best offseason storylines of the 2026 college football season.

Leave a comment

It’s the middle of May, and we do not know who will be under center against Furman to open the 2026 college football season for the Tennessee Volunteers. The same was true this time last year, too, after Nico Iamaleava’s sudden spring departure and Joey Aguilar’s late-spring arrival. In a perfect football world, you would prefer to know who will be your team’s starting quarterback sooner rather than later. However, as you saw with Tennessee’s offense last season, particularly out of the gate, the musical chairs at quarterback turned out to be a nothing burger for the Vols. Perhaps once the George MacIntyre vs. Faizon Brandon quarterback battle is settled, I’ll look back this time next year and write something similar. Sticking with this upcoming season, though, I do wonder how much I will end up writing about the quarterback play this fall for the Tennessee Volunteers.

If you’re a glass-half-full person, the offensive line is where you look first to make the case that the quarterback play of either MacIntyre or Brandon will be just fine this upcoming season. You feel good about David Sanders going into his first full season as Tennessee’s left tackle, and the hit-rate for blue-chippers at this premium position of late. Tennessee also returns Sam Pendleton, their starting center last season. They return Wendell Moe Jr., their starting left guard last season. They return Jesse Perry, their starting right tackle and, at times, right guard last season, and they return Sham Umarov, who started 10 games at left guard for the Vols last season. Outside of the departure of last year’s starting left tackle, Lance Heard, who transferred to Kentucky this offseason, the Vols are bringing a whole lot of production and snaps back to protect MacIntyre or Brandon this season.

The difference in playmakers out wide and at tight end will also be vastly different for MacIntyre or Brandon than it was for Iamaleava as a redshirt freshman in 2024, not to mention the offensive scheme changes. One of the most fascinating developments will be Tennessee’s projected top-two tight ends, Ethan Davis and DaSaahn Brame, and how big a role they play in the passing game as a reliable safety valve for Tennessee’s quarterback. Under Josh Heupel, the Vols have not had this much receiving upside at tight end. We saw in the NFL Draft this year, and with the Los Angeles Rams last year, that 13 personnel is all the rage in 2026, so it’s fair to wonder how much Heupel and his staff utilize the two extremely talented playmakers this fall. If you’re MacIntyre or Brandon, you have to be excited about the playmaking potential of Tennessee’s top two tight ends before even getting into the wide receiver spot.

Subscribe now

Speaking of the wideouts, Tennessee’s two breakout wideouts, Braylon Staley and Mike Matthews, are back. Now, who takes Chris Brazzell II’s place as the third starter will be interesting to see play out over the next few months. It could be Radarious Jackson, Travis Smith Jr., or Tristen Keys. Whatever combination wide receivers coach Kelsey Pope elects to roll with this fall, the Vols will have former four or five-star options in every combination he uses until he finds his best three. It’s another great development for a young quarterback to walk into.

Share

Tennessee might even have an award-winner at tailback in DeSean Bishop. The former Karns star was a Second-Team All-SEC player for Tennessee last year. He rushed for over 1,000 yards to keep that Volunteer running back streak alive. He averaged nearly six yards per carry in his first full season as the Vols’ lead tailback. Bishop might not be as explosive as former Tennessee star Dylan Sampson, but he could be just as valuable. Like Sampson significantly helped Iamaleava in 2024, Bishop should provide similar consistency and stability to help MacIntyre or Brandon.

I suspect the defense, particularly the front seven, will be the dominant talking point this fall, not the quarterback once a starter is named for the latter. There are too many positive and safe indicators around them not to expect the offense to be just fine for the majority of the season.

With the change at defensive coordinator from Tim Banks to Jim Knowles, the latter a championship-winning coach who completely stifled Tennessee’s offense in the first round of the 2024-25 College Football Playoff in Columbus, and a young quarterback under center, the Vols need the defense to be a whole lot better than it was in 2025 because the offense isn’t likely to be better, or as explosive vertically, as it was in 2025.

There is uncertainty at LEO. Former blue-chippers Caleb Herring and Jordan Ross transferred to rival SEC programs. Joshua Josephs was drafted in the fifth round by the Washington Commanders. Chaz Coleman, Tennessee’s big splash at LEO out of Penn State, is the biggest unknown on the defense. If he’s not a factor, and Tennessee’s pass-rush is non-existent in conference play, that’ll matter a whole lot more than who is under center for the Vols.

At linebacker, Tennessee has lots of talent, but lots of unproven talent behind Arion Carter and Amare Campbell. If the spring transfer portal window were still a thing, I do wonder how much movement there would have been at this position and at LEO. The Vols have more than enough capable bodies at linebacker, but might not have nearly enough off the edge. You can never have enough pass-rushers off the edge, but we will find out this fall if you can have too many linebackers. Just how realistic is it for linebackers coach William Inge to be able to rotate so many talented blue-chippers with two veteran leaders like Carter and Campbell at the top? It’s a good problem to have in mid-May, but that might not be the case in mid-October if the Vols’ defense can’t get off the field on third down because the pass rush can’t get home consistently.

In the secondary, Tennessee could have its best overall unit to this point in the Heupel era in Knoxville. You feel pretty set there, particularly with how productive and how experienced the vast majority of the transfer portal additions they made in this position room are. Tennessee really needs Daevin Hobbs to get healthy and stay healthy along the defensive interior. They need Coleman to be a factor off the edge. They need Ethan Utley and Isaiah Campbell to take a step. They need Marion Dye and Tyree Weathersby to be anchors at defensive end. I’m not in the business of doubting Tennessee defensive line coach Rodney Garner, but how the defensive line performs figures to be a much larger season-long talking point than how the quarterback performs. The floor of Garner and new LEO coach Andrew Jackson’s defensive line is uncharacteristically uncertain. Football is a team game, and the Vols averaged 1.80 sacks per game in their five losses last season and 3.5 sacks per game in their wins.

Yes, quarterback is the most important position in the game, but as everything stands right now for Tennessee, the best bet for the biggest talking point all year for the Vols will not be MacIntyre or Brandon – it will be Tennessee’s defensive line, as their productivity will be the biggest needle-mover in wins and losses all season long.

Leave a comment

With spring practice in the rearview mirror, I’m going around the country to write about a couple of different teams in each conference that are most interesting to me right now.

We’ll start in the SEC, where the Oklahoma Sooners and the Florida Gators are the two most interesting teams in the conference this season.

Share

This time last year, much of the preseason conversation about the Gators and the Sooners revolved around three things: 1) Both had the toughest schedule in all of college football, 2) Both head coaches were on the hot seat, and 3) Both had the potential to make the College Football Playoff. The Sooners made the CFP, while the Gators crashed and burned, fired their head football coach, Billy Napier, and lost former five-star recruit quarterback DJ Lagway to the transfer portal.

Subscribe now

Enter Jon Sumrall, the new head football coach at Florida. Like Brent Venables at Oklahoma, he, too, made the CFP last season with his Tulane squad that won the AAC and 11 games overall. Across his four seasons as a head coach at Troy and Tulane, he’s 43-12. He’s never lost more than one conference game in any of those four seasons. Interestingly enough, Napier also arrived in Gainesville with four years of head coaching experience and a nearly identical record at 40-12. Will things be different for Sumrall in Gator Country?

Share

His coordinator hires were a good start, on both sides of the ball. With Kentucky moving on from Mike Stoops, longtime defensive coordinator Brad White, with whom Sumrall was co-DC in 2021 in Lexington, became available. Together, White and Sumrall coached a Kentucky defense that finished 26th in all of FBS in scoring defense and 4th in the SEC. The Gators have finished inside the top-10 in the SEC in scoring defense once since the start of the 2021 season, and it was 10th in 2022. On offense, stealing Buster Faulkner away from The Flats could prove to be one of the best coordinator hires of the offseason in all of college football. Former Georgia Tech quarterback Haynes King flourished under the former Parkview star quarterback’s tutelage. If Georgia Tech transfer quarterback Aaron Philo can come close to replicating what King did, just on the ground, where the Jackets were 8th in FBS in yards per carry, the combination of the former Prince Avenue Christian star and Jadan Baugh could be devastating for opposing defenses.

For Oklahoma, the Sooners made the CFP last season. They beat Josh Heupel and Tennessee inside Neyland Stadium. They beat Alabama again, this time on the road in the regular season. (Although they did lose to the Crimson Tide in their CFP rematch in Norman a month later.) Brent Venables led a defense that ranked first in the SEC and fifth nationally in DFEI, per BCFToys. The problem, though, was that while the Sooners’ defense was championship-esque, the offense was nowhere close. Oklahoma was 117th in rushing yards per game last year. They were 84th in points scored per offensive drive, per BCFToys. In November, the Sooners were 91st in passing yards per game. The stark contrast between Venables’ defense and first-year Oklahoma offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle’s offense was plainly evident week in and week out. And yet, they still won double-digit games and hosted a CFP game.

All eyes will be on John Mateer because all eyes are always on the quarterback. We all get it, but part of the reason Mateer and that Sooners’ offense a year ago was hamstrung in the passing game was injuries, yes, which has been the case the last two years in Norman, but also Deion Burks going scoreless between Game 3 and Game 11. Mateer’s favorite target, Isaiah Sategna, is back and pushed for 1,000 yards receiving last year. Around him, the Sooners added Trell Harris from Virginia and Parker Livingstone from Texas. The latter was extremely productive and available in Austin a season ago. The former had two games in which he went over 140 yards receiving and was a chunk-play assassin for a Virginia team that won double-digit games and reached the ACC championship. Surrounding Sategna with Harris and Livingstone may not be the flashiest wide receiver trio in the SEC. Still, it could be one of the safest in the production department, which is ultimately all that matters anyway.

Whether it’s Philo or Tramell Jones Jr. under center at Florida, they’ll have talent out wide to work with, too. Similar to Oklahoma, there is just a whole lot to like in the top three with Eric Singleton Jr., Dallas Wilson, and Vernell Brown III. Singleton Jr. has two years of proven production in Faulkner’s system, dating back to his days at Georgia Tech. Brown III flashed as a YAC machine last year, too. Wilson has the highest upside of the group as a former five-star wideout. In his four games played last year, Wilson reeled in three touchdowns. He nabbed two and accumulated 111 yards and six receptions in the Gators’ win over Texas. He’s got to stay healthy, but like Oklahoma, the wideout trio in Gainesville has a lot to like.

What also works in both schools’ favor, outside of a more manageable schedule than a year ago, is that both are flying under the radar a bit in the SEC. For Oklahoma, its arch-rival Texas, is all-in once again, and all eyes are on Steve Sarkisian’s team in Austin. That’s where you want to be if you’re Venables and the Sooners in Mid-May. For Florida, LSU is the school with the new head coach and sky-high expectations.

The Gators had those expectations coming into last year. Sumrall is in a great spot to overachieve and flash a bright future in Gainesville, particularly with Philo and Baugh on the ground and a much-improved defense. Sumrall starting off his Florida tenure with its 2026 football schedule rather than its 2025 football schedule could also prove to be one of the more important first-year developments in the SEC. The path to eight or nine wins is there for the Gators.

The path to nine or ten wins is there for the Sooners, if they can survive a brutal September. They get Texas coming out of a bye week, and the Sooners have the kind of schedule where it could go on a run from Mid-October onward.

It might not all happen for the Gators and the Sooners this season, but it could, and it makes them two of the most interesting teams in the SEC.

Leave a comment

Enter in-state conference rival Virginia Tech and James Franklin.

The Hokies received a major jolt this offseason when the school hired former Penn State and Vanderbilt head football coach James Franklin. The Cavaliers won 11 games last season, and the Hokies haven’t won 11 games in 15 years. Franklin won 11 games six times during his tenure at Penn State. In my lifetime, the Hokies have finished the season with double-digit wins 14 times. What Elliott did at Virginia in 2025 was what so many college football fans around my age grew up routinely expecting out of Virginia Tech year after year. What Elliott accomplished at Virginia in 2025 was what every Penn State fan expected out of Franklin every season in Happy Valley. Something has to give in 2026 and beyond, though, as the Cavaliers and the Hokies have never won double-digit games in the same season. With Elliott and Franklin now leading these two rival in-state programs, combined with the ACC's openness outside of Miami, it has never felt more possible.

Share

But there are a lot of questions for Elliott’s Cavaliers in Year 5 and Franklin’s Hokies in Year 1. It starts at quarterback, where Virginia has to replace Chandler Morris with either Pittsburgh transfer Eli Holstein or Missouri and Penn State transfer Beau Pribula, and where Virginia Tech has to replace Kyron Drones with either Penn State transfer Ethan Grunkemeyer or North Carolina transfer Bryce Baker. If Pribula beats out Holstein and Grunkemeyer beats out Baker, both schools will be led by former Penn State backup quarterbacks this fall. However, the experience in the Cavaliers’ room is very different than the experience in the Hokies’ room. With Elliott’s team, he won 11 games last season and is trying to keep the momentum going with a veteran quarterback like Pribula or Holstein. With Franklin’s team, he is trying to build momentum with an unproven but talented former blue-chip recruit like Grunkemeyer or Baker.

It’s all incredibly fascinating at quarterback for the Cavaliers and Hokies in 2026.

Even with the two rival in-state schools coming off very different seasons, their projected win totals are separated by only one game in next season, per FanDuel. Virginia’s projected win total sits at 7.5 while Virginia Tech’s sits at 6.5. It’s not inconceivable that when these two schools meet on November 28th in Blacksburg, the Cavaliers and the Hokies will have identical records. Wouldn’t it be something for the first year of Elliott versus Franklin rivalry to feature those kinds of stakes, where the winner in Blacksburg finishes the regular season with the better record?

Subscribe now

Elliott broke through in Charlottesville in Year 4, where he doubled his win total from 5 to 11. In an open ACC outside of Miami, it will be fascinating to see how the former longtime Clemson assistant builds off last season’s rousing success. Back-to-back double-digit win seasons are obviously the goal, but with the potential drop-off at quarterback from Morris to either Pribula or Holstein, 8-4 would be a very nice follow-up to last season’s magic, right? In a lot of ways, it seemed like the 2025 ACC Coach of the Year overachieved with his group last year. The Cavaliers were 53rd in OFEI, per BCFToys. They were seventh in scoring offense in the ACC. They weren’t elite at throwing the football, and they weren’t elite at running the football. The best numbers were found on the defensive side of the ball, where Virginia and CFP runner-up Miami were the only two teams to allow fewer than 20 points per game in the ACC last season. It’s fair to be concerned about QB1 at Virginia, but to win eight or more games in 2026, a lot of it might depend on whether or not the Cavaliers’ defense is one of the premier units in the conference once again.

Share Sports Renaissance Man

Both Elliott and Franklin were offensive assistant coaches before they were head coaches. However, the in-state battle between Virginia defensive coordinator John Rudzinski and Virginia Tech defensive coordinator Brent Pry will be just as intriguing. The two ACC schools that finished No. 1 and No. 2 in scoring defense in the conference last season won double-digit games. Virginia Tech’s best finish since 2020 was 5th in 2021. Under Franklin in Happy Valley, the Nittany Lions were 8th nationally in scoring defense in 2024. They were third the year prior. They were 9th the year before that. It was the defense over the last several years at Penn State that raised the school’s floor so consistently year over year.

Yes, the offense and quarterback matters at Virginia and Virginia Tech this year and beyond, but I suspect who wins more games between the two head coaches will have a lot more to do with their scoring defense than with their scoring offense.

I don’t know how it will all play out for Elliott and Franklin in Charlottesville and Blacksburg, respectively, but I do know it will be quite enjoyable to see how it all unfolds. Does Elliott keep things on track at Virginia in Year 5? Does Franklin come in and win immediately, even with a far more daunting schedule, in Year 1? Does Pribula or Holstein become a cool Bounce Back Season story? Does Grunkemeyer flash as a future first-round talent in the NFL Draft? I don’t know, but I do know the Virginia vs. Virginia Tech game in late November will be a must-watch event for the first time in a long time, and that’s a great thing for fans of both schools and college football fans as a whole.

Leave a comment

If you enjoy what you read today, consider becoming a subscriber below. You can select which sections of the newsletter you’d like to get emails from here.

This week, Sports Renaissance Man had the opportunity to interview Alabama State head football coach Eddie Robinson Jr.

Read the full interview below.

The biggest reason your team had such a special season and went from 7 to 10 wins?

Robinson Jr: Well, I think it was definitely our offensive production. We went from 22 points per game to 40. So that’s probably the most obvious choice, and to have some explosive guys. Of course, you have to start with Andrew Body. He was the HBCU Player of the Year, so that was a big part of it. The offensive line played a lot better as well, but I just think, just overall, from an offensive standpoint, we executed at a high level, and we had some explosive guys.

How do you manage expectations from the fanbase now that you just won double-digit games the previous season?

Robinson Jr: Well, I don’t think you manage outside the room. You manage inside the room. And I think for us, you know, our expectation has been to win at a high level every year. So we expect it. We know the challenges that are involved to make it happen. You know, every win is a big deal. In college football, I tell my guys, half the teams in college football lost this weekend. So when you win, I don’t care who you’re playing. It’s something to appreciate and enjoy. And then on Sunday, you get back to work. So we have a motto about winning today. And so we just focus on winning each day, just getting like marginal gains, getting a little better every day at something. And I think if we keep having that approach, then at the end of the year, you look back and say, ‘Hey, this is what we accomplished.’ And for us, we focus on that. And then, you know, outside the building, the fans should expect to win a championship every year. I mean, that’s the expectation of what fans are. They’re fanatical. They’re supposed to expect to win, right? And it’s our job to deliver that.

What gets you most fired up about spring practice leading a program in 2026?

Robison Jr: I think you can be physical because you don’t play for another six months, and so the guys can really hit. Like, we can watch the guys tackle, and I’m trying to find the guys who are physical, who are tough, some violent guys, who can make people miss, and who can make tackles, who can make throws and catches under pressure. And we still kind of control it a little bit, but we won’t be this physical and violent once the season starts, OK. And so for right now, you can really kind of let them go and practice really hard and have some big collisions and contacts. And then, you knock on wood. You don’t want anybody to get hurt, but you know, to make a good omelet, you've got to break some eggs. So it’s just how it goes.

Does it change with the portal season and everything else? Do you change your install schedule here in this new age of college football? Or has it still been just about what it was when you first got there?

Robinson Jr: I think it’s about the same. I think without having a portal window this spring, it definitely helps us out just from a standpoint of, yeah, maybe a couple guys that you’re hoping to still bring into the program, you’re always recruiting. But at the same time, you’re not spending a whole lot of time concerned about, ‘Hey, this kid is having a great spring, will he try to take this tape and leave?’ You know, and I think that was the part that was just really crazy the last couple of years, when guys are going through spring, and I’m uncertain whether or not they’re going to stay. So now I can’t even really plan for next year because, yeah, I look really good at the defensive end spot, but I don’t know if two of those guys in their mind, they’re thinking that they’re going to leave, and they haven’t told me yet.

Share

Your offense led the SWAC in scoring last season, but was last in total plays in the SWAC. Was that kind of efficiency mostly due to the consistent chunk plays your offense produced?

Robison Jr: Well, I think it was two things. So I’m always looking at the different stats, comparing year to year, comparing with the conference champ and the top-25 teams in FCS did the year before, and what makes a successful team just from a stats standpoint, because you want to try to mimic those things. So I think more specifically for us, I don’t think of the intention, like every play you’re trying to score, right? But we had some very explosive guys who were taking a normal play and making two guys miss and going 30, 40, and 50 yards, and sometimes scoring. So that’s a good problem to have. So I don’t think you ever scale back from how fast we can score. I think the other part of that equation was that we were horrible in third-down efficiency. We were close to last in the conference. We gave up more than 50% on third down and fourth down. And so what was happening was we were scoring really fast, but then we couldn’t get off the field on third down defensively to get the ball back to the offense. So it was, it was, the success on offense, and I think the lack of being productive in third-down efficiency on defense. And so we understand what we have to be better at. You can be better on third down. And, of course, you want to still be explosive. But we always have a mindset of tempo and controlling the clock and those types of things. But I think that third-down efficiency on defense will allow the offense to have more opportunities to score, and hopefully, we can be just as efficient as we were last year.

Subscribe now

What’s the secret to improved third-down defensive efficiency?

Robinson Jr: First of all, you've got to know it’s third down. It sounds like a simple thing. So what we’re doing now, we’re getting into spring, we’re doing situational football. And the kids know my favorite day of the week during the season is Thursday because we really focus on situational football. You focus on two-minute, you focus on third downs, you focus on red zones. So now it’s more specific, we’re not just running plays 1st and 10 from the 30. We’re looking at, hey, it’s 3rd and 3, it’s 3rd and 5, it’s 3rd and 7. And so it sounds like an easy deal, but everybody on the team, especially guys on the field, have to know, ‘Hey, it’s 3rd and 3.’ And so the way you’re going to play cornerback or linebacker at 3rd and 3 is different between 3rd and 9 or 3rd and 10. So once you know the down the distance, then you can start getting to what’s the formation, anticipating the play, what’s my responsibility, et cetera, et cetera. Third down is my favorite down. That’s the money down. But then you have to execute once you get them into 3rd and long, and then you have to get them off the field. And I think the trend in college football is now to go for it on fourth down. So now we’re really having that mentality of if it’s 3rd and 9, we know if it gets to a 4th and 2 or 3, most offensive coordinators are going to go for it. That’s what happened against us. So we’re kind of preparing the kids. So we’re doing a lot of third and fourth down type things now, so we can be in that mindset of we’re going to have to stop an offense on third and fourth down.

Share

What’s next for Andrew Body’s development after such a dominant 2025 season?

Robinson Jr: Yeah, I tell him all the time. I mean, you can’t be a running quarterback. You have to be a quarterback who can run, and it’s a big difference. And so, and I tell them, you look at, you know, some of the guys, I go way back, not way back, but I played against them, so I don’t want to say I’m that old, but, you know, Johnny Five, you know, Donovan McNabb, you know, he was one of those guys who could run, but he ran on his terms. Even Mahomes, you know, Mahomes can run, but he’s not a running quarterback per se. And so I think for me, ultimately, you have to win in the pocket from the quarterback position, or you have to get out of the pocket, but eyes downfield to try to make explosive plays. But then, when you have to run, man, you can really punish the defense. So I think just going through that first, second, and third read, getting the ball out to the check down, like, be the point guard. And then when it’s time to take over, you take over when it’s necessary. But don’t force it. Let the game come to you.

Subscribe now

Thinking back to Year 1 as the head football coach at Alabama State to now, going into Year 5, how have you evolved as a leader and coach?

Robinson Jr: Yeah, so I think now I say what needs to be said, and I do what needs to be done. And so I think a simple way to look at that is like we had a practice. It was raining that morning. It was really one of those early spring mornings. It was really, really cold, and it was raining hard, so the team is anticipating and the coaches that practice will be canceled. But with me looking at my trusty weather app, I understand that the weather is about to clear up at 6:30, so we’ll be perfectly fine. So I’m getting in the car in the mindset of it’s going to be a cold, wet, rainy day, ready to practice, and I think everybody else had the mindset of practice will be cancelled, right? So, going through the first 20 minutes, you know I usually take my notes on the things I need to correct at the end of practice. I had five things in the first 20 minutes. I was like this is going nowhere fast. This is about to be a wasted day, and I think in my first year, I probably would have asked another coach, ‘Hey man, how do you think this is going, man? What do you think we need to do to get it going?’ I would have asked permission to be the head football coach. Well, this year I brought everybody up to the 50. A couple of expletives. ‘Like, hey, we’re going to, this thing is horrible. We’re going to start this practice over. I don’t like this tempo. This is not championship tempo. Even though it’s in the spring and we don’t play for six months, this is not a good practice. So let’s get it changed right now.’ And then it went on to be a pretty good practice. So, you know, right now I’m going to be more, I’m going to trust my instinct. I’m going to go with my gut. And maybe I’m wrong sometimes, but as the head coach, you get the right to be wrong. So it’s like, it’s one of those things I’m going to trust what I feel and not always ask permission. I think my first year, I probably would have asked permission to kind of have that same type of, you know, response.

Do you have a take on the Titans’ new uniforms?

Robinson Jr: You know, I’m going to reach out to my guy, Keith Bullock, and talk with him. He came and talked to our team last year. You know, I started off as a Houston Oiler. I was on the team with, you know, Warren Moon and all those guys. Ernest Givins, you know, Haywood Jeffires, all those guys. I mean, I’m a true-blue Houston Oiler, right? So, part of me loves the Columbia blue and red. That’s like, it’s like, man. And so, but part of me still likes the old Titan logo. So, to answer your question, I do like it because it merges both aspects of it. I think it... kind of gives that connection because there is still a lot of Oilers fans in Texas who still follow the Titans because they still have that connection because all of the franchise records, you know, the Robert Braziles, the Earl Campbells, the Warren Moons, they’re still with the Titans franchise, even though they were Oilers. So I think I love the connection of the Columbia blue and red to kind of tie those old guys in and I still go back when I’m able to when we have the reunion days, I still go back to Nashville for the reunion days because for the Oilers, it’s still and my old Oiler friends they show up for that and my Titans guys, so I like it. I’m thumbs up with it.

Leave a comment

If you enjoy what you read today in the college football section, consider becoming a subscriber below. You can select which sections of the newsletter you’d like to get emails from here.

Texas Tech football and Ohio State football have something in common right now. For the latter, winning lots of regular-season games has been the standard. The Buckeyes have lost more than one conference game just once since the start of the 2012 season. Since 2005, Ohio State has failed to win double-digit games twice. Of those two seasons, one was the COVID-shortened season. Funny enough, the one year the Buckeyes lost more than one Big Ten game for the first time in 2011, head football coach Ryan Day’s football team won the national championship. Last year, Ohio State went 8-0 vs. Big Ten teams, and they won by two or more scores in every single game. Last year, Texas Tech went 8-1 vs. Big 12 teams, and they won by two or more scores in every victory. Red Raiders fans are now in a shared place with Buckeyes fans when it comes to the college football regular season.

Subscribe now

Could you imagine telling college football fans in 2006 that Texas Tech was on a path to being just as consistently dominant in their conference as Ohio State has been in the Big Ten? If you take a look at the 2026 college football win total projections, you will find that Texas Tech’s projected win total sits at 11.5, which is what it has felt like at Ohio State for years and years. (Although the Buckeyes have an eyebrow-raising 9.5 win total this year. Traveling to Austin for your season opener can have that kind of effect, I suppose.) Texas Tech’s one blemish in conference play last year came on the road in Tempe against the Arizona State Sun Devils. This year, they get Kenny Dillingham’s team at home. BYU isn’t on their schedule next season. It would be a huge upset for the Red Raiders not to be favored in every game they play this upcoming season.

Share

It certainly seems like this is the new standard for Texas Tech. The Red Raiders were ranked No. 1 by On3 in their team transfer portal rankings last year. They were ranked No. 2 this latest cycle. Their big get last cycle was former Stanford edge David Bailey, and he had a fantastic lone season in Lubbock and projects to be a top-10 pick in the 2026 NFL Draft. This cycle, you could argue it’s former Cincinnati quarterback Brendan Sorsby. You could argue it’s former Wake Forest defensive tackle Mateen Ibirogba or former Kansas State linebacker Justin Romine. Only time will tell, but the Red Raiders are rolling in a way similar to the Buckeyes, where it would be jarring to see Texas Tech not win double-digit games at the end of the season. Texas Tech fans are starting to experience the regular season like Ohio State fans have experienced it for decades now, where you expect to win just about every regular-season game you play. You know your team has more talent, more years than not, in your conference.

How soon before SEC fans start to view Texas Tech the way they have viewed Ohio State for years and years? The strength-of-schedule conversation isn’t going anywhere, especially with the SEC going to nine conference games this year. If Texas Tech finishes a perfect 12-0 this season and becomes a yearly lock to make the College Football Playoff, how does that change the conversation around them? In my 34 years on this planet, the Red Raiders have always seemed like one of the fun underdogs in the sport. That’s not who they are anymore, though. While it is impossible to know for sure how they’d fare in the SEC, the same as with Ohio State, it is going to be interesting to see how they are viewed by fanbases in SEC Country, particularly if they don’t make a deep run in the CFP sooner rather than later.

Share Sports Renaissance Man

If you’re an Arkansas football fan, you’re a bit jealous, right? You don’t have to squint too hard to envision an alternate world where you’re doing what Texas Tech is doing in the Big 12. A perfect world for Razorbacks fans is one where they remain in the SEC for every sport except football, right? The Hawgs have never won the SEC and don’t look to be particularly close to winning it in the not-too-distant future. A far more appealing future would be battling the Red Raiders atop the Big 12 every year and going to the CFP more years than not, right? Texas Tech is the kind of powerhouse in the Big 12 that Arkansas could be if it made the switch, right?

Give a gift subscription

For Ohio State fans, the high floor must be the best part of watching your beloved Buckeyes over the years, right? In the FBS, you can count on one hand the schools that have similar year-over-year floors to Day’s team. It includes Kirby Smart’s Georgia Bulldogs. It used to include Nick Saban’s Alabama Crimson Tide. It seems to include Marcus Freeman’s Notre Dame Fighting Irish and Dan Lanning’s Oregon Ducks. Tennessee fans have enjoyed the consistent high floors that Josh Heupel has created in Big Orange Country over the last half-decade.

This is a new world for Red Raiders fans, where they’re the school with the highest floor in their Power 4 conference more years than not. They are now a school where it’s expected that they win double-digit games every year. It’s a school where a 9-3 finish is a colossal failure. The Buckeyes have lived in this world for a long time, but look out, the Red Raiders are here now, too.

Leave a comment

So, which fanbases should be excited about these early odds? Which fanbases should be concerned? Which fanbases, honestly, should have no idea what to think?

Let’s dive in.

Who Should Be Excited?

Let’s start positively. Tennessee fans should be excited that their win total is up to 7.5 from 6.5, where it was when the projections came out a few days ago. With a redshirt freshman or true freshman under center, I’ve long maintained this offseason that the goal, or hope rather, is eight wins for the Volunteers. Young quarterback, new defensive coordinator, new strength & conditioning coach, thirty-plus true freshmen, compounded with nine conference games and a real road test at Bobby Dodd Stadium against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. If the Vols reach nine wins, Tennessee head football coach Josh Heupel is your Coach of the Year in the SEC. If the Vols reach eight wins, I suspect it will look and feel very different than Tennessee’s eight wins last season.

Subscribe now

Another school with a projected win total of 7.5 is Florida. If you are a Gators fan, you should be really excited about that number. Florida, Auburn, LSU, Arkansas, Ole Miss, and Kentucky all will have new head football coaches this fall, and only the Bayou Bengals go into next fall with a higher projected win total than the Gators at 8.5.

Share

Florida was able to pry Jon Sumrall away from Tulane, where he went 20-8 and made the College Football Playoff last season. Across his four seasons as a head football coach in the FBS, Sumrall has gone 7-1 in conference play every year. He’s won at multiple stops, has played in this conference at Kentucky, where he was the Wildcats’ leading tackler in 2004, and hired a heck of a staff around him. Buster Faulkner as offensive coordinator and Brad White as defensive coordinator is a strong duo, particularly the former.

The Gators retaining star tailback Jadan Baugh could prove to be a huge offseason win for Sumrall’s staff, with the Jackets under Faulkner sitting in the top-10 in yards per carry on the ground in two of the last three seasons, per CFBStats. Like Tennessee, the Gators have a true quarterback competition on their hands between Aaron Philo, who followed Faulkner from Atlanta, and roster holdover Tramell Jones Jr, a Jacksonville native. Whoever wins the QB1 battle will have a star tailback behind him and a litany of playmakers out wide to throw the ball to in Dallas Wilson, Vernell Brown III, and Eric Singleton Jr.

Outside of Kiffin at LSU, no fanbase that hired a new coach this offseason in the SEC should be more excited than Florida fans.

Share Sports Renaissance Man

Who Should Be Concerned?

This will probably be a yearly deal for Kalen DeBoer, unfortunately. Even if he wins a championship at Alabama this year or next, the pressure never ceases at a place like Alabama. That’s both a blessing and a curse for the head football coach and the fans. Georgia and Texas are tied atop the win-total projections at 9.5 wins. Alabama is right below them, tied with Texas A&M and LSU. Those five schools should be the favorites to make the CFP this season out of the conference. If you're a Bulldog fan, you feel the best out of this group, but if you’re a Crimson Tide fan, you’re already a little anxious about next season.

You would like to be at the 9.5 win total where the Longhorns sit alongside the Bulldogs. You missed the CFP last season, and there is all sorts of pressure in Tuscaloosa for that not to happen in back-to-back seasons. However, Ryan Grubb is back for Year 2 as offensive coordinator, so that continuity should help on the offensive side of the ball. It’s unlikely the Tide could run the ball any worse than they did a year ago. Ryan Coleman-Williams, Lotzeir Brooks, and Rico Scott at wideout have lots of potential with two young, blue-chip wildcards behind them in Derek Meadows and Cederian Morgan.

Like Tennessee and Florida, there is a real quarterback competition happening in Tuscaloosa. The floor for the Tide is safer than the Vols or the Gators if the wrong quarterback wins the job to start the season, but if you’re a fan of the Tide, you hope the right guy wins and runs with it, whether that’s Austin Mack or Keelon Russell. While the latter is still just a redshirt freshman, the CFP expectations will remain whether he or Mack wins the competition. If Alabama bests its projected win total in March, that still may not be enough to reach the CFP at 9-3. It’s a march to double-digit wins, with a new quarterback and a nine-game conference schedule that includes trips to Knoxville, Baton Rouge, and Nashville, along with Georgia and Texas A&M coming to town.

Who Should Have No Idea What To Think?

Several schools fit the bill here: LSU, Ole Miss, Oklahoma, and Vanderbilt.

For the Tigers, 8.5 is a nice first-year number for Kiffin, but the school also just brought in the No. 1-ranked transfer portal class, highlighted by a big-time, win-now quarterback in Arizona State transfer quarterback Sam Leavitt. In four of Kiffin’s final five years in Oxford, he won double-digit games every season except one. With more talent in Baton Rouge, you feel great, but it’s still Year 1, and you aren’t sure what the fairest expectations are for Kiffin this fall. It’s probably just make the 12-team field, something LSU has not done yet, and go from there.

Assuming star quarterback Trinidad Chambliss is under center for the Rebels, 7.5 seems awfully low. Sure, Kiffin is gone, and Pete Golding is in. The latter was awesome in the CFP under brutal circumstances, but Ole Miss will have a different offensive coordinator with John David Baker coming in from East Carolina. Like Kiffin and LSU, the Rebels reeled in another elite transfer portal class on paper. How Syracuse transfer wideouts Darrell Gill Jr. and Johntay Cook come in, and mesh matters a great deal, and you still have five-star, in-state product Caleb Cunningham waiting in the wings behind Deuce Alexander.

Oklahoma broke through and made the CFP with arguably the toughest schedule in all of college football last year. Heisman hopeful John Mateer is back. And yet, Sooners fans see their win total at 7.5, alongside the Gators and the Vols. The Sooners were 79th in offense last season in scoring. Ben Arbuckle is back for his second season in Norman. The passing game in particular has to have more juice if the Sooners are going to hit the over and expect to win multiple games in the CFP. Isaiah Sategna III is back as Mateer’s safety net, and transfers Trell Harris and Parker Livingstone need to be plug-and-play guys right away.

The defense finished 7th in scoring defense last year, and under Brent Venables calling the shots, it’s hard to see a major drop-off there, so their floor is high. The offense has to click across the board a lot better, so OU is in one of the stranger spots in the conference.

Finally, the Vanderbilt Commodores. They won double-digit games last season, led by a quarterback who probably deserved the Heisman. Even though they missed the CFP, Vandy fans watched their school trounce the Volunteers in Neyland. They beat LSU and Missouri at home. They trounced South Carolina and Kentucky. They fell to the Longhorns on the road by three. A whole lot went right for Clark Lea’s team in Nashville last year.

Subscribe now

Now, Diego Pavia is out, and true freshman Jared Curtis is in. Across the state, rival Tennessee is dealing with the same dramatic shift, going from Joey Aguilar to either George MacIntyre or Faizon Brandon. Like Tennessee, though, there is a belief in the ‘Dores with a young quarterback under center. You should feel good about the 6.5 if you’re a Vanderbilt fan, but you have to wonder what the offense will look like with such a dramatic change from Pavia to Curtis, even with offensive coordinator Tim Beck back. It’s already going to be weird to see Curtis in black-and-gold after being a longtime Georgia commit the Commodores flipped late in the process, but how will last year’s success and offensive dominance shape Vanderbilt fans’ likely up-and-down nature of this year’s team?

I can’t wait to watch how it all plays out, in, well, six months.

Leave a comment

If you enjoy what you read today in the Tennessee Vols sports section, consider becoming a subscriber below. You can select which sections of the newsletter you’d like to get emails from here.

Subscribe now

Well, FanDuel released its early 2026 SEC win total projections this week. That obviously included the Tennessee Volunteers, who now sit at 7.5 wins, a number shared by fellow SEC rivals Ole Miss, Oklahoma, and Florida. Interestingly enough, this will be the third straight season Tennessee’s preseason win total projection has fallen from the previous season. In 2024, it was 9.5 wins. Following Nico Iamaleava’s stunning spring departure the following season, it was 8.5 wins. With an additional conference game and an early road game on The Flats against Georgia Tech this season, it’s down to 7.5 wins.

Even with the additional conference game on the docket, and no Joey Aguilar or big-time, veteran transfer quarterback under center, that 7.5 total feels about right. 6.5 was too low, but 8.5 would have been too high. Head football coach Josh Heupel has won fewer than eight games just once at Tennessee. Even with so much change this offseason, particularly on defense and the defensive coaching staff, along with the uncertainty at quarterback, Heupel has earned the benefit of the doubt.

Share

However, one of the major worries I have about Tennessee’s schedule next season is the long wait before the first bye week for the Vols. Whether it’s redshirt freshman George MacIntyre or true freshman Faizon Brandon under center, they will face Texas, Auburn, Arkansas, Alabama, and South Carolina before that first bye week. What makes the slate a bit easier – although easier feels like the wrong word there – is that the games against the Longhorns, Tigers, and Crimson Tide all take place in the friendly confines of Neyland Stadium. It’s fair to project that Arkansas and South Carolina, the two road games for Tennessee during that stretch, will be the weakest of the bunch amongst that group this fall.

Share

It’s a better year to get Arkansas, South Carolina, Vanderbilt, and Georgia Tech on the road. The Hawgs will look vastly different under new head coach Ryan Silverfield, with a projected win total of 4.5. The Gamecocks are already dealing with brutal injury luck on the offensive line with a projected win total of 5.5. The Commodores will go from a 24-year-old Heisman-worthy player at quarterback in Diego Pavia to an 18-year-old true freshman in Jared Curtis with a projected win total of 6.5. The Yellow Jackets lost their brilliant offensive coordinator, Buster Faulkner, to Florida, and their three-year starter at quarterback, Haynes King, who exhausted his eligibility with a projected win total of 6.5. This is not to say that I expect the Vols to beat all of these teams on the road this fall. However, outside of Tennessee’s visit to College Station on November 14 against Texas A&M, it’s not all that crazy to envision a world where Heupel’s team is favored in the majority of these ball games.

Tennessee will certainly have its hands full in Knoxville, though. Texas, LSU, and Alabama all have College Football Playoff aspirations and expectations. All might be favored the week they travel to Knoxville. One of the stranger aspects of Tennessee’s 2025 season was how the Vols fared at home. After not losing a home game in the 2022, 2023, and 2024 seasons, the Vols went 1-3 at home against conference foes in 2025. Their lone home win against SEC competition was a one-score win over Arkansas. If you’re a glass-half-full person, you point to the Georgia loss in early September as to how advantageous playing in Neyland against big-time competition can still be, even in a down year. Is there a Tennessee fan or analyst who would have predicted before the season that the Vols’ best showing at home last year would be against Kirby Smart’s Bulldogs?

I suspect not, but that’s what happened. Sure, the result was not what any Vol fan hoped for, but for the first time in the Heupel era, Tennessee gave the Dawgs fits for four quarters. Aguilar tossed four touchdown passes and threw for nearly 400 yards. Chris Brazzell II had his breakout game against the back-to-back SEC champions with six catches for 177 yards and three scores. Yes, Tennessee did not win the ball game, but the Vols throwing all over the Dawgs for the first time in the Heupel vs. Smart series was an important development both for the team and the fanbase.

Before that ball game in September, Heupel had beaten Alabama twice. He had beaten Florida twice. He led the Vols to the College Football Playoff. He finished a season with the No. 1 scoring offense in FBS. He just hadn’t pushed Smart’s Bulldogs for four quarters. Of course, the Dawgs ultimately prevailed with a fourth-down throw for the ages, but the Vols were right there, in Neyland Stadium, to beat the team that would ultimately win the SEC once again.

Give a gift subscription

Iamaleava did not lose a home game at Tennessee. Sure, the 2026 home slate is a lot tougher than the 2024 home slate, but it is workable. The Longhorns nearly fell to Kentucky and Mississippi State last season. LSU went 0-4 on the road in SEC play last season, albeit with a different coach. Lane Kiffin has been really good on the road in SEC play the last couple of seasons at Ole Miss, 5-3 overall, but winning on the road in this conference is hard. The Crimson Tide has traveled to Knoxville three times in the Heupel era, and they’ve lost all three ball games. Neyland Stadium is going to be rocking, particularly early, when Arch Manning and Texas visit Knoxville on September 26 to begin SEC play. That matters for those coin-flip, one-score games.

I don’t think the CFP is in the cards for Tennessee in 2026, but I do think the schedule is more workable than it might appear after a first glance. The Vols catch some teams on the road at a good time. The Vols catch some teams at home at a good time, too. The grind before the first bye week is a bit worrisome, but the Vols, particularly with Jim Knowles installed as the team’s new defensive coordinator, should hover around the eight-win mark this fall. A nine-win season with a nine-game conference schedule and a freshman quarterback would be dynamite, no question, but it’s a march to eight wins in the regular season for me, and while that would match last year’s disappointing final win total, the context could not be more different. Eight wins in the regular season this year would be a whole lot different than eight wins in the regular season last year.

Leave a comment

If you enjoy what you read today in the college football sports section, consider becoming a subscriber below. You can select which sections of the newsletter you’d like to get emails from here.

Subscribe now

This season, the North Dakota State Bison will play in the Mountain West Conference. A wild sentence to both write and, for longtime college football fans reading this, to read, too. Indeed, the longtime FCS juggernauts, winners of 10 FCS titles since 2011, are the latest storied program to move up from the FCS ranks into the FBS. It’s a new challenge for the Bison, and it will be interesting to see how head football coach Tim Polasek guides his team into uncharted waters next season at the next level. However, you may have missed another storied FCS program, the Delaware Fightin’ Blue Hens, winners of six titles at the FCS & Division-II level, made this same leap to FBS last season. In his fourth season as the head football coach at his alma mater, Ryan Carty led the Fightin’ Blue Hens to seven wins and a 68 Ventures Bowl victory over Louisiana.

Subscribe now

The Delaware football program has been mighty successful for a long time now. Carty is 33-17 in his four seasons, which includes two nine-win seasons back-to-back in 2023 and 2024. Temple head football coach K.C. Keeler was a longtime coach and former player at Delaware and won the 2003 FCS national championship over then-undefeated Colgate, 40-0, at Finley Stadium in Chattanooga. Overall, Keeler went 86-52 as the head man of the Fightin’ Blue Hens. Before Keeler, legendary Delaware coach Tubby Raymond won 300 games and three national championships. In between Keeler and Carty, the Fightin’ Blue Hens wandered the wilderness a bit, going 40-46 across those nine seasons.

Share Sports Renaissance Man

Under Carty, Delaware football is rolling again. It’s easy to forget that even though Keeler went 15-1 and won a national championship in 2003, where Carty was the backup quarterback, he only won nine or more games one other time in his first five seasons in Newark. Carty has averaged eight wins a season over his first four. Keeler averaged eight wins a season over his first five seasons as well. The Keeler-Carty Connection has proven time and time again to be a consistent winner at Delaware.

One of the major reasons for the Fightin’ Blue Hens’ success in their first season in FBS stemmed from their lethal passing attack. Delaware passed for 293 yards per game, good for sixth in all of FBS. To put that into context, Josh Heupel’s electric passing attack with Joey Aguilar in 2025 was one spot ahead of Carty’s Blue Hens. There were only seven teams in the FBS that attempted more than 40 passes per game, and the Fightin’ Blue Hens were one of them.

Share

How have the Fightin’ Blue Hens been such a thorn in the side for opposing defenses through the air?

“It’s been something we’ve always been able to do successfully,” Carty told me in an interview on Thursday afternoon. “I think we’ve always been one of the better passing teams in the country. I think it’s just a product of what the scheme looks like and the variety of it. It’s also how we recruit the right people.”

Share Sports Renaissance Man

It also has to do with the quarterback play under Carty, a former quarterback himself. You’re not going to have a prolific passing attack without a prolific passing quarterback.

Carty noted that one of the perhaps more overlooked aspects of Delaware’s success through the air is the amount of time his quarterbacks who play for him have spent in his system. “It’s been a long time since I played somebody who was a true freshman or a true transfer right away. It matters in our system. It does. You’re going to be better when you’ve been in it for a little bit because there’s so much nuance and there’s so much install. We do drop back [to] pass more than most teams in the country. It’s not just an RPO operation or a quick-game operation. It’s mainly drop-back pass, and we run Four Verticals a lot. We do things some other teams don’t do as much.”

That prolific offense was on full display early in the 2025-26 season for Delaware when the Fightin’ Blue Hens stunned the Connecticut Huskies and Jim Mora at home in their third game as an FBS program. Led by quarterback Nick Minicucci, in his third season at Delaware under Carty, threw all over the Huskies for an efficient final line of 23-for-34, 265 yards, one touchdown, and no interceptions. Best of all, Minicucci won the game for the Fightin’ Blue Hens in overtime with a quarterback scamper that went for six in walk-off fashion.

Minicucci finished sixth in FBS in total passing yards last season and threw for 250-plus yards in 10 of Delaware’s thirteen ball games. The Fightin’ Blue Hens played in six games decided by one score or less and went 4-2. So Carty and his Fightin’ Blue Hens were just a couple of plays away from winning nine-plus games for three consecutive seasons.

Carty is used to winning. He won as a player for Keeler at Delaware in the early 2000s. He won as a coach under Keeler at Sam Houston State. He’s won since returning to Delaware as the Fightin’ Blue Hens head football coach. It stands to reason he would like to win a lot more in Newark.

It was a huge achievement for the program to go bowling in its first season in the FBS. Now, how does Carty get his guys ready to build off that success in Year 2? Carty told me, “What I said after the season, I mean, and I would say it again right now. Not one person came to this place, the University of Delaware, to go 6-6. I understand that makes us bowl-eligible, and I understand that’s a huge feat. Don’t get me wrong, how excited we were to be in a bowl was unbelievable. The invitation that we got and the experience that we had was amazing. The fact that we got a chance to go down there and compete and win it was outstanding and so good for our program, so great for our players, our guys deserved it. This department and this university and this community deserved it because of the support that we’ve had in this transition.”

Subscribe now

Carty has been a part of championship-winning teams both as a coach at Sam Houston State and as a player at Delaware. He knows what it takes to win at the highest level wants to win at the highest level in Newark. Carty continued, “But it’s not what I got into coaching for. It’s not what, you know, I took the head-coaching job at the University of Delaware for was not to be .500. And so, you know, I don’t think there’s a person in our building that thinks that way, and so that means we have to work at it because winning is really hard and winning takes what it takes. There’s no choosing how hard you want to work on a day. There’s choosing if you want to win on Saturdays in the fall or Wednesdays or Thursdays, or Tuesdays or whenever we’re playing. That’s what you’re choosing. And so each day as we lead up to this that’s the message is, ‘Are we doing enough today to beat, you know, the teams that we’re are going to play on Saturdays in September, and Wednesdays in October and then in Championship Month in November?’ because, you know, that’s what we need right now is to kind of level up and continue to grow and continue to develop and every part of our offense and defense and special teams and every phase we need to get better. And so, we need to get better as coaches, we need to get better as players, we need to get better as support staff, there’s nobody that’s ever resting in Newark, Delaware.”

Carty made the transition from FCS to FBS look a whole lot easier than it is last season at Delaware. He won more games than he lost in his first season as an FBS head football coach. The same was true in each of the three seasons before when he was an FCS head football coach.

James Madison first played FBS football in 2023, and they made the College Football Playoff two seasons later. Could Carty guide the Fightin’ Blue Hens to similar heights in the next couple of seasons in Newark? Only time will tell, but history suggests it wouldn’t be wise to bet against the young, rising coaching star in the C-USA. Similar to what former Dukes head coach Curt Cignetti told folks when he first arrived in Bloomington, he wins. Google him.

Leave a comment

If you enjoy what you read today in the college football sports section, consider becoming a subscriber below. You can select which sections of the newsletter you’d like to get emails from here.

Subscribe now

I came across a brutal statistic on the recent futility of the University of South Carolina athletics yesterday. The post came from Inside The Gamecocks on X, who highlighted just how bad things have been for Gamecock football, baseball, and men’s basketball since the first day of 2025. In baseball, the Gamecocks are 7-5 with losses to Army, Northern Kentucky, Queens, and just lost two of three in the Palmetto Series against in-state rival Clemson. After finishing tied for second in the SEC standings in men’s hoops in the 2023-24 season, the men’s basketball program has won five SEC games over the last two seasons and is quite likely to finish last in the conference in back-to-back seasons. After just missing the College Football Playoff in the 2024-25 season, the football program went 1-7 in the SEC in 2025-26 and finished fifteenth in the conference.

That’s tough.

That last line of that first paragraph stuck with me, though. The Gamecocks under head football coach Shane Beamer nearly qualified for the CFP two seasons ago. South Carolina finished that season fifteenth in ESPN’s FPI and was ninth in defensive efficiency. Only Texas and Tennessee had better defenses versus SEC competition than the Gamecocks two seasons ago, per CFBStats. BCFToys’ model liked Beamer’s team a bit more than ESPN’s, as his team finished No. 11 in FEI. The defense was playoff-worthy, but even with LaNorris Sellars’ emergence that season, the Gamecocks finished 42nd OFEI in stark contrast to that No. 8 finish in DFEI.

Subscribe now

South Carolina has had two completely different seasons over the last two years. For Beamer’s team to get back to the 2024-25 version, the addition of Kendal Briles as offensive coordinator needs to be one of the best coordinator hires of the cycle. ESPN’s Bill Connelly released his final 2025-26 SP+ rankings, and the Gamecocks finished in familiar territory – the defense much higher than the offense at 31st and 86th, respectively. Briles will be the third offensive coordinator in the last three seasons under Beamer. The latter has now had four different offensive coordinators since arriving in Columbia in 2021. Under Briles as offensive coordinator last season, the TCU Horned Frogs had a top-10 passing offense, per CFBStats. In fact, the Horned Frogs had a top-10 passing attack in each of the last two seasons. Even with Spencer Rattler and Sellers, the Gamecocks’ passing offense has never flirted with a top-10 finish in FBS under Beamer. The Briles-and-Sellers pairing is one of the more fascinating SEC storylines to monitor over the six months.

Share

The Gamecocks may have had a no-good-and-quite-terrible season in 2025-26, but over the last four seasons under Beamer, the team has bounced back twice after disappointing seasons. After smacking Tennessee and Clemson to close 2022 with some momentum, the Gamecocks went 5-7 the next season and didn’t make a bowl game. Then Beamer’s program went on to win nine games the following season. With a returning quarterback projected to potentially go as high as No. 1 in the 2026 NFL Draft, the Gamecocks went 4-8 and won just one conference game.

So Sellers is back. If he and Briles recreate some of that 2024-25 magic in Columbia, the Gamecocks could potentially have two first-round picks in Sellers and edge Dylan Stewart in next year’s draft. The Gamecocks’ biggest transfer portal addition came at a position of need at offensive tackle in former NC State offensive lineman Jacarrius Peak. Last season, left tackle Josiah Thompson struggled mightily in pass protection as he finished the season with a 46.6 PFF grade in pass-blocking snaps. With the Wolfpack last season, Peak registered a strong 84.1 PFF grade in pass-blocking snaps. How Peak fares in South Carolina’s nine conference games is of paramount importance for Beamer’s team next season.

There are a lot of questions at the skill-positions on offense once again for South Carolina, though. Outside wideout Nyck Harbor is back, along with solid slot guys in Jayden Sellers and Mazeo Bennett. Nitro Tuggle, formerly at Georgia and Purdue, is back in the SEC as a Gamecock. Does he make a move and start alongside Harbor on the outside? After last season’s Rahsul Faison debacle, you don’t really know what South Carolina has at running back, either. If the offensive line improves and a receiver and running back or two hit, you don’t have to squint too terribly hard to see a bounce-back year for the Gamecocks.

Give a gift subscription

On the schedule front, South Carolina has a 2026 schedule that should excite the fanbase. There is a very real chance this team is 4-1 when they head to Gainesville on October 10. They get Tennessee, Texas A&M, and Georgia all at Williams-Brice Stadium. Traveling to Death Valley to close has never looked more winnable. It’s a schedule where one could see the Gamecocks reaching the eight-win threshold.

The pressure will be on this football program in 2026, though. The men’s basketball program and baseball program might both have new head coaches this time next year. For Beamer, he made a needed change at offensive coordinator. He retained Sellers and Stewart, and his schedule looks conducive to a nice bounce-back season. This fanbase has watched a lot of losses pile up over the last calendar year, though, and the pressure will be on for Beamer to flip the script next season.

Leave a comment

If you enjoy what you read today in the Vols sports section, consider becoming a subscriber below. You can select which sections of the newsletter you’d like to get emails from here.

Subscribe now

Sure, it’s only mid-February, but that does not mean that it is too early to be thinking about Tennessee football position rooms going into next season. The quarterback room looks a lot different. The defensive line looks a lot different. The secondary looks a lot different.

Let’s dive into how I feel about each position room at this point in the offseason.

Wide Receiver

This time last year, lots of folks were nervous about this position room. It wasn’t due to a lack of talent, but rather a lack of proven production and, really, a lack of adequate bodies. The Vols were fortunate in more ways than one with this room, as Chris Brazzell II broke out as the lone returning upperclassman, and Braylon Staley proved to be the best all-around slot man head football coach Josh Heupel has had at Tennessee. The Vols earned the benefit of the doubt with this room, particularly with so many blue-chippers in this room that include two returning starters in Staley and Mike Matthews. Since this position group does not rotate like the Vols do on the defensive line, for this to be an elite unit again in 2026, one of Radarious Jackson, Travis Smith Jr., or freshman five-star Tristen Keys needs to pop. I feel pretty good that with how talented all three blue-chip players are, at least one will make it work alongside Staley and Matthews to form a dangerous and fun trio out wide in Knoxville this fall.

Guard & Center

Wendell Moe Jr., Sam Pendleton, and Jesse Perry are all back for the Vols this fall along the interior of the offensive line. The biggest return of that group is Moe, who transferred in from Arizona last season and showcased his versatility at both left and right guard. Moe was the 37th-best guard in FBS last season, per PFF. Pendleton didn’t have quite the debut season in Knoxville after transferring in from Notre Dame, but as a four-star transfer who played a lot of snaps in a very different system than what they run in South Bend, it’s fair to assume a jump there. Perry, who can play tackle or guard, has been a fantastic recruting success story for Elarbee. He more than held his own at right tackle with David Sanders out last year, but the hope this year is that he sticks at right guard or right tackle. Then you still have Sham Umarov, who played a lot of snaps last season back and brought in West Virginia transfer Donovan Haslam for even more proven depth along the interior of the offensive line. We might not know who will be Tennessee’s best five starting offensive linemen just yet, but there is a lot more depth along the interior than at offensive tackle.

Cornerback

Ty Redmond was thrust into action as a true freshman last season due to the injuries ahead of him on the depth chart. It looks to have paid dividends for the talented former Milton star sophomore. He finished the season with a 78.2 PFF coverage grade and snagged three interceptions. Across from him, you have a multitude of options that include a multi-year starter at Auburn in Kayin Lee. It could also be Jadais Richards, who transferred in from Miami, or even a wildcard returning young player like Tre Poteat or Tim Merritt. It’s a nice mix of talent with one sure-thing, a couple of intriguing veterans, and a couple of intriguing underclassmen. Again, with how little this room has rotated in the past, Tennessee’s depth here is just fine.

Share

Linebacker

Can a position room have too much depth? We’re going to find out with the linebacker room at Tennessee. With the surprise return of Arion Carter to the room, along with Penn State transfer Amare Campbell, how linebackers coach William Inge handles the rotation behind the two projected starters will be one of the most fascinating things to watch this offseason. The Vols will also return Jeremiah Telander, Edwin Spillman, Jadon Perlotte, Jaedon Harmon, Ben Bolton, and bring in two more freshman blue-chippers in Brayden Rouse and T.J. White for good measure. The cliche is that this is a good problem to have, particularly in the transfer portal era, to have so much talent stacked behind one another. You still have to develop these guys, though, and there just won’t be enough snaps to go around if this is a healthy group this fall, even with how much Inge likes to rotate. I feel good about this room being the best it’s been in a long time at Tennessee, but who that includes after Carter and Campbell could not be less clear here in mid-February.

Tight End

It’s Ethan Davis’s moment in tight ends coach Alec Abeln’s room in 2026. The former Collins Hill star athlete is The Guy at tight end. Davis finished strong for the Vols down the stretch last season, particularly in the passing game. If he’s able to stay healthy and DaSaahn Brame evolves as a run and pass-blocker to pair with his elite receiving skillset, this room could prove to be one of the best rooms on the team next season. Davis racked up fifteen targets in the final two regular-season games for the Vols and made the most of his increased role. He brought in 12 receptions for 157 yards and a score. He graded well in pass-protection last year, per PFF, and is quietly due for a special season in 2026.

Subscribe now

Quarterback

Quarterback can never be too far down the list under Heupel. It’s certainly a room defined by its uncertainty, but like we saw at wideout last year, that’s not inherently a negative. Whether it’s George MacIntyre or Faizon Brandon under center, the Vols have two former five-star recruits in the fold who will spend the next six months in a real, old-school competition. Would this room be a bit higher if the veteran in the room weren’t Ryan Staub? Sure, but it was always going to be hard to add a higher-profile veteran to this room, same as it was in 2024 with Nico Iamaleava. That didn’t prove to matter then, either, as the Vols won double-digit games and made the College Football Playoff.

Running Back

This, I would suspect, is the biggest shock to most Vol fans who read this piece. Yes, it’s great to get DeSean Bishop back for another season in Knoxville. The former Karns legend has been an awesome hometown story, and he had his best season yet for the Vols last season as the team’s top tailback. It’s what’s behind him that’s more of the worry. Former Oakland standout Duane Morris figures to be the new No. 2 behind Bishop, but he didn’t get the same kind of snaps as a true freshman that Jaylen Wright got in 2021 or Dylan Sampson got in 2022. I’d feel better about this position room overall had Morris played more last season, particularly with Peyton Lewis, who transfered to Virginia this offseason, never getting comfortable in the offense across two seasons. Last offseason, you added a veteran, one-year transfer in Star Thomas. This offseason, you didn’t take a tailback in the high school ranks, and your transfer addition, Javin Gordon, was a true freshman at Tulane last season. The Vols also return former Buford star Justin Baker, too. Tennessee threw the football a lot more than usual in 2025, with a redshirt freshman or true freshman likely under center in 2026, you would think the Vols would like to get back to a more balanced attack and run the football more. I’m just not sure that’s plausible, particularly if this room deals with any injury issues.

Defensive End & LEO

It’s been a while since we’ve been this uncertain about Tennessee’s LEOs and defensive ends. Last year, it was depth along the interior of the defensive line that was the worry for Rodney Garner’s unit. This year, that’s still the case, but with Joshua Josephs and Dominic Bailey off to the NFL along with Jordan Ross and Caleb Herring hitting the transfer portal, there are lots of unknowns every on the Vols’ defensive line in 2026. Penn State transfer LEO Chaz Coleman and Tulane transfer LEO Jordan Norman could certainly be more productive than Herring or Ross would have been at the LEO spot for Tennessee next season, but we just don’t know. Marion Dye and Christian Gass are still in the fold as two former big-time blue-chippers at DE and LEO, respectively. I could envision a scenario where this position room rises in my rankings fast next season, depending on how Coleman and Dye perform early for the Vols.

Offensive Tackle

This is another one of those spots where Elarbee deserves the benefit of the doubt. Even without true freshman star recruit David Sanders to start last season Perry thrived in the former’s absence. In 2022, he made it work with JJ Crawford and Gerald Mincey opposite of Darnell Wright. There are a lot of unknowns and not a lot of depth at this spot in 2026, though. Sanders was good at right tackle last season, but he’s moving over to the left side against a tougher SEC schedule this year as a true sophomore. On the opposite side, is it LSU transfer Ory Williams? Is it Perry? Bennett Warren transferred to Minnesota. Lance Heard transferred to Kentucky. If Sanders, Williams and Perry are healthy, it’s not a huge concern, but, you do not have to squint too hard to see a scenario where things get dicey in a hurry if this position room has any sort of bad injury luck in 2026. Shaky tackle depth with a redshirt freshman or true freshman at quarterback is not where you want to be when you’re trying to have a bounce-back season.

Safety

I really didn’t know where to place this room in the rankings. There is just so much turnover here both with who is coaching the room now in Anthony Poindexter, but also the projected starters in TJ Metcalf and Dejuan Lane. There is absolutely a scenario where Edrees Farooq beats out Lane to start alongside Metcalf, but there is just so much unknown on the back end of this in mid-February. You also have Kansas State transfer Qua Moss in the nickel spot now, too. I think this room will be better than last year’s room, but, man, it’s so hard to project in mid-February with so much change.

Give a gift subscription

Defensive Tackle

I very much hope I’m wrong here. I think two things can be true: 1) This is an extremely talented room that I would project as one of the best for Tennessee next season and 2) This is an extremely inexperienced room that I project to be one of the worst for Tennessee next season. There are so many high-quality blue-chip players in this room that includes Isaiah Campbell, Ethan Utley, JJ Finch, Dereon Albert and Darryl Rivers, among a few others. Tennessee’s biggest miss this transfer portal cycle was not adding one more experienced veteran to pair with Penn State transfer Xavier Gilliam along with Daevin Hobbs and Nathan Robinson. Hobbs is the safest bet to be the best player in this room this year, and they need him to be a gamewrecker, particularly rushing the passer. Gilliam was solid in 379 snaps last season in Happy Valley, but he had just one sack and 12 tackles overall. Tennessee really needs him to take a leap alongside Hobbs and Robinson to take the pressure off the Vols’ talent young guys behind them. A lot of is riding on Hobbs and Robinson being able to stay healthy, particularly early on to keep the pressure off Gilliam and the young guys. If they’re healthy, Gilliam takes a step, and one of Campbell or Utley breakout this group can be really good really fast. I could also see this being the shakiest this position room has been in the Heupel era in Knoxville.

Leave a comment

If you enjoy what you read today in the Vols sports section, consider becoming a subscriber below. You can select which sections of the newsletter you’d like to get emails from here.

Subscribe now

There are many different ways to view Tennessee’s impending quarterback competition over the next six months. With Joey Aguilar seemingly out of the starting quarterback picture after his failed preliminary injunction bid last week in Knox County, the Vols are likely to turn to redshirt freshman George MacIntyre or true freshman Faizon Brandon as the Big Orange’s starting quarterback this fall.

On one hand, you certainly knew what you had in Aguilar, but on the other hand, with MacIntyre and Brandon, you have two complete unknowns. It’s important to remember that unknowns are not inherently negative, and this quarterback battle between two big-time former blue-chip recruits could certainly result in the Vols finally securing their first multi-year starter through the high school ranks under head football coach Josh Heupel.

Subscribe now

One of the biggest reasons Tennessee fans have been so concerned about going with either MacIntyre or Brandon in 2026 rather than Aguilar is the daunting schedule, at least ostensibly, that lies ahead for the Vols. However, think of how quickly one team’s fortunes can change on a dime in this sport. It’s never been harder to project how most teams will replicate what they accomplished the previous season.

That game at Bobby Dodd Stadium might look scary early against Georgia Tech, but star quarterback Haynes King is gone, and head football coach Brent Key will be breaking in a new offensive coordinator on The Flats. The Yellow Jackets could be in for a mighty step-back in 2026. Vanderbilt, who embarrassed you at Neyland Stadium last fall, will, in all likelihood, be working through the ups and downs of playing their own true freshman quarterback in Jared Curtis. Texas has had an impressive offseason, sure, but this team also should have lost to Mississippi State and Kentucky last season. LSU was expected to be a CFP team in 2025. Instead, the wins never came, and Brian Kelly was fired. You get Alabama at home, who you haven’t lost to inside Neyland Stadium under Heupel.

In all, there are four first-year coaches at their new school on Tennessee’s schedule, all within the SEC. This 2026 schedule appears to be more daunting than the last two seasons, but once the season gets rolling, these sorts of things can change in a hurry.

The Vols also lost five games last year. They weren’t because of Aguilar, but the team made seismic changes this offseason to ensure the same result does not happen again.

So Tennessee hired defensive coordinator Jim Knowles and strength & conditioning coach Derek Owings. After losing the most games since his debut season in Knoxville in 2021, Heupel took two big-time swings that could and should pay major dividends around his new quarterback, whoever that ultimately turns out to be this fall.

In all five losses last season, the Vols’ defense gave up thirty or more points. They gave up 30-plus points in eight of their 10 games against P4 competition on the whole last season. In 2024, the year Tennessee made the CFP, with a redshirt freshman under center, the Vols gave up thirty-plus points twice and lost both games to Georgia and Ohio State. The Vols had a top-10 scoring offense for the first time since 2022, and they still lost five games. For the second time under Heupel, Tennessee was the only P4 team to finish in the top-10 in scoring offense and not win ten-plus games. The Vols were 91st in 2025 and 90th in 2021, the two seasons where the offense finished in the top-10 in FBS, and they did not win double-digit games. Quite simply, the effect that Knowles and Owings have on Tennessee over the next six months is a much bigger deal for the Vols’ 2026 outlook than who is under center.

Share

The returning offensive production around either MacIntyre or Brandon also matters. While former Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava did have the benefit of a star workhorse tailback in Dylan Sampson behind him to help him along as a redshirt freshman starter, he did not have the weapons at wideout and even tight end that either MacIntyre or Brandon will have at their disposal. With two returning, productive wideout starters in Braylon Staley and Mike Matthews, in addition to the return of Ethan Davis and Da’Saahn Brame at tight end, and incoming five-star freshman Tristan Keys, a Second-Team All-SEC tailback in DeSean Bishop, and as many as five returning starters across the offensive line, the offensive cupboard isn’t bare for either of the two talented freshman.

Timing is everything in life and in sports. The timing of hiring strength & conditioning coach Owings away from Indiana, who just won the national championship, in the same offseason that you have 31 incoming true freshmen and 21 incoming transfers, should matter a great deal. The other is a huge change in who is calling the defense for the Vols this fall. Had you thrown either MacIntyre or Brandon into the fray with a scoring defense in the 90s, that would have felt like a recipe for disaster. Instead, the duo will go into next season with an experienced and proven defensive play-caller who should raise the floor for what that unit can be in 2026. I don’t think it’s fair to expect 2024-levels of production, but even with Penn State’s 2025 implosion, which led to an in-season firing for James Franklin, the unit still finished in the top-30 and gave the Nittany Lions a huge opportunity to upset Indiana in Happy Valley at one point in the year. The previous two seasons in Columbus, Knowles’ scoring defenses finished No. 1 and No. 2, respectively. It would be a major surprise if Tennessee’s scoring defense does not improve to a large degree next season.

There is a precedent within this own conference of freshman and redshirt freshman quarterbacks thriving, too. DJ Lagway went 5-1 as a starter in 2024, his only blemish being a loss to the Georgia Bulldogs, a game where he left with the lead. Marcel Reed went 7-3 in the regular season as a redshirt freshman in 2024. LaNorris Sellers’ best season as a Gamecock came in 2024, as a redshirt freshman. You can look over at the Big Ten, where Michigan has found success sticking with their young, in-house blue-chippers in J.J. McCarthy and Bryce Underwood. Drew Allar went 10-3 as a starter his sophomore season at Penn State. Demond Williams Jr. went 9-4 as a sophomore and threw for over 3,000 yards at Washington.

Share Sports Renaissance Man

Tennessee is not in uncharted waters here — even better, they have two blue-chip quarterbacks to compete for one spot. In 2021, Joe Milton beat out Hendon Hooker for the QB1 job to begin that season. Milton, of course, did not play well out of the gate and got hurt, which opened the door for Hooker to take the job and run with it. The same could happen between MacIntyre and Brandon, where whoever wins the job in fall camp doesn’t hold the job once the actual games start and the bullets start flying. That’s the beauty of recruiting well and stocking multiple extremely talented, high-upside guys like MacIntyre and Brandon. Their talent is obvious, and every Tennessee fan should feel good about Heupel and his offensive staff finding their long-term solution at quarterback this fall. It may not have worked that way with Iamaleava, but there is a great chance and a great opportunity for the Vols to check one of those final boxes in the Heupel era in Knoxville – develop an in-house, multi-year starter at quarterback with a high ceiling. The only thing better for Tennessee fans if either prospect flourishes this fall for the Big Orange is how much better everybody would then feel about 2027 and 2028.

I don’t know who will be QB1 after the dust settles in Knoxville this fall, but it’s a good bet that whoever it is will have not only earned it but also fought through a mighty tough schedule and is now better off for it in 2027 and beyond. There’s nothing more exciting as a football fan than finding your long-term answer at quarterback.

Not a thing.

With Aguilar out and either MacIntyre or Brandon in, Tennessee is in a fantastic spot to provide fans with that very feeling this fall.

Leave a comment

If you enjoy what you read today in the TN SRM section, consider becoming a subscriber below. You can select which sections of the newsletter you’d like to get emails from here.

Subscribe now

Team transfer portal report cards delivered in mid-February should be taken with a grain of salt. We can like what Tennessee football did this cycle, as I did, and still understand that I do not have a clue which new transfer will pop and which will not for the Vols next season. The Vols went 5-for-7 in the transfer portal last cycle, and hit home runs with Colton Hood, Joey Aguilar, and Wendell Moe in particular. Star Thomas was one of those hits for Tennessee, even though he had an up-and-down season in Knoxville. He was a valuable rotation piece alongside DeSean Bishop and Peyton Lewis. Thomas has moved on to the professional ranks, though, and Lewis hit the transfer portal and is now at Virginia. While Tennessee did take a tailback in Tulane’s Javin Gordon, it’s fair to wonder about the running back room next season.

Subscribe now

One of the key differences between the Gordon addition this cycle and the Thomas addition the last cycle is age and production. Thomas had rushed for over 2,000 yards at the FBS level when he arrived as a senior last year. Gordon entered the transfer portal after his first season at Tulane. He rushed for a little over 500 yards and five touchdowns. Thomas was more of a plug-and-play veteran to pair with Bishop and Lewis in 2025. How Gordon fits in with Bishop, Duane Morris, and Justin Baker is more up in the air. Suddenly, Tennessee’s tailback room is extremely young and inexperienced behind its workhorse in Bishop. With Tennessee not taking a running back in their 2026 recruiting class, Gordon, still a true freshman, sits somewhere in the middle as a recruit and transfer at Tennessee.

Share

There were a couple of other big names whopopped up in the transfer portal this cycle at tailback. Hollywood Smothers out NC State was one, Justice Haynes out of Michigan was another. The latter was a big name in the transfer portal cycle the previous year, too, as he transferred from Tuscaloosa to Ann Arbor. Both were extremely productive at their previous stops, with Haynes’ last game as a Wolverine including 26 carries for 158 yards and two touchdowns. Smothers did the majority of his damage early in the season for NC State, but he still finished the season averaging nearly 6 YPC. Haynes is on his third school in three years, this time returning to his home state to play for Georgia Tech. Smothers is at Texas along with former Arizona State tailback Raleek Brown, as the Longhorns took two tailbacks that were On3’s top-5 tailbacks in the transfer portal this cycle.

Give a gift subscription

Tennessee did not take a player like Smothers or Haynes, two highly productive veterans who are likely NFL-bound if next season goes their way. Gordon is, ostensibly, a multi-year swing for the Vols. Bishop played the workhorse back role well last season with his 182 carries. Only Dylan Sampson has carried the rock more times in one season in the Josh Heupel era, with his 258 carries in 2024. With Thomas out and Gordon in, along with Lewis and his 134 combined carries over the last two seasons, there is even less certainty about what the rotation looks like behind the former Karns star. With a Smothers or a Haynes as a one-year proven solution, you would not have to squint too hard to see a healthy three-man rotation at tailback with Bishop, Smothers, or Haynes, and one of Gordon, Morris, and Baker.

But Tennessee hasn’t rotated at tailback the last two seasons, something the team did often in the first three under Heupel. It might be a coincidence that in back-to-back seasons, Tennessee has had a huge gap in carries between its No. 1 and No. 2 guys. Tennessee had a top-10 scoring offense in FBS last season with Bishop as their workhorse. It’s fair to project that if Aguilar is granted another year of eligibility, the Vols will have another top-10 scoring offense in FBS, which would be four instances across six seasons under Heupel.

Tennessee did not have to add a big name like Smothers or Haynes. Even if they had, it would not be a guarantee that any of those top names would hit in Knoxville. Last season, only two of the top five tailbacks in On3’s transfer portal running back rankings popped at their new school, the aforementioned Haynes and Ahmad Hardy. The latter was the best addition of the bunch out of UL-Monroe, who ran for 1,600 last season at Missouri. Jaydyn Ott and Rahsul Faison both did not hit at their new SEC schools, and the No. 1 overall tailback in the cycle, Tulane’s Makhi Hughes, did not pop at Oregon and transferred to Houston.

One of the biggest reasons it would have made sense for Tennessee to splurge on a proven, one-year veteran in 2026 is the uncertainty at quarterback. As of this writing, no decision has been made on Aguilar’s 2026 eligibility. If he is granted another year to play football at Tennessee, the tailback depth is less of a talking point. If he isn’t, and the Vols roll with either redshirt freshman George MacIntyre or true freshman Faizon Brandon, the tailback depth should become more of a talking point. In the NFL, smart teams do everything they can to surround their young, franchise quarterbacks with team-friendly rookie deals while they can. Bishop is a good player, but Morris did not get the kind of freshman snaps that Jaylen Wright did in 2021 or even Sampson did in 2022. Aguilar’s 404 pass attempts last season were the most by any Tennessee quarterback under Heupel. Again, tailback depth will not matter as much if Aguilar gets his additional year. If not, the Vols will have to run the ball much more in 2026 to protect MacIntyre or Brandon.

Tennessee has finished in the top 20 in rushing more often than not under Heupel. However, the Vols finished 53rd nationally last season, their lowest mark under Heupel. It’s tricky, though, as Tennessee’s passing offense was a constant struggle in 2023 and 2024, while its rushing attack was in the top 10 both seasons. The Vols’ best two scoring seasons coincided with also being in the top-10 in passing offense in 2022 and 2025. The Vols did not have to add a Smothers or a Haynes in the transfer portal this cycle, or even a Cam Cook, but if it’s not Aguilar next season, you wonder more about the identity of the offense. Could Bishop do for MacIntyre or Brandon what Sampson did for Iamaleava in 2024? If Aguilar is back, I don’t believe it will matter that Tennessee did not take a veteran tailback in the transfer portal this cycle – if he’s not, though, it might.

Leave a comment