There is no article to link to since I don't really care what the talking heads have to say by and large.. These are the teams that strike me as having tremendous upside that some may be talking about, but they appear to be sliding in under the radar. If these teams go on to have big years, don't count me as surprised. SEC: Arkansas: This is a team that I watched play several times last year. They were mauled by teams like Alabama, Florida and Texas. They lost close games. A lot of them in fact. They dropped 4 games (Kentucky, Ole Miss, Miss State, and South Carolina) by a combined 13 points. That's the difference between them being 9-3 vs 5-7. They had a great RB, an OL that was better than you'd think and a defense that seemed to find ways to play well enough to keep their team in the game. In all of their games, they had one glaring weakness... Quarterback. As teams who have endured years with zero quarterbacks (right fellow ND fans?) can tell you, a lack of a true DI QB can be worse than missing a LT and start LB.. its a major hole. This year Arkansas will have Ryan Mallett who sat our a year after transferring from Michigan. I watched the kid against ND and he looked fantastic. Petrino is an offense first kind of guy and more important, he's a QB kind of coach. Arkansas had a Dick at QB (literally). The hometown fans who interfered in the business of Arkansas football got the lineup that they'd asked for and in return got what they deserved. I think the addition of Mallett as well as the returning lineup of 18 starters who are better than you think (like DT Malcom Sheppard and RB Mike Smith) may prove formidable for the Hogs opponents this year. I thought that, offensively, their glaring weakness was that they couldn't pass to stop teams to stop cheating on the run and they couldn't pass when they had to.. I thought Mallett looked better than Henne at that same age and I think he looks better than the QBs that Petrino had at the Lou.. If Mallett comes up dropping 250-300 ypg on people, they are going to score a whole lot of points and win a whole lot of games.
It will be interesting to see the developement of Mallet under Petrino. He runs the style of offense that should fit Mallets skills to a T, at least he did at Louisville. Does he have good recievers?
Pac10: Oregon. Sure they had a coaching change, but they moved the OC up to the HC spot and that has proven to be a popular move so far with few detractors. The AD is now the former HC Bellotti so there is a friendly face in the Athletic Dept for the football coach. 2 years ago, we saw the Ducks NC title run hopes dashed by an injury to the QB. Once they were able to get the backup up to speed, they annihilated a very good South Florida team in their bowl game. Last year, the Ducks went thru QB after QB in an injury plagued season but the staff seemed more prepared for it. The odd thing is that they just tweeked the offense slightly to suit the strengths of the QB under center and it changed the way the defense keyed the offense.. which meant a lot of people were unprepared to face the Ducks. They scored early, often and easily in a bowl game win over 2009 preseason top 10 Okie State. I know that most of the national media and even local Oregon fans are excited about the return of lumberjack-esque Jeremiah Masoli at QB, but to do so is to lose site of the fact that he was about the 3rd of 4th QB on the depth chart at the start of the season. The defense should be strong and they have several guys in the LB and DB corps that no one in the media seems to talk about, but they will be playing in the NFL. Oregon's success will come down to how the OL gels. They graduated the best center in the country last year to the NFL. They seem to have the talent, but like all OLs everywhere... they have to gel. They have big games against Boise State (away) Cal, Utah and USC.. I understand that the ESPN media likes to slight these games but you don't see others lining up to play them. Last year Oregon was suppose to be rebuilding, and they dropped a 10 win season on the country. This team should be able to do the same and with some breaks, may be playing for more. honorable mention: UCLA
Terry, Yeah they have a lot of vertical threat guys who are big and fast. This is a team that should keep the safeties off the LOS
I absolutely agree with you about Arkansas, Corey. With no one that really reaches out and grabs me in the SEC West, I think the Razorbacks could really surprise. Everyone is talking Ole Miss and I think they will be a team to watch considering they have the best pure passer in the SEC on their team. However, I think they could very easily go into a tailspin and they're not used to having big expectations. Sometimes if you lose one game and you're not used to carrying that burden, things can go south very quickly. Plus they lost a major factor in their success with Michael Oher now in the NFL. Another team that is talked a lot about in the West is Bama and they also lost their bookend in Andre Smith. Say what you want about the reasons for their loss in the Sugar Bowl but those that watched this team throughout the season know that not having Smith there to help the running game was a major factor. Throw in the fact that they lost their four year starter at QB (however uninspiring he may have been) and I think you're looking at a different Bama team. (They also lost Glen Coffee, a major factor in their running game.) Then you have LSU who has as much talent as anyone but I'm still not sold on Les Miles and his ability to actually coach. Adding John Chavis as D-Coord. should greatly improve the D. The Bayou Bengals could very easily run away with the division but there are major questions to be answered despite their huge blowout win over Georgia Tech that a lot of people point to as a reason to like the Tigers. Throw in the fact that Miss. St. is Miss. St. and Auburn is in major rebuilding mode and the recipe is right for Arkansas to surpise. Love him or hate him, Petrino knows how to develop college QBs and his offense works. I agree with Corey and I think it isn't out of the realm of possibility for Arkansas to be in Atlanta in December.
Aquila, I think with all the talk about Tebow and Snead in the SEC, Mallett just may shock those who didn't watch his freshman season at Michigan in which he wound up getting a lot of PT due to Henne's injury, but then also because he played pretty dang well. with Bama, the OL will sink or swim this team. Their defense is going to be just fantastic. With all the hype of Florida's incredible D, folks have lost track of the great D at Alabama that is returning everyone and was mostly frosh/sophs last year. I think they have MUCH better RBs than Coffee and QB... I think they have some good young ones coming but the current guy will just be JPW2.
I agree Arkansas will be next year's version of 2008 Ole Miss. I just hope the UF-Ark game is not a noon kick-off.
Big10: Michigan State. Everyone is talking about Pryor and Ohio State... or Penn State and their joke of a schedule... They wanna know if DickRod will bring the Wolverines back to form if Tate Forcier can run the offense. Will Wisconsin return to greatness or will they continue to slide?? Underneath all of the talking points are the Spartans of Michigan State.. laying their, quiet.. too quiet. They return 14 starters from a pretty darn good team. They have 2 holes.. QB and TB. I thought their QB sucked last year so they figure to go nowhere but up at this position. Their TB carried the offense last year, but rumor has it that they have some great young RBs ready to emerge. D'Antonio appears to be the best coach there since Saban and to be honest, he has impressed me more. He takes a real even keel approach to his team that doesn't seem to give to the hysterical swings of emotion that normally torpedo the Spartans. I don't believe they play Ohio State this year which means the game vs Penn State can be for all the marbles in the Big10.. or at least half of em
Big 12: Nebraska. Everyone wants to talk about Texas or Oklahoma.. Who will win the South, the conference, the Heisman... so much on the plate so early being spoken about with such definitive tones... I like what Bo is doing in Lincoln. I like it alot. They are a faceless, nameless entity that is clawing their way back to being physical and disciplined. Nebraska fans in the know are very confident about Bo and where he is taking the team. They have a long time to get to the title game. They have some character test type of games against VTech, TTech and OU along the way and I will be interested to see how much better they are vs OU than they were against VTech. I am guessing they will be much improved. I don't see this team in the NC race yet.. but all they have to do is win the North and then go for the big upset in the Big12 title game. They don't have to worry about all that silly 'Texas, Texas Tech, OU, Texas A&M and Okie State' crap. There will be only one of those teams standing at the end of the year in the Big 12 title game. If the Big Red finds a defense that creates turnovers and can gain positive momentum thru the season... they just might shock the world.