College Football never ceases to deliver storylines. Whether we are talking about controversies like playoffs, allegations, coaching hot seats or conference re-alignment or if we are talking about players bursting on the scene and teams coming out of the woodwork there is always something to talk about in college football.
Kevin McGuire of No2MinuteWarning.com, Crystal Ball Run and Nittany Lions Den and Andrew Coppens of Madtown Badgers and the B1G Time joined me to discuss the storylines that they think will be the most intriguing in 2013.
Kevin McGuire: Can any challenger to the SEC truly emerge and give them a scare? It has now been seven straight seasons a team from the SEC has been crowned BCS champion, and it really hasn’t been all that close. Oregon gave Auburn a good fight in 2011, but tthe average margin of victory by the SEC BCS Champion since this string of titles began is a whopping 16.3 points (I’m excluding Alabama’s 21-0 victory over LSU). Ohio State and Louisville look to have the best shot to at least reach the BCS title game, but do either of those programs present a legitimate threat to the SEC? Or, could the SEC actually stand in their own way of a return trip t the BCS championship stage? It’s a stretch, but I think it almost goes without saying the SEC’s dominance will continue to be a significant storyline.
Andrew Coppens: The storyline that I will be watching the closest this season is if the Big Ten can regain some of it’s lost glory. The past few seasons have been down for the league, but with Ohio State back from sanctions and Michigan becoming less about Denard and more about the team it’ll be interesting to see if the “Big Two” can reign again. If one of them or Wisconsin win the Big Ten title in undefeated fashion it’ll be interesting to see what happens to them on a national scale at the end of the year. The non-conference performance of the conference needs to step up a notch in the big games for the respect factor to come back.
Kevin: I’ve got two. One SEC related and one not-so-much.
Let’s start SEC. I’m really interested to see how they new (and second year coaches) perform in the conference this season. Mark Stoops has taken over at Kentucky and he’s created a buzz in that fanbase but he’s in for a big rebuilding job since Joker Phillips left him empty handed. Butch Jones takes over at Tennessee and he’s got to turn Tennessee around after Derek Dooley’s unsuccessful reign. Both of those coaches have an up hill battle especially with the emergence of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina as the dominant three in the Eastern division. In the Western half, I’m really intersted to see what Hugh Freeze can do with the traction he got at the end of the season when he blew out Dan Mullen and Miss State and then with how he and his coaches performed in recruiting. Can Ole Miss make a big jump in the West? And let’s not forget about Bret Bielema. Bielema has his hands full as well as he is trying to turn around a mess and doing so with a lot less talent than is currently on campus at Alabama and LSU. How will the former B1G man fare in his first season. And in a “win now” era of sports what type of reaction will be given to these coaches if they don’t show improvement in year one?
The other storyline I will be watching is Lane Kiffin. A lot of people, including us, bought into the USC hype last season but Kiffin and his team underperformed. Instead of playing for a title, the Trojans barely had a winning record. They faded down the stretch, losing five of their last six games including a game to city rival UCLA. With talks of a locker room brawl at the Sun Bowl and with Kiffin dismissing his father from the staff, he’s really got his back against the wall. Can Kiffin regain his footing this season or will he end up looking to jump to another spot?
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