2024 College Football Preview: Coaches, QBs & AP Top 25

[Music] and welcome back to another Sports not interview and today we are joined by our newest team member at sportsnut docomo and Chrissy uh will be covering college football for us as well as some NFL and we're very happy to have her uh as a part of the family now and Chrissy we're also very happy to have you joining us here in this interview today how you doing good how are you I'm great uh like I said glad to have you as a part of the team I'm excited to see some of your your work as it comes out and I'm sure our viewers will be as well what we're going to do today is uh we're going to talk college football and uh you know to me when I think about college sports I I I always think about coaches first before players so that's where we're going to start the conversation we're going to go through a couple of different coaches and their programs and discuss where they are as as we enter the season which is as we know week zero kicks off this week on Saturday with four games and I'm very excited about that but let's first start with the big one and that's Alabama Nick Sabin decided to retire after 17 years uh as the head coach for the Crimson Tide and now kayin dor steps in he's got big shoes to fill he had a couple successful Seasons with Washington but I just want to get some of your thoughts on dor as he now looks to try to to fill that void left behind by the great Nick Savin yeah I think there should be a lot of respect for kayin deor moving into this position because you just look at what he was able to do with Washington I mean elevated that program to just about the highest stage you possibly could I mean in a way that I don't think that people necessarily expected him to very very legitimate head coach but when you think about Alabama it's going to be one of the most watched teams the season because it's the question of can Alabama return to its former glory under a coach that is not named Nick Sabin and then you look at kind of some of the stuff they've been able to do in the transfer portal you look at the quarterback who's Jaylen milro just some things like that kind of the offensive line some things that they bring back and Alabama has the makings between the coach The Confident composed coach that kayin dor is and some of the players that they have on the roster and the potential of Jaylen milro that makes us say maybe this can be a 10- win team but I personally see Alabama as an eight and4 or a nine and3 team because transition is transition you can have everything looking good on paper and a lot does look good on paper but let's face it Alabama is not the dynasty team it used to be and it's going to take some getting used to moving into this new era and Jaylen milro really liked what he was able to do on the up toward the end of last season but let's not forget about the inconsistency that he showed at certain points and I want to see that he's for real and so between that transitional phase and then Jaylen milro can he repeat what he was doing down that final stretch um I'm not sold on Alabama as a 10- win team to be honest with you interesting take there uh I I do see the the AP poll came out last week and and Alabama ranked number five at least in that that first initial poll and uh I I agree with you Jaylen milro I'd like to see a little bit more from him I I think he did some good things down the end of the season but um I want to see it again for another full season here before I fully commit to him and I do see he is a Heisman candidate this year so uh that should help ease in that transition for uh kin dor uh I want to move on to another coach in program and that's Ohio State and and Ryan day um I think it's it's kind of a big year for him uh you know they did lose three straight Seasons now to Michigan and Jim harba moved on so that should help things for him um but I look at that program you know they hit the pro the transfer portal real hard in the off season and um you know I'm not I'm not suggesting that this is uh his job isn't Jeopardy at all but I I do feel like this is a really big year for Ryan day in Ohio State what do you think about that yeah I think you're absolutely right I mean there's no question that Ryan day has accomplished a lot of good with this program but the bar is simply a little bit higher when you're coaching for a team that is called Ohio State I think the fans are sick and tired of watching them lose to the Michigan Wolverines how they handle that moving forward is going to be something to watch and they want a national title and I think that no one is going to view to view Ryan Day in that light fully and that the fans are not going to be satisfied until they accomplish that which sounds kind of crazy to say because he went 56 and8 in his first 64 games a lot of programs will be happy with that but things are just a little like I said just a little bit different whenever you're coaching for a team that consistently has National Title expectations yeah yeah very very strange to be having that conversation considering they almost knocked off Al or excuse me Georgia just two years ago in the college football playoff but as you said those expectations are just so high it's one of the Premier programs in college football and unfortunately losing to Michigan three times and then missing the college football playoff last season that's that's not going to get it done but they did retool as I mentioned uh they brought in a quarterback back running back and a a really Elite defensive back in the portal so that should that should get things going for them the third coaching program that I want to ask you about he got a lot of the headlines last year and I'm talking about Coach Prime Deion Sanders with Colorado last year things got off to a a good start in the first couple of weeks for them but the season did not end the way they wanted to there's been a lot of turnover in the offseason not just on the roster but also with the coaching staff he's brought a lot of new assistant coaches in to that program as well he does return his son and quarterback shadur Sanders as well as Travis Hunter who potentially could be you know top 10 to 15 picks in next year's draft but do you think there's enough there for Colorado to become more of a legitimate contender in year two with Coach Prime yeah I'm not sure I mean you look at this and things were a little bit uncertain last year and then took a dive after they got started off relatively well and you put a lot of question mark involved so I kind of look at it as just going one way or the other just like last season shadur Sanders could very well end up being the best quarterback in the country I think he's definitely going to be top three and I spent some time out there at Jackson state with the offensive coordinator and watching practice back whenever I was in Mississippi and you just watched Sho Sanders play and it was like you saw these little minor tweaks that he needed to make but other than that he was just about perfect really from early on in his career so the only thing about it is that I don't feel like he had the proper offensive line the really fully the proper Supporting Cast last season and no talented player I don't care how good they are can do it all by themselves I think Carson Beck's the best quarterback in the nation but I mean if you put him on a team with a really bad Supporting Cast and really bad offensive line I'm not sure that he does as well as the Georgia Bulldogs do year in and year out so really 50-50 like one of the biggest wild card teams in the nation they were one of the biggest wild card teams in the nation last season so how they capitalize on some of that turnover and hopefully for them it's for the positive is going to be something to keep an eye on but I mean I truly could see it going either way yeah I I I talked about the turnover that they have on the roster they brought in a ton of uh kids through the portal but again that offensive line as you just mentioned still a huge question mark for Colorado we'll see how that goes for them uh you you mentioned Carson Beck there and that's a perfect segue into the next part of our conversation here I want to talk about some of the top quarterbacks in college football we've talked about Jaylen milr a little bit as well as should Sanders but there's some other really good ones out there Carson Beck uh Jackson Dart from Old Miss Quinn yers uh there's a lot of good ones Dylan Gabriel transferred this year into Oregon this class may not be as as sexy as last year's class we see some of the success that they're having right now in the preseason in the NFL some of those guys but what are just some of your overall thoughts on this year's crops of uh quarterbacks yeah I think that shadur Sanders is going to be kind of one of those that could be top three or could fall down to around like top 10 top 15 kind of like he did last season only time will tell and hopefully he has a fair shot at it with the people around him that he needs I think that Carson Beck is Far and Away the best quarterback in this class I think that there's a pretty decent gap between one and two in this one I'm not sure a lot of people necessarily share that opinion but to me he has everything you could possibly want from a mental processing and an accuracy perspective he did the classic thing that I like to see that is very respectable especially in this era he sat and held the clipboard for a long time behind some really talented quarterbacks named JT Daniels and uh ston Bennett and those two players I mean had very different paths but brought really good things to the table in their own way and I think that he picked up a lot from them one thing that he has that JT Daniels did not have and that ston benett had in a way but I think that Carson Beck does it better is improvisation ability I think that the modern era of quarterbacking comes down more than anything else to are you good and solid from on the pocket first and foremost but do you have improvisation ability and that's not the same thing as Mobility to go get the job done on third down when you need to pick up a few yards by yourself and so I think just between that his leadership ability I know that Kirby Smart has mentioned that he wants to see him show a little bit more fire on the field but other than that it's kind of hard to knock him for much of anything and then Quinn ERS at Texas last year did a lot of really good things I don't think that Texas returns quite as much um as it had last season and I think that quite frankly they entered the season overrated to be honest with you um but looking at quen yers and just specifically by himself one of the things that troubles me is just some of the errors that he had in that college football playoff game against Washington it led a pretty nice comeback effort um one of the best games I've ever attended and covered but there were just some things I would have like to have seen him do better there and whenever I think about watching that game in person and think about watching Carson Beck last season and the way that he really took the bll by the horns I don't see those two guys on quite the same playing field and we move into uh some of the more underrated quarterbacks I think this is going to be a really big year for the Darkhorse quarterback because like you said this this quarterback class is not nearly as stacked as the one before and you have some guys that people are not talking about quite as much Garrett green at West Virginia could do some really big things he's still kind of easing into his own as the head guy there at quarterback but I think he builds upon that in a very big way this season Jaylen Daniels at Kansas you hear his name come up a few times but then it seems to kind of simmer down and that's because he's constantly caught by the injury bug it seems like but if he can stay healthy a lot of good things that he can do you mentioned Jackson Dart Kaden stter at liberty another one to watch so it's going to be really interesting to see who those Diamonds in the Rough are this season I'm glad you brought up Darkhorse candidates because that is something else that I wanted to ask you about I mean we we we spent a lot of time discussing some of those tier one quarterbacks in college football what about some of the tier two guys you mentioned a couple of them already but I got a couple names I want to throw at you as well you know I think they kind of fit into that maybe tier two category that maybe you wouldn't be surprised by the end of the season maybe they're in the discussion for the highs but I'm talking about cam Rising with Utah cam Ward who's a transfer now into Miami Riley Leonard another transfer with Notre Dame and and then the other big transfer that Ohio State landed will Howard what do you think about some of those guys yeah I think think a lot of those guys have been caught up by um a lot of the names you mention been caught up by injury and so you have this phenomenon where they flash a little bit but they're never able to fully build upon it the way that they want to so I think as far as those quarterbacks go it just comes down to who the guys around them are how well they perform so how well of a foundation they have to execute around and then if they can play a full season healthy and I think that at least one of those uh does pan out and does become a big deal I mean cam rising and cam Ward we've heard their name kind of pop up and down for several years so maybe this is the year for them you know earlier in the conversation you mentioned Texas and how you feel they might be a little bit overrated right now we did have the AP poll come out for the first time last week you know just looking through some of where these teams landed are there any other teams that you think were maybe ranked a little bit too high or even a little bit too low in that first initial poll that we saw last week yeah I Texas is the one that stands out to me the most I think for the better part of it they got it right um one team to watch out for though is a potential Dark Horse it could go either way is Miami under Mario cristall you think about the success in the transfer portal players like Damen Martinez in the fold and then they have some good talent pretty solid on either side of the ball so you kind of think about what they can do and how they can capitalize there so that's going to be interesting to watch how maybe they move up or down Miss I think is another team that can build upon what they've what they've done they've had a lot of success Under head coach uh lane kein and then Penn State just a super super easy schedule so you think about how good can that team be and then with the ease of the schedule how many wins they finish out with and then Drew Aller what is his potential so kind of interesting story line to follow over there as well yeah absolutely I'll get you out of here on this one as we know college football is going through a a lot of significant changes as college sports has over the years with the nil and transfer portal there's more changes going on in college football with conference realignment this year as well as the expanded 12 team college football playoff I want to ask you about the realignment uh real quick here when you look at where some of these teams are now playing in the conferences and some of the matchups that we'll see in potential matchups uh is there any particular conference that you look at that you think is is more intriguing than the others and you're really excited to uh to see I think they're all intriguing because they're all so different now I mean the Pack 12 doesn't even exist anymore um I think this this is probably an easy answer but I'll say it anyway I think the SEC we've we've this is the most shakeup we've seen in the SEC and so long and Oklahoma and Texas I feel like are both such Wild Card teams and you'll see people on both sides of the spectrum there in terms of their expectations so where they fall in to just to that total of teams is going to be really interesting to see just whenever we see the the final years ranking at the end of this season yeah yeah well said and and great Insight by you Chrissy uh again the newest member of the sports notot team be on the lookout for some of her content uh both video content and and written content uh you can follow Chrissy Chrissy orfy I encourage you to do that and Chrissy thank you so much for making some time for us today absolutely thank you so much [Music]