College football realignment means one last great season before end of an era: College Football Insider
Why the fall of 2023 has the potential to be an epic finale
Everything will be different a year from now.
Colorado will be back in a new-look Big 12. Arizona, Arizona State and Utah will join them.
Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington will be in the Big Ten. The Pac-12 may not exist.
The Mountain West may have Oregon State and Washington State.
Oklahoma and Texas will be in the SEC.
The ACC might not exist, especially if Clemson and Florida State have their way.
Cal, Stanford, Boston College and even Duke could all be hung out to dry.
When the 2023 season ends, college football will never be the same. Whatever is to come in the following years, whether college football breaks off from the NCAA or not, it’s going to be a wild and fascinating era for the sport — and there have been plenty of those over the years.
Fans still miss the Big 8 and Southwest Conference. The Big Ten actually had 10 teams, and, sometimes, the national championship wasn’t decided on the field.
Some fans miss the days before the playoff when the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) decided who the top two teams were and let them battle it out for the title.
Others prefer the way things have been since the implementation of the four-team playoff almost a decade ago. The fact that the playoff is expanding to 12 teams is no longer even a top-five storyline for the 2024 season.
What’s to come is unprecedented. There will be fans that will finally let go of the sport they grew up watching every Saturday in the fall. Money is king and the media rights deals are everything.
But that doesn’t mean we as college football fans can’t enjoy one last epic season in this era of the sport. It could be the best one yet.
There isn’t a clear favorite for the national championship heading into the season. Most experts pick Georgia, due to the fact that no one’s been able to stop them the last two years. Even the Bulldogs have plenty of unknowns.
Clemson and Florida State look primed for an epic showdown in the ACC. Oh, and North Carolina and Duke are lurking with future NFL quarterbacks at the helm.
The Big Ten has three teams (Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State) with legitimate aspirations to make the playoff.
Texas and Oklahoma both want to make their final season in the Big 12 a memorable one and both have talent up and down the roster.
Then there’s the Pac-12, which may have the best combination of QBs for one conference has in a single season. There are five teams with strong cases to be the league champion.
Oh, and one last thing: There’s also this guy up in Boulder named Deion Sanders who believes he’s destined to surprise everyone.
Buckle up, it’s going to be a wild ride this fall.
The list: Top 5 Colorado natives to watch in 2023
1. Roger Rosengarten, OL, Washington (Valor Christian)
Rosengarten looks like a future NFL player after starting all 13 games at right tackle for the Huskies. He’s protecting the blind side of lefty QB Michael Penix Jr., who led the NCAA in passing a year ago, and the stability the Highlands Ranch native brings has Washington thinking it gets back to the playoff.
2. Gavin Sawchuk, RB, Oklahoma (Valor Christian)
After a breakout game in the Cheez-It Bowl against Florida State, Sawchuk seems primed for a big season with the Sooners. He needed just 15 carries to reach 100 yards against the Seminoles in what was just one of two appearances he made as a true freshman. Now the former Valor star is ready to help OU rebound in 2023.
3. Luke McCaffrey, WR, Rice (Valor Christian)
The last remaining McCaffrey brother still in college, Luke has shined since transferring from Nebraska to Rice (and changing positions from quarterback to wide receiver). He was voted team MVP in 2022 after leading the Owls in receptions and all-purpose yards and now McCaffrey has the potential to become an NFL caliber player in his second full year playing receiver.
4. Trey Zuhn, OL, Texas A&M (Fossil Ridge)
As a sophomore, Zuhn is the starting left tackle on an SEC team with hopes in 2023 — enough said. But seriously, the former four-star recruit out of Fort Collins has the look of a future NFL tackle after starting 11 games for the Aggies in 2022.
5. Terrance Ferguson, TE, Oregon (Heritage)
The Littleton native burst onto the season last September with back-to-back multi-touchdown games against Eastern Washington and BYU. Ferguson wound up starting six games as a true sophomore and was named Pac-12 honorable mention by the conference’s coaches. He could have an even bigger role and more production this fall.
Quote of the Week
“He’s coming slowly but surely. He’s just gotta make that adjustment from high school to college, emotionally, mentally and psychologically. He’s getting in shape, that’s number one. He’s gotta understand the different levels of this game and you’ve gotta have your light switch on at all times, especially against the receivers that we have. When he’s out there with the twos or the threes, he’s playing against, oftentimes, the ones, offensively.” — Coach Prime on prize freshman cornerback Cormani McClain
What I’m Reading
Bruce Feldman’s annual College football Freaks List at The Athletic is always a must-read. It certainly doesn’t always indicate which teams will be the best in college football, but it does give a look at some of the more intriguing names to watch this fall. If there is a team that should feel good about the list, it’s Penn State, which has five players in the top 50 as the Nittany Lions look to break through into the College Football Playoff in 2023.
—I enjoyed this ESPN story on how Virginia Tech, a once-great program under Frank Beamer, faded into irrelevance when the Hall of Fame coach retired and how the Hokies can find success again with Brent Pry entering his second season in Blacksburg.
