It’s the season before the season. We have officially reached prediction szn.
No games. No data. All vibes. Just good, old-fashioned hot takes.
Here are eight semi-bold predictions for the 2024 college football season that most definitely will come true.
Ryan Day either wins the national title or gets fired. No in-between.
Stress levels are sky-high headed into the new season for everyone in Columbus. Ohio State has pushed its chips into the center of the table and it’s boom or bust time for Ryan Day.
The Buckeyes ponied up a significant amount of NIL money to add depth and firepower to the roster, made major waves in the transfer portal and even hired a veteran HC-turned-OC/mentor for Day in Chip Kelly. Oh, and their biggest rivals (and thorn in their side) lost their national title-winning head coach and a boatload of NFL talent.
With Michigan bound to take an inevitable step back and this year being Oregon’s first in a new league, the Buckeyes have to put up or shut up. Even with a win over Michigan, I think Day needs a title to keep his job in 2025.
Bobby Petrino will be named Arkansas head coach by Halloween.
Current Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman probably should’ve been fired at the end of last season.
After a somewhat promising above .500 season in 2022, the Hogs went belly up in 2023. The offense was woeful. The defense couldn’t stop anybody. And the players orchestrated what I believe to be a sort of a dive job to get OC Dan Enos fired. It was a mess all around.
In December, Pittman felt like a dead man walking, and he sort of was. But after surveying the coaching landscape and factoring in the difficult 2024 schedule, the AD stood pat and kept Pittman in charge.
The Razorbacks did, however, bring back a familiar face in former head coach Bobby Petrino, at the request of mega-donors. With Petrino breathing down Pittman’s neck, I suspect Pittman will be out by Halloween. Before October 31, the Hogs have to face Oklahoma State, Texas A&M, Tennessee, Auburn, LSU and Mississippi State. All of those could be losses.
Thanks for everything, Pit Boss.
Oregon will win the Big 10 title.
Look, if for whatever reason you have doubts about Ryan Day and OSU, the only logical pick is Oregon.
Michigan should take a slight step back, Washington has a whole new team and James Franklin is still James Franklin. Despite a pair of losses to eventual national runner-up UW, Dan Lanning has the Ducks on the cusp of something special.
Oregon has proven it can recruit at an elite level, is willing to splash that Nike money and is determined to play with a level of physicality that should make the transition to the Big 10 a little easier. Transfer quarterback Dillon Gabriel should hit the ground running in Eugene and I like the Ducks to burst onto the Big 10 scene in a big way.
Missouri QB Brady Cook will be a Heisman finalist.
Brady Cook is the best college football quarterback that no one thinks about.
Cook and Missouri crushed it last year, finishing with a mind-boggling 11 wins and a statement victory over Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl. And quarterback play was a big reason why the Tigers were so good.
Cook threw for over 3,300 yards and 21 TDs in 2023 and I don’t see why he can’t do more in 2024. Missouri has a pretty favorable schedule, and I think the Tigers will score for fun again.
Missouri could conceivably start 7-0 before a monster matchup against No. 9 Alabama on October 26. If Cook and the offense are humming, I like his chances to get the call to New York City.
Texas State will win 10 games and GJ Kinne will get the Baylor job.
In 2023, the Bobcats lit the Sun Belt on fire with a barrage of flaming arrows-style offense. Kinne, a former Mike Leach quarterback, made his late coach proud with the ease with which they scored points. Points turned into wins too, with the Bobcats topping out at 8-5.
Can America’s Team follow it up again? I think so.
2023 quarterback TJ Finley hit the portal and landed elsewhere, but the Bobcats picked up a huge get in former JMU signal-caller Jordan McCloud. McCloud has a lot of Finley in him and I imagine this will be a fairly seamless integration.
The second part of this is that I think Dave Aranda might get fired. And if he does, well, I’d imagine Baylor will want the opposite of what they had.
Kinne to Waco makes a lot of sense to me.
North Carolina State will win 10 games and play for an ACC title.
Look, I realize the idea of banking on anything associated with North Carolina State is like dancing on hot coals and not getting burned…but hey, a guy can dream, can’t he?
The ACC has the potential to be all sorts of strange, so why not the Wolfpack?
Dave Doeren is a quality head coach, and for his sake, I hope this is the year he and his team breakthrough.
The Wolfpack landed one of my favorite college quarterbacks in recent memory with Grayson McCall, and while he might not reach peak Jamey Chadwell Coastal Carolina heights, he’s still pretty dang good. Health is McCall’s biggest opponent, so we’ll see there.
They also have an incredibly forgiving schedule. Outside of premier first half of the season dates with No. 16 Tennessee and No. 19 Clemson, things look cruisable. Watch out if NC State steals one of Tennessee or Clemson.
South Florida will upset No. 24 Miami on September 21.
South Florida beating the 80-million-dollar man in Mario Cristobal would be absolutely hysterical. And comedy aside, it could happen!
USF made a lot of good progress in Year 1 under Alex Golesh and I think they’ll build on that. They have a really funky and fun offense and it wouldn’t shock me if they made Miami work pretty hard here. Heck, they gave Nick Saban and Alabama a hard time for three-quarters last year.
Expectations plus post-early 2000s Miami football equals inevitable disappointment. Cristobal is good for at least one head-scratcher a year and I’m betting it’s against the Bulls.
After the 2024 season, Brian Kelly will sit squarely on the hot seat.
Brian Kelly left Notre Dame because he thought LSU would give him greater access to elite-level talent and that it would help him win more. So far, only the first part of that thought has come true.
2023 LSU was an absolute rollercoaster. Four Loko offense led by Jayden Daniels and Malik Neighbors, earmarked by a leaking sieve of a defense. The Tigers kept themselves in a lot of games but never got enough stops to win the ones that mattered.
The good people of Louisiana are impatient, and I think Kelly needs to take a real step forward this season. Nine and ten wins only get you so far in the bayou.
Unless LSU wins the SEC West, I suspect the Tiger faithful will get restless and we’ll start hearing whispers out of Baton Rouge.
Brian Kelly will sit squarely on the hot seat after the 2024 season.