Spring Superlatives: New Year, New Me Teams

Lincoln Riley, head coach of the USC Trojans football team, at the post-game press conference after the 2024 Vegas Kickoff Classic in Allegiant Stadium. Credit: Bobak Ha'Eri, WikiMedia Commons]

Every year, New Year’s resolutions come and go. For most of us, the resolutions last a few weeks and slowly fizzle out.

For college football teams, though, that New Year, New Me feeling often carries them to the start of the regular season. Everybody is undefeated in early August, remember.

Although the regular season is still months away, optimism (and springtime pollen) is in the air. Let’s take a closer look at some teams that are looking to turn the page on a sour 2024 campaign, in hopes of a brighter, more positive 2025 season.

When USC head coach Lincoln Riley accepted the job in LA before the 2023 season, he was viewed as a slam-dunk hire.

Riley had done a phenomenal job at Oklahoma, churning out Heisman Trophy-level quarterbacks and prolific offenses with regularity. Defense was never his team’s strong suit, but his stellar offense smoothed over lots of cracks.

Three years into his tenure in Los Angeles, things are anything but a California Dream.

The Trojans have taken a step back in every season since their opening 11-3 record back in 2022. In 2023 (Caleb Williams’ final year), USC won just eight games and limped to a poor 5-4 record in its last year in the Pac-12. Last season, USC made the jump to the Big 10 and fell flat with just six regular-season wins.

What gives? I believe it’s been a three-pronged problem.

First and foremost, Riley appeared to be loyal to a fault. Remember that leaky defense I mentioned before? That unit was spearheaded by his buddy and former defensive coordinator, Alex Grinch. Grinch was a bright young mind who showed flashes early in his career, but things got away from him quickly in LA.

Next, from afar, the USC backroom operation appears to have been a bit of a shitshow for lack of a better phrasing. This past offseason, USC made some major moves to get its house in order, poaching away a new GM and trying to get coordinated on the NIL front. Time will tell if that helps the Trojans reach those lofty goals.

Finally, for whatever reason (NIL or otherwise), Riley has not been hauling in the same level of impressive recruiting classes as he did during his time in Norman. Over the last two seasons, this team has been deficient up front and lacked consistency in some crucial positions.

Riley has attempted to rectify the roster with 12 incoming transfers, good for the 19th-best class, according to 247 Sports. But unfortunately, the Trojans did lose a whopping 23 guys transferring out, so it’s tough to tell how effective this strategy will be.

And to be fair, he has improved some areas of this team since his arrival. Hiring former UCLA defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn was a major coup, and Lynn paid dividends last year. Now it’ll be on the offense to play catch-up.

Riley appears to be confident heading into the 2025 season, though questions remain. Chief among them being…how far can quarterback Jayden Maiava take this team?

In 2024, Maiava was a bit of a roller coaster, finishing with 1,200 yards, 11 touchdowns and six interceptions, after supplanting starter Miller Moss. He only completed 60% of his passes and exhibited some questionable decision-making at times. I’m just not sold on Maiava being a high-end starting quarterback for a team with lofty expectations.

Playing the schedule game, USC has an early cupcake nonconference schedule coupled with two winnable Big 10 teams right out of the gate, with Purdue and Michigan State. 4-0 might be on the cards before the rubber meets the road with games against Illinois, Michigan and Notre Dame. Games at Nebraska and at Oregon will also likely be very difficult.

Can Lincoln Riley survive another 7-5 season? Or will Riley and this team finally take a big step in the right direction?

Disasterclass.

Tire fire.

Up a creek without a paddle.

No matter how you choose to describe it, 2024 was a season Seminole fans will hope to forget.

After coming up short in the College Football Playoff race in 2023, 2024 was supposed to remind the world that Florida State was back—and that the head coach, Mike Norvell, was building a program nobody wanted to mess with. But every year is different, and absolutely nothing went right for Florida State in 2024.

The Seminoles went an almost unimaginable 2-10 with just one win against an FBS team. The offense was horrific. Transfer quarterback DJ Uiagalelei was abysmal on every single front. And that vaunted 2023 defense was nowhere to be found, so much so that the ‘Noles gave up more than 24 points on seven occasions.

Nothing went right for anyone associated with Florida State in 2024, which meant wholesale changes were in order. Norvell shook up his staff in a big way this offseason, poaching former Nebraska DC Tony White and bringing in former UCF head coach Guz Malzahn as the offensive coordinator. Norvell himself took a long, hard look in the mirror and shifted some money off his contract in favor of greater NIL flexibility.

The roster saw a whole host of changes, too. The Seminoles took 17 players from the transfer portal, good for the seventh-best transfer class, according to 247 Sports. Notable names include former Tennessee wide receiver Squirrel White, former USC wide receiver Duce Robinson and former Boston College quarterback Thomas Castellanos, among others.

So, what should we expect from Florida State in 2025? Furthermore, how good do the ‘Noles need to play for Norvell to keep his job?

There’s almost no way this team can be 2024 levels of toxic sewage. Beyond that, your guess is as good as mine.

I suspect the offense will look significantly different, and likely at least a little bit better. Malzahn will almost certainly bring some run-first principles into a team that needs to run the ball much better. Malzahn and Castellanos have a prior relationship (Malzahn previously recruited him), so these guys aren’t strangers. Castellanos has a little too much up-and-down to his game for me, but he’s extremely mobile, and that’ll be something Malzahn will surely look to utilize.

On defense, I’m bullish on the Tony While acquisition, and I’m willing to bet this group plays significantly better. Good things take time, but White is a real deal DC and did some good work for Nebraska over the past few seasons. I bet this unit is a lot tougher at the LOS and that they tackle way better than they did in 2024.

Playing the schedule game, I bet we’ll find a lot out about this group and whether they got the stink off of ‘em when they host Alabama on August 30. That’ll undoubtedly be one of the games of the opening weekend and just might be an Anxiety Bowl for both Norvell and Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer. Fun stuff!

I think Norvell did a nice job this offseason raising the floor of this team, but I don’t believe he raised the ceiling. This team will probably go 7-5 or 8-4, and time will tell if that’s good enough for Norvell to keep his job.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before. Purdue football has hit a new low.

The Ryan Walters tenure was an abject disaster. After two truly terrible seasons (5-19 overall and 1-11 in 2024), the Boilermakers have turned to former UNLV head coach Barry Odom to get this train back on the tracks.

What went so wrong so quickly for Walters?

His calling card, aggressive defense, was a mess. I’ve heard people smarter than me explain it in simple terms: His secondary was far too aggressive and didn’t have the athletes to back it up, meaning that unit got exposed left, right and center. That’s an overly simplistic way to explain the disaster that was the secondary, but it resonated with me, so I included it here.

Things weren’t much better on offense or special teams either, so the over-aggressive mentality doesn’t quite fit the bill across the board. The schedules in 2023 and 2024 also did the Boilermakers no favors.

Looking forward, I’m somewhat intrigued about Barry Odom in West Lafayette.

Odom left Las Vegas fresh off leading the Runnin’ Rebels to their best season in 40 years. In two seasons, Odom’s teams went 9-5 and 11-3. Last year, UNLV made it to the Mountain West title game, where it fell to eventual College Football Playoff darling Boise State.

In just two short seasons, Odom established a hard-nosed, tough mentality that a program like Purdue desperately needs. Odom’s defenses were stout, and the offense was freaky fun, thanks in large part to running the Go-Go offense orchestrated by former offensive coordinator Brennan Marion. Marion did not follow Odom to West Lafayette, so it’s hard to say whether the same offensive principles will apply or not. Instead, Josh Henson, who worked with Odom back at Missouri, has assumed the playcalling reins.

What’s the outlook for a program like Purdue in 2025?

Purdue just needs to get back to playing decent football and slowly try and build this thing up. One of the things I like about going with a guy like Odom is that he feels like a “do more with less” type of hire, which fits the bill for a program like Purdue. Odom needs to take 2 and 3-star players and make them play closer to 3 and 4-star players. That’s the recipe for success.

What constitutes a success in Year 1? Four wins would be a massive improvement. Purdue still angered the schedule gods, because the Boilermakers still draw tough games against Ohio State, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Notre Dame. Three or four wins feel like a nice improvement for a program that just needs to take a positive step in the right direction.

When it rains, it pours. Last season for Utah, the rain fell in particularly harsh fashion.

Seventh-year quarterback Cam Rising was hurt until he wasn’t, until he was again. The defense did a mighty fine job of keeping this group in a lot of games, but the offense was so inept that 21 points often meant the Utes were taking an L. And for all the good things head coach Kyle Wittingham did to try and keep this team upright, he looked exhausted by year’s end.

Fast forward to the 2025 season, and Utah will look to turn the page and start anew. Transfer quarterback Devon Dampier should be a nice reprieve from the on-again off off-again nature of Cam Rising’s availability over the last few seasons. The defense should be good again, because, of course, it will. Plus, the Utes play in the topsy-turvy Big 12, remember, so it’s anyone’s guess on how the dust will settle in this conference from year to year.

I’m ready to be bullish on Utah entering 2025. Dampier did some nice things last season at UNLV, finishing with 2,700+ yards passing and 12 touchdowns. But more importantly, he killed defenses with his running ability, tallying over 1,100 yards and 19 touchdowns on the ground. Dampier is a legitimate dual-threat player, and I can’t wait to watch Utah use him as a battering ram in this offense.

It’s hard to pinpoint just how successful the Utah defense will be in 2025, but because this is Utah we’re talking about here, I just assume the defense will be pretty good. Last year, the Utes held teams to 13, 17, 22 and 23 last season in losses. If even half of those games go the other way, Utah is bowling.

Playing the schedule game, I like Utah’s chances to take a solid step forward and dare I say be in the running for the Big 12 title. Games at BYU and Baylor should be difficult, but the Utes draw Texas Tech, Arizona State and Kansas State at home. If Dampier hits like I think he will, this team has a chance to do some real damage in the Big 12 conference in 2025.

Never before has the greatest coach of the modern era left the NFL and joined the college ranks for…a mid ACC job?

Alas, here we are. Bill Belichick is the new head man in Chapel Hill, and I, for one, am fascinated to see how he adjusts to the college game.

In the offseason, the UNC brass moved off head coach Mack Brown after five up-and-down years in Chapel Hill. Instead of doing the reasonable thing and finding a young, upstart head coach to steer the ship into the future, UNC settled on a 73-year-old coach with no college coaching experience.

The above statement isn’t meant to be a shot at the greatness of Bill Belichick. His football bona fides speak for themselves. I just don’t know what to expect of Belichick in the college game. He surely will have a schematic advantage over basically every other ACC coach he goes up against, but does he have enough stability and talent on the roster to reach the same level of greatness he’s accustomed to? I doubt it.

Speaking of roster construction. Let’s start with the quarterback position. Last week, the Tar Heels dipped into the transfer portal and found their new starting quarterback in former South Alabama signal-caller Gio Lopez. I enjoyed watching Lopez at South Al last season. He’s probably not a Power 2 quarterback, but I don’t see why he can’t be a solid-to-good ACC-level player in 2025. This feels like a good get for UNC.

Outside of the smoke surrounding Lopez, the Tar Heels bring back veteran quarterback Max Johnson, who snapped his leg in the team’s opening game last season, along with prized freshman Bryce Baker. Baker will definitely be the guy for the future, but it would probably be in both he and North Carolina’s best interest to not have him be the starter this fall.

Last year, UNC had little trouble scoring points, in large part due to the dynamic play of standout running back Omarion Hampton. Hampton will be hearing his name called in this year’s NFL Draft, though, so the Heels will need to find a few bodies to pick up the pieces in the run game.

One of the biggest problems for this group last season was the defense. The defense was abysmal, ranking 66th in rush defense and 81st in pass defense. This group just leaked points, as evidenced by the 70 points they gave up to James Madison. Woof.

At the time of writing, arguably the best defensive player on the roster, edge rusher Beau Atkinson, has hit the transfer portal and appears destined to land with a program like Georgia or Ohio State. That one stings for Tar Heel nation.

Generally speaking, there’s almost no way this defense can be quite as bad as it was last season. Bill Belichick’s son, Steve, will be calling plays on that side of the ball, and I’m intrigued to see what he and his dad can cook up to cause problems for opposing offenses.

Playing the schedule game, your guess is as good as mine on how this season plays out for North Carolina. Despite two tricky games (TCU and UCF) in the first four weeks, this schedule feels pretty easy for a Year 1? The back half of the schedule feels very manageable with games against the likes of Cal, Virginia, Syracuse, Stanford and Wake Forest.

The Tar Heels will likely get drilled by a tough Clemson team, but if they can split those games against TCU and UCF, I like this team’s chances down the stretch. I don’t think 7-5 or 8-4 is out of the realm of possibility.

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