Normally, we recap the college football week that was in the CFB Conspectus, but I’m going to approach it a little differently this week. As we are all trying to figure out what to do with all of our newfound free time, I can’t help but think about what canceling spring football means for the 2020 college football season and everything that goes with it. I’ve had several thoughts just rattling around in my head for a week or so now, and I decided to put them on paper, so to speak.
- Spring football is shot. A delayed spring is shot. Who knows what will happen with summer team activities or the start of the season. All we know is that the 2020 season is going to look a lot different.
- Without spring practices, incoming freshmen have all but lost their chance to make an early impact. A guy like Bryce Young, who enrolled early and was set to compete for the starting QB job at Alabama, no longer has that opportunity. It’ll be a lot more difficult to unseat Mac Jones without an entire offseason.
- Teams with QB battles will have limited reps to base their decision on.
- Teams needing to break in new QBs (LSU, Oregon, Georgia, etc) will probably feel the effects of spring football being canceled a lot longer than teams with established QBs (Clemson, Ohio State, Texas A&M, etc).
- Teams with new head coaches are at a huge disadvantage. A couple new head coaches (Michigan State and Colorado) only had a week or two on campus. That’s not enough time to hire a staff and get to know everyone much less install a new offense or defense. I bet every new head coach gets a free pass in 2020 no matter what type of expectations were placed on them when they were hired.
- It seems like Ole Miss falls into all of these categories. Lane Kiffin needs to install his offense and decide whether John Rhys Plumlee or Matt Corral is the best fit. Based on Kiffin’s past offenses, it seems like that nod would go to Corral, but will they be forced to let Plumlee start the season solely based on having more experience as a starter?
- What is going to happen to colleges and universities if there isn’t a 2020 football season? I might be wrong, but it seems like EVERY college and university needs football revenue to survive. It funds other athletic programs as well as a variety of things on the academic side. I forgot who tweeted it or I would link it here, but the tweet broke down LSU’s revenue. Their football program generated $56 million and the rest of their sports combined lost approximately $23 million.
- If there is a season, some of the marquee matchups we have lined up for early in the season (Ohio State/Oregon, LSU/Texas, USC/Alabama) are likely going to be sloppy performances. I don’t think anyone realizes exactly how much preparation is enough to get ready for a season.
- Teams with the most continuity are going to be in the best shape this season. They have players they can trust to handle themselves, their classes, and their workouts this offseason. The number of players who come back to campus underweight might be more surprising than the number who come back overweight. Some players don’t do well with unstructured free time, so we could see an alarming number of players suspended or even kicked off their team by the time the season starts. The teams who return the most starters from 2019 should be the favorites, at least early on.
- Coaching staffs that come up with unique approaches the quickest are going to reap more benefits when things get back to normal.
- College Fantasy Football drafters will have to scramble for information more than ever. Not getting to see players in the spring makes finding vacated production more difficult than normal.
- The 2020-2021 recruiting cycle is also going to look much different than what we are used to. Without camps, there won’t be any camp offers or verified testing. With fewer chances to take campus visits, schools might be able to keep in-state talent at home more than ever. Without a full recruiting cycle, will we see more transfers in the near future than we see now?
- Actually, let’s back up…one player from the 2020 recruiting class is being affected by this stoppage than anyone in the 2021 class. Zach Evans had several spring visits lined up and won’t get to take those now. If he ends up anywhere this season, my guess is he ends up at Florida. I know Dan Mullen really wanted another running back. Evans recruitment was already unorthodox, and now, nothing makes sense, so why not?
- None of this applies to Ohio State apparently. We always talk about how a school recruits itself. We are witnessing it right now with Ohio State. This is the first time Urban Meyer has left a school and its recruiting improved.
- Ohio State currently has the #1 class in the country. They already have three 247 Composite 5-stars and ten 4-stars. They have top players at each position and players from all over the country.
- While the Transfer Portal and graduate transfer market has slowed down considerably compared to normal, no one told Ohio State. In about one week’s time, Trey Sermon left Oklahoma and joined Ohio State. The rest of the Transfer Portal has nearly come to a halt. Other players, like Tarik Black, had spring visits lined up. Now, they have a huge decision to make with very little information to go on.
I think that’s the end of my stream of consciousness. What’s bugging you? What worries you the most about the fallout from the stoppage of sports, or more specifically, college football? I’m on Twitter @DW_BMack.
