Ladies and gentlemen, football is back! Get ready for tailgates and touchdowns as colleges around the country prepare for the 2021 season!
There is a lot of anticipation this year, especially now that fans are back in the stadium and a lot has happened throughout this past offseason. With Oklahoma and Texas leaving the Big 12, the ACC, PAC 12, and BIG 10 discussing joining conferences, and athletes being able to profit off their likeness, the hype is real.
There is no surprise that Alabama leads the polls. Oklahoma follows close behind at #2. Clemson, Ohio State and Georgia round out the top 5. The rest of the top 25 is more interesting than you would think. With teams like Indiana, the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns, and even the Cincinnati Bearcats, this makes college football even more exciting.
Indiana, for instance, finished last year, a shortened season, at 6-2 (6-1 BIG 10).
The Bearcats of Cincinnati see themselves ranked at #8 in the country which is their best preseason ranking in school history. They finished the 2020 season at 7-1 (6-0 AAC), winning the American conference championship but losing to Georgia in the Peach Bowl by just 3 points, 24-21. The Bearcats have their star quarterback in Desmond Ridder returning this season. Ridder was named the 2020 AAC Offensive Player of the Year and the AAC’s championship Most Outstanding Player. Cincinnati is looking for even more production out of an offense that put up 37.5 points per game and averaged 451 yards per game a year ago.
This offseason brought some very controversial topics to light and these two shook up the college athletics world in a huge way.
The first groundbreaking news came from the NCAA ruling that college athletes can profit off their name and likeness. This has been a fight of former and current college athletes for the past, several years and is now a reality for promising recruits and current players across the country.
Freshman quarterback, Bryce Young of Alabama, signed a partnership with CashApp. Young hasn’t even gone under center yet with the Tide.
Spencer Rattler also signed a few endorsement deals. One with “Raising Cane’s”, a restaurant chain popular in Oklahoma.
Even a quarterback from South Lake Carroll decided to forgo his senior year of high school and head to college just so he could get paid.
Times are changing and this will make recruiting very interesting over the next few years.
The other massive development from this offseason is when Oklahoma and Texas decided to leave the BIG 12 and accept an invitation to join the Southeastern Conference. Granted, this will not happen till the year 2025, but this shift has huge ramifications on college football and the possibility of super conferences.
Shortly after that announcement the BIG 10, PAC 12, and the ACC met to discuss the possibility of teaming up. This created even more controversy as schools from the BIG 12 and other group of 5 conferences now have decisions to make over the next few years. Do Oklahoma State and Baylor follow in the footsteps of the Sooners and Longhorns? Does Iowa State join the BIG 10? What does West Virginia decide? None of these questions will be answered tomorrow, but they are hot topics for discussion.
There have been some negative feedback on these decisions, however. One writer, Alex Kirshner, of Slate.com believes that these moves will hurt college football in the long run.
Yes, Oklahoma and Texas might “get a larger piece of that 16-team pie than of the 10-team pie they currenly share in the BIG 12…”, says Kirshner, "but nobody has to cheer it or pretend it will meaningfully improve anything."
Whatever side you are on, one thing is for sure, college football will never be the same.
The first game of the college football season is set at noon on FOX. Saturday, August 28th, 2021 the Fighting Illini of Illinois hosting the Cornhuskers of Nebraska. For a recap of last years contest click this link here.
Wishing you all a happy college football season, the most wonderful time of the year.