The reptilian world of college football has molted once again, shedding the four-team playoff format, seven-time national title-winning coach Nick Saban, and one of the Power 5 conferences.
This latest metamorphosis has given way to a 12-team postseason tournament, Alabama’s first-year head coach Kalen DeBoer, and four top leagues held together by cable money rather than geography or traditional rivalries.
Confusingly, USC-Michigan is now a Big Ten game, whereas the Oklahoma-Oklahoma State Bedlam Series was discontinued after falling victim to conference realignment.
Adding to the nationwide turnover is Colorado, where second-year head coach Deion Sanders lost 36 players and added another 53 through the transfer portal as the Buffaloes return to the Big 12 in 2024.
If you’re struggling to keep this straight in your head, you’re not alone. And with that in mind, DailyMail.com takes a look ahead at the five biggest topics heading into the college football’s latest reincarnation.
Head coach Deion Sanders of the Colorado Buffaloes looks on from the sideline
IT’S DO-OR-DIE TIME FOR DEION SANDERS IN BOULDER
Coach Prime did more than his usual share of talking in his first season with the Buffaloes (‘We’re really going to be good’), some of which looks foolish after the team’s 4-8 record in 2023.
Of course, to hear Sanders explain it, his first season in Boulder went more or less as planned.
‘We right on schedule with the plan,’ Sanders told reporters in November, while pointing to improved ticket sales and revenue. ‘The plan is improve every darn thing we touch. Did we sell out every game? Did this team get better? Is hope instilled? What’s the problem? Somebody tell me what’s the problem.’
The problem, as much of the college football universe has already pointed out, is that Colorado was only marginally improved in 2023 from its disastrous 1-11 campaign under Karl Dorrell and Mike Sanford a season earlier.
Things were more promising a year ago when the retired NFL and MLB star arrived from Jackson State with three key transfers: his sons, quarterback Shedeur and safety Shilo, as well two-way sensation Travis Hunter.
Cornerback-wide receiver Travis Hunter warms up for a game in November of 2023
Now, after Colorado stumbled to 4-8 in 2023, Sanders has reworked the Buffaloes’ roster for a second time, adding a total of 86 new players to the program.
And yet, there are no guarantees that this incarnation of the team will do any better than last year’s, when the Buffaloes upset No. 17 TCU en route to a 3-0 start before dropping eight of their final nine games.
Most troubling are recent allegations of chaos behind the scenes in Boulder.
‘It’s like a real-life Grand Theft Auto video game,’ one anonymous former player told Athlon. ‘There are many distractions with fights, guns, and money floating around. The environment is unlike any I’ve come from before.’
One alleged 2023 altercation purportedly involved Deion’s son Shilo slapping fellow defensive back Cormani McClain, who has since transferred to Florida.
In June, Athlon reported Coach Prime required his players to attend a Lil Wayne Concert because Shedeur would also be rapping at the show, prompting some members of the team to hit the transfer portal.
Just this week, Colorado’s only special teams coach, Trevor Reilly, resigned, leaving Sanders with a glaring hole on its staff ahead of its August 29 opener against North Dakota State.
Head coach Deion Sanders of the Colorado Buffaloes (L) has a word with Shedeur
For now, nobody is calling for Sanders’ dismissal, but a second losing season coupled with more reported chaos in Boulder could forever tarnish Coach Prime’s once-celebrated career.
‘You got off to a phenomenal start last year beating a couple of mediocre teams that had big names,’ veteran ESPN analyst Paul Finebaum said of Sanders and Colorado this week. ‘And quite frankly you haven’t done anything since other than crash and burn.
‘Anyone asking whether Deion Sanders and Colorado are close to the playoffs simply doesn’t understand the reality of the road.
‘They’re not going to the playoffs this year, and I’m not sure Deion Sanders is ever going to get them to the playoffs, because I don’t think he has the patience to stay at Colorado long enough.
‘But Colorado is nothing. They don’t matter. They’re irrelevant in the big picture of college football.’
SABAN RETIRES, DeBOER TAKES OVER IN TUSCALOOSA
Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer tracks his team during a practice
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After guiding Washington to the national championship at the end of last season, DeBoer begins his tenure at Alabama facing the biggest challenge in college football: Replacing future Hall of Famer Nick Saban.
Yes, he inherits Heisman Trophy candidate Jalen Milroe, an athletic quarterback with big-game experience, but the Crimson Tide need to replace their three top receivers and a pair of staring pass rushers in 2024.
That wouldn’t be a major issue were it not for the expectations facing DeBoer and fifth-ranked Alabama.
Put simply, Crimson Tide fans still expect to win the SEC and a national title, regardless of DeBoer’s inexperience in Tuscaloosa or the holes he was left to fill on Alabama’s roster.
Once again, it’s Finebaum who is pouring some cold water on the situation.
‘We’ve seen Georgia win twice and Michigan win once since Alabama last won a national championship,’ Finebaum said. ‘So, yes, I would declare the dynasty done. It was done before Saban left. It’s really done now that [Kalen] DeBoer is there.’
First-year Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer talks with the media on July 31
COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF TRIPLES IN SIZE
College football’s first bowl game took place in 1902, and for the next 111 years the highest rung of Division I football was the only NCAA sport without a national tournament.
That all changed when the Bowl Championship Series gave way to the four-team college football playoff in 2014.
Now, a decade later, that playoff is tripling to 12 teams, who will begin the three-round NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) tournament on December 20 and 21.
The dozen tournament teams will include the five highest-ranked conference champions as well as the next seven highest-ranked teams. The four highest-ranked conference champions will take the top four seeds and get first-round byes.
That means the other eight teams will square off in the first round, where the higher-ranked squad will host their opponents.
The second rounds will be hosted by the Orange Bowl in Miami and the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, while the national championship will be played at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta on January 20 – the latest it has ever been held.
Yes, it’s far smaller than the 68-team March Madness tournament that decides the men’s and women’s national champions in basketball. But the 12-team college football playoff could put an end to the annual bitterness felt by whomever got snubbed in the four-team format.
The last time Washington played Michigan it was for a national title on January 8. The next time these two teams play (October 5), the game will be a Big Ten conference matchup
The Bedlam Series between Oklahoma State and Oklahoma was one casualty of realignment
THE MUSICAL CHAIRS OF CONFERENCE REALLIGNMENT
Imagine cutting Jermaine from the Jackson Five or the Colombo organization from the Five Families.
That’s the situation facing the ‘Power Five’ football conferences as the Pac-12 folded amid a mass exodus of its top schools.
First it was USC and UCLA defected to the Big Ten, and then Oregon and Washington followed, pushing that conference’s membership to 18 schools.
Meanwhile Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah are now in the 16-team Big 12, while Bay Area-schools Stanford and California are now, somehow, in the Atlantic Coast Conference, which is also adding Southern Methodist.
The two Pac-12 holdovers, Oregon State and Washington State, will now play Mountain West schools.
But the biggest moves in college football have nothing to do with the now-defunct Pac 12. Instead, it’s Red River rivals Texas and Oklahoma’s transition from the Big 12 to the SEC that has fixated the college football universe.
There are other, minor, moves as well. Army is no longer an independent but a member of the AAC, while Kennesaw State is moving into Conference USA as it jumps up from the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS).
WILL ARCH MANNING SEE THE FIELD IN 2024?
Texas Longhorns quarterback Arch Manning was the top recruit from the class of 2022
The Longhorns have landed some major quarterback recruits over the years. Giants legend Phil Simms’ son Chris and eventual-Heisman winner Vince Young were among the most sought-after players in the country before committing to Austin.
Texas coach Steve Sarkisian may have topped both of them by successfully recruiting Arch Manning, the grandson of retired New Orleans Saints quarterback Archie and nephew of Super Bowl-winning brothers Peyton and Eli.
But for all of the hype surrounding the third generation of Manning quarterbacks, Arch hardly played as a freshman, thanks to the presence of Quinn Ewers, who hasn’t gone anywhere.
Now Ewers enters the season as an entrenched starter for the fourth-ranked Longhorns after tossing 22 touchdowns and just six interceptions in 2023.
To his credit, Arch isn’t complaining or threatening to transfer somewhere he’ll play immediately.
‘I mean, it’s never fun being a backup and sitting,’ Manning said before last year’s Sugar Bowl. ‘But each person’s journey is different, and I’m gonna work hard and not blink an eye, and help Quinn be the best quarterback and try to get better along the way.’
Texas Longhorns quarterbacks Quinn Ewers (right) and Arch Manning (left) pictured in 2023
And while Ewers does have one more season in Austin, Sarkisian refuses to close the door on Arch seeing the field in 2024. In fact, Sarkisian is counting on it.
‘Behind the scenes, the development Arch has had from year one to year two has been tremendous,’ Sarkisian told The Rich Eisen Show. ‘We need to play him. We need to get him in games. In the limited action he got last year, he did a nice job. He’s a very talented young man. He’s got a great work ethic.’
His first chance to play may come in the season’s first month, when Texas is likely to blow out Colorado State, Louisiana Monroe, and the University of Texas-San Antonio. And don’t forget about SEC-bottom feeder Vanderbilt, which hosts Texas on October 26.
Don’t be surprised to see Arch take the field in any of those games if Texas finds itself with an insurmountable lead.