Previewing a given college football season is an exercise in separating things into known knowns and known unknowns. Based on who returns or how they've performed, we can say that Team A, Unit B and Player C are all going to be good this season. We also understand that we don't know nearly enough about New Starter D or New Receiving Corps E. We figure out what we know and whom we need to learn more about, and off we go.
Previewing the 2021 season required us to also acknowledge the existence of unknown knowns. We had the same list of good returning players and new starters, but there was also a giant cloud hovering about basically anything we wrote or discussed. Because of all the uniqueness that went into the 2020 season -- the sterile, often crowd-free environments, the constant rescheduling and cancellations, the fact that some teams barely played any games at all, the extra hits two-deeps took from positive COVID tests -- we didn't really know what pieces of information we could trust.
As we approach the November homestretch of the 2021 season, with a load of huge games on deck for Week 9, it's a good time to look back at some of the questions we were asking in the preseason. More specifically, it's time for some self-scouting -- while I got plenty right in the preseason, let's take a look at things I got particularly wrong.
I got the Heisman odds as wrong as everyone else
If you looked at a list of preseason Heisman favorites this offseason, it inevitably featured Oklahoma's Spencer Rattler and Clemson's D.J. Uiagalelei at or near the top. Georgia's JT Daniels was on there somewhere, as were Miami's D'Eriq King, UNC's Sam Howell and USC's Kedon Slovis. If you'd asked me to craft a list of my own favorites, it would have featured all of them.
If you were to craft a list of favorites today, it would still include a couple of names that were on preseason lists. Alabama's Bryce Young is either the favorite or co-favorite at this point, and Ohio State's C.J. Stroud is gaining ground quickly. But Ole Miss QB Matt Corral, a potential co-favorite today, wasn't high on many preseason lists (even if he should have been), and you'd have been laughed off of the internet if you tried to make a preseason case for Pitt's Kenny Pickett or even Michigan State running back Kenneth Walker III, either of whom could finish in the top five.
Rattler not only struggled to live up to the hype (he's 32nd in Total QBR) but got benched in favor of Caleb Williams in Week 7. Uiagalelei, who performed so capably when Trevor Lawrence was out last season, was briefly benched on Saturday in a mistake-filled loss to Pitt. He's a dreadful 105th in Total QBR. King ranked 89th when he was lost for the season to injury. Slovis is 80th. Howell has thrived by comparison but ranks 28th, his Heels a meager 4-3 after starting the season in the AP top 10.
It feels like the quarterback position has been a lot harder this season, but that's not exactly true. Passing stats overall are basically the same as last year -- FBS quarterbacks are completing 61.6% of their passes (up from 61.2% last year) and averaging 6.7 yards per dropback (up from 6.6), and pressure and sack numbers have sunk slightly.
It's becoming harder to pass on good teams, though.
• FBS quarterbacks vs. FPI top-20 teams*, 2020: 60.2% completion rate, 6.3 yards per dropback, 4.9% TD rate, 2.8% INT rate, 6.7% sack rate (on a 25.4% blitz rate)
• 2021: 61.0% completion rate, 5.9 yards per dropback, 4.2% TD rate, 2.8% INT rate, 6.9% sack rate (on a 24.0% blitz rate)
* This is based on an opponent's FPI ranking at the time of the game.
Better teams are allowing a higher completion rate and taking fewer blitz risks but are keeping plays in front of them and forcing opposing quarterbacks to be patient. Some young, high-upside QBs are struggling with this, while veterans are thriving: Pickett is third in Total QBR, Corral is fourth and Wake Forest's Sam Hartman is fifth. They have all started for multiple seasons.
Of course, the top two Heisman candidates -- Stroud and Young -- still are first-year starters. If you've got enough offensive upside around you, you will evidently thrive no matter what defenses are trying to do.
I thought Georgia's offense needed to modernize
Maybe we'll find out in the coming weeks that it still does (or has!). But it's been interesting watching the top of the college football world move toward Georgia this fall and not the other way around.
The main narrative of the past couple of years has been that the best offenses in today's college football are ahead of the best defenses. Alabama's Nick Saban said it himself last fall as he was fielding maybe the best offense, and maybe the best team, of all time. "Death of the game manager" and whatnot. But the current SP+ top 10 averages a 23.2 ranking on offense and 9.2 on defense, and Georgia has made it two-thirds of the way through 2021 playing big, burly "manball": dominating in the trenches, running the ball as much as possible and romping to No. 1 in the polls with defense.
Now, maybe Georgia just hasn't played the right teams yet. The Dawgs certainly didn't need to do much offensively for much of 2020, winning seven regular-season games by an average score of 35-13 last season and losing only to Alabama and Florida teams that happened to have two of the best and most talented offenses in recent college football history. In those games, which backed up Saban's "best offense over best defense" quotes, both the Tide and Gators put up more than 40 points on Georgia, and the Dawgs, behind quarterback Stetson Bennett IV (in for the injured Daniels), couldn't keep up.
This year, Bennett has again thrived in place of the injured Daniels, and Georgia has won seven games by an average score of 38-7. But the Dawgs haven't played an offense ranked higher than 35th in offensive SP+. Average offensive ranking of their seven opponents: 66th.
Alabama currently ranks third in offensive SP+. Ohio State, a potential CFP opponent, ranks a decisive first; the Buckeyes are averaging 8.4 yards per play for the season and have scored at least 52 points in four straight games. Stroud's passer rating has topped 200 in four of his six games. The Buckeyes appear to have a ceiling on par with that of 2020 Alabama or Florida. By the time the Dawgs play Alabama in a likely SEC championship meeting, the Tide might be in a similar rhythm. Is Georgia -- and college football's overall offensive environment -- genuinely different this year, or are we just going to wait until later in the season to learn the same things about Georgia that we learned last year? The answer could determine how the postseason plays out.
I thought Penn State's run game was going to be fantastic
Penn State suffered its first loss in Week 6 at Iowa, when starting quarterback Sean Clifford was lost to injury in the second quarter, and the Nittany Lions scored only once thereafter. It was a disappointing, if totally excusable, defeat.
Pitt scores off of a 23-yard touchdown with three minutes left in the half.
Saturday's loss to Illinois: less excusable. Clifford was back in the lineup but was clearly still hampered. He was hesitant to run the football, and he misfired on a number of passes that he had been making all season. Illinois' secondary played its collective butt off -- the Illini play as much man coverage as they can get away with, and they stood up to a strong PSU receiving corps and gave Clifford few easy throws. But with a faltering QB, it would have been the perfect time to ride a sturdy run game to victory.
Penn State does not have a sturdy run game. Not even close.
Heading into 2021, almost all of the attention in Happy Valley was on the relationship between Clifford and new offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich. Could the ultra-successful QB coach coax a higher level of play out of the veteran QB? We knew the Penn State defense would be awesome (it is), and I simply assumed Clifford would have an excellent run game at his disposal, which would therefore make the RPO game click.
But the quartet of backs Noah Cain, Keyvone Lee, John Lovett and Devyn Ford has combined to average just 3.9 yards per carry. On Saturday, against an Illinois front that came into the game ranked 108th in rushing success rate allowed, PSU backs rushed 23 times for 88 yards. That put the onus on a hobbled Clifford, but his 38 pass attempts (including sacks) netted just 139 yards. The Nittany Lions scored twice in their first four possessions but got shut out over their final seven drives, managed only field goals in their two full overtime possessions, then failed on six of their seven 2-point conversion attempts as the game went into nine overtime periods. Illinois went only 2-for-7 on 2-pointers, but its second conversion won the game 20-18.
Despite an experienced offensive line and a backfield full of running backs who have shown massive upside at one time or another, Penn State now ranks 109th in rushing success rate for the season. It is baffling, and it has officially ended the Nittany Lions' national title hopes.
I didn't think Pitt would be a national title contender
OK, probably no one outside of Kenny Pickett's close relatives did. But while you could find people at least talking about the Panthers as a sleeper in the ACC Coastal race, I didn't even grant that. SP+ projected them fourth in the division, a good distance behind the top three, and I agreed. There was just no reason to expect a breakthrough this late in Pickett's career, and while the defense had been awesome of late, it had to replace a couple of excellent defensive ends and star safeties.
The surge we've seen from Pickett and the Panthers this year is why it's really, really fun to be wrong sometimes. They are now 6-1 and 3-0 in the ACC, having bested Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech and Clemson by an average of 36-15. The Panthers are ninth in SP+ and sixth in FPI, which gives them not only a commanding 61% chance of winning the ACC but also a 23% chance of reaching the CFP, the seventh-best overall odds. Their lone loss -- 44-41 to Western Michigan -- was as much of a "dumb stuff happens" game as it gets: The Panthers averaged 8.4 yards per play but suffered three turnovers and two turnovers on downs, which led directly to 17 Broncos points.
Pitt remains aggressive, volatile and fun as hell, and the Panthers have been one of the best stories of the first two months. I thought they had a chance at a fast start thanks to the schedule, but this is far more than I had in mind.
I thought TCU was a Big 12 sleeper
In a preseason piece about projected Big 12 win totals, I wrote: "Like Baylor, TCU could very well have a top-20 defense on its hands. And late last season, we caught some supremely encouraging glimpses from a pair of star freshmen -- running back Zach Evans and receiver Quentin Johnston -- that led us to believe that, while this offense probably won't be suddenly elite, it should be quite a bit better than it has been of late."
Evans is averaging 130 combined rushing and receiving yards per game at 7.6 yards per touch, and Johnston has caught 24 balls for 468 yards and five touchdowns. They have been as good as advertised, and the Horned Frogs have made a lovely jump from 67th to 23rd in offensive SP+.
The defense, however, has fallen apart. The Horned Frogs are currently 73rd in defensive SP+; they haven't finished out of the top 50 since 2004, and honestly only preseason projections are keeping them in the top 75 -- they are allowing 2.7 points per drive, 119th in FBS. Injuries have exposed a painful lack of depth, and the risk-reward ratio, so beneficial for TCU for so long, has resulted in nonstop chunk plays. The Frogs have allowed 7.3 yards per play against FBS competition, and only Georgia Southern and Arkansas State have allowed more gains of 40-plus yards than TCU's 16.
The Frogs are 3-4, and SP+ gives them only a 45% chance of bowling -- after losing fewer than four games 10 times in 14 years from 2002 to 2015, they've now done so only once in the past six years. They got the thing they needed most this year (offensive improvement), but the program's downward trend has continued nonetheless.
I saw nothing happening for UTEP or NIU
Again, I wasn't alone. And again, this is why we watch.
SP+ projected Thomas Hammock's Huskies and Dana Dimel's Miners 116th and 125th, respectively, in the preseason and had them winning a combined eight games on average -- 4.1 for UTEP, 3.9 for Northern Illinois. Considering they had gone a combined 1-11 against FBS opponents last year, this felt darn near optimistic.
There are now solid chances that each team wins eight games. UTEP is 6-1 with a 65% chance of going 8-4 or better, per SP+. The Miners have certainly benefited from a weak schedule -- they have not yet beaten a team in the SP+ top 100 -- but a combination of stellar defense (1.4 points allowed per drive, 18th in FBS) and random outbursts from receivers Jacob Cowing, Justin Garrett and Tyrin Smith and running back Ronald Awatt have gotten the job done. If UTEP can win at Florida Atlantic this coming weekend -- a reasonably tall ask -- it would host unbeaten UTSA in its biggest home game in ages on Nov. 6.
NIU, meanwhile, is 6-2 with a string of tight wins and a 55% chance of going 8-4 or better. The Huskies trailed Central Michigan 35-18 early in the second half in Mount Pleasant on Saturday, but finished on a 21-3 run and won with Kanon Woodill's 26-yard field goal with 54 seconds left. (It was Woodill's first collegiate game.) CMU had a chance to win on a field goal at the buzzer, but a poor snap negated the opportunity. NIU is 4-0 in MAC play, and FPI gives the Huskies a 50% chance of reaching the MAC championship.
I thought Washington was an outright Pac-12 contender
One of the biggest whiffs of the offseason. From a Pac-12 win totals piece in August: "The defense is deep and more experienced than it was a year ago. ... The offense was predictable and not exactly overflowing with big plays in 2020, but experience levels are solid, and getting Oregon at home tilts the division title odds in the Huskies' favor, per SP+."
I was never fond of Jimmy Lake's hire of former Penn State offensive coordinator John Donovan -- it reflected a lack of offensive ambition and creativity, and I figured it would hold the Huskies back to some degree. I just thought Washington had enough strengths to overcome that. But the defense has been dismal against the run, which has negated the efforts of an excellent secondary.
It also has shined a brighter light on the offense's failings. Washington has averaged just 14.5 points per game in four losses. The Huskies scored seven points on FCS school Montana, 17 on a UCLA defense that ranks 87th in defensive SP+ and, this past Friday night, 21 on an Arizona defense that ranks 104th. They needed tight wins over Arizona and Cal just to get to 3-4, and after projecting the Huskies as a slight Pac-12 North favorite in the preseason, SP+ now gives them just a 59% chance of reaching bowl eligibility.
That they are afterthoughts in the Pac-12 race is doubly frustrating considering, well, the Pac-12 has been disappointing in and of itself.
I thought the Pac-12 as a whole would be much, much better
One of my go-to moves for the past couple of seasons has been to point out that, while the ACC has had far more representation in the College Football Playoff thanks to Clemson (and, temporarily, Notre Dame), the Pac-12 has been a better conference on average.
This year, not so much. The ACC hasn't benefited from a truly elite Clemson team, but Pitt and Wake Forest have drastically exceeded expectations, NC State has shown top-30 upside, and Virginia, Florida State and Louisville have all been improving rapidly. The league's average SP+ rating is currently 10.5, third best among FBS conferences, and its divisions rank third (Coastal) and fourth (Atlantic) overall, behind only the SEC West and Big Ten East.
The Pac-12 has gone in the opposite direction. Washington was projected 13th and currently ranks 62nd. USC has fallen from 14th to 46th. Utah started out 21st and hung on in the 20s until stumbling to 39th following Saturday's loss to Oregon State. UCLA started 29th and jumped as high as 10th but has cratered to 47th thanks primarily to an increasingly problematic defense.
Washington State has dropped from 45th to 74th, Cal from 53rd to 75th, Stanford from 64th to 89th, Colorado from 69th to 97th. Arizona was projected a lowly 96th and has still managed to underachieve; the Wildcats are currently 111th.
Even Oregon, the conference's last CFP hopeful and owner of by far the conference's best résumé win in a while -- the Sept. 6 victory over Ohio State in Columbus -- has sunk to 31st while insisting on playing every game to the level of its competition, even against Cal and Stanford.
Arizona State has basically played to expectation, starting out 22nd and currently ranking 24th. But only one Pac-12 team actually ranks higher now than it did in the preseason: a one-dimensional Oregon State that has risen from 78th to 58th thanks to a strong offense.
That's dreadful. I was fascinated by how things would play out in the Pac-12 this season because of the high levels of returning production most of its teams had. With such a short 2020 campaign, many of the conference's best players returned this fall, and I was excited about what that could mean for the league's overall level of play.
Unfortunately, it did not benefit the league anywhere near what was projected. The league's average SP+ rating is 3.2, easily the lowest of the power conferences. If the average doesn't improve after bowl season, we're looking at the league's worst collective performance since 1999, when 8-4 Stanford won the league and only Oregon finished in the AP Top 25 (and it was just 19th). Gross.