Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

This one is just ten feet outside of Texas. And Rice hasn't gone yet.
Shouldn't a down Texas mean that there are more of the big bad Texas HS recruits to go around? How can the whole state be bad at CFB?

I strongly disagree, at random ...

 There will be like 9 SEC teams in the top 20, including three of the top five.

Those are my wild stabs

Been looking at the recruiting rankings?

#127 Texas State Bobcats

#10 in Sun Belt

Texas State hired Jake Spavital away from under Dana Holgorson, where he was offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at West Virginia, for his offensive prowess.  To say he underwhelmed on that front would be an understatement.  The Bobcats had the worst offense in the Sun Belt, averaging just 5.0 ypp, “led” by a truly miserable run game, that averaged just 2.8 ypc, 4th worst in the FBS.  Granted West Virginia was one of the three worse than them, so maybe that was to be expected.  As a first year coach, Spavital had plenty of leash, and they do return a great deal of their production from 2019.  Most importantly, maybe they actually play their best running back?  Caleb Twyford, who was a receiver going into the year, established himself as the team’s best option in the backfield, after the opener against Texas A&M.  However, down the stretch, the coaches turned to Anthony Taylor, who averaged a full 1.5 ypc less.  Robert Brown Jr. is an interesting option as well.  He hit some big splash plays, but never got more than 8 touches in a game.  The skill position group should be bolstered by a pair of Power 5 transfer with immediate eligibility, being running back Jahmyl Jeter from Oklahoma State and receiver Tory Spears from Iowa State.  Both have three years of eligibility remaining.  Spavital rotated between two quarterbacks last year, and after settling on Tyler Vitt, Gresch Jackson entered his name in the transfer portal.  However, Memphis transfer Brady McBride is now eligible as well.  While the offense has plenty of returning experience, but very little of it proven, the defense is the exact opposite.  The Bobcats could land three players on the All-Sun Belt team, including arguably the best cornerback duo in the conference, but behind that star power, there is almost nothing.  The Bobcats were one of only two Sun Belt teams to allow under 200 passing yards per game, ranking third in the conference in ypa allowed.  That was with a pair of new starters, a sophomore and a true freshman.  Jarron Morris and Khambrall Winters should make teams run early and often.  In front of them?  Yikes.  Caveon Patton mans the middle of the line, but around him is a whole lot of nothing, and that’s from a defense that could barely slow down the run last year with a senior laden front 7.  It’s going to be critical for the Texas State offense to get out of the gates quickly.  Teams only attempted 27 passes per game last year, lowest in the Sun Belt.  They just got the lead, and leaned on that front seven.  With the secondary likely even better this year, it seems likely to be the same.  Texas State led at halftime just once last year.  The way this defense in built again in 2020, that would be a disaster.

	KEY PLAYERS
QB	Tyler Vitt, Junior
RB	Caleb Twyford, Senior
WR	Trevis Graham Jr., Junior
	.
DT	Caveon Patton, Senior
CB	Jarron Morris, Junior
CB	Khambrall Winters, Sophomore

Man, Texas is just getting hammered.

It will balance out when the Longhorns get a helmet bump and aTm gets an SEC bump. But neither of them are anything special.

Yep. Been there. When I moved from SoCal to Atlanta back in 2005, I made the I-10 drive. Day 1 was SoCal to El Paso. Day 2 was El Paso to Houston. Both were 12 hour days behind the wheel. It's just weird to wake up in the morning, drive 12 hours, and realize you're still in the same state. 

I also found it interesting that you could clearly tell when you were starting to get out of the desert. The things you'd drive over labeled "River" actually had water in them!

The trip back I did a little differently. Atlanta->Shreveport on day 1, and then just blasted all the way from Shreveport to Tucson on day 2 in a 15 hour sprint. But obviously that's I-20 to I-10, and much shorter within the state. 

I-5 in California is similarly long. Just under 800 miles from the Mexican border to the Oregon border. However even the "boring" part of the road (from just north of the Grapevine outside of LA up until you basically hit the Shasta area) is much busier than those stretches of I-10 through west Texas. 

#125 Eastern Michigan Eagles

#12 in MAC

If Chris Creighton wants a much deserved life raft out of Ypsilanti, it might be a two year wait.  I wrote the Eagles mini-resurgence off for 2018, just thinking there was too much to replace, including Brogan Roback, probably the second best quarterback in program history.  Instead, Creighton was able to roll in Mike Glass III, who may have been better.  With all due respect, and with only two years as starter, his counting numbers aren’t there, but Glass leaves Ypsilanti as the school’s all time leader in yards per attempts (8.1), passer rating (149.6), and completion percentage (65.3%).  He also wound up #12 on the school’s all-time rushing leaderboard.  So how much is Creighton, and how much is having literally two of the three best quarterbacks in school history come through back to back?  We are about to find out, because the last time Eastern Michigan didn’t have one of them was 2013, when the Eagles went 2-10, with a 4th quarter come from behind win against Howard, and an overtime win over a 1-11 Western Michigan team.  In 2014, both Creighton and Roback took over, and started the build to 25 wins over 4 seasons.  Which for a school that had won 23 over the previous decade, was quite a feat.  Going into 2018, there were some pieces around the missing quarterback.  Now, Eastern Michigan ranks #125 in the FBS in returning production, dead last in the MAC.  They were also able to be one of the few teams to boast experience last year in a very young MAC.  Six of the 40 youngest teams in the FBS last year were MAC teams, and that doesn’t include Toledo, who generally recruits at the highest level in the conference, and isn’t as reliant on experience as the others.  That’s how the Eagles were able to cover up a lot of inefficiencies.  They were the least penalized team in the league, one of the least penalized teams in the country, and were third in the MAC in turnover differential.  For the offense to figure out this transition, the task falls squarely on Creighton himself.  After offensive coordinator Aaron Keen went back to his alma mater Washington University of St. Louis, Creighton named himself offensive coordinator.  The hire I kind of like is quarterbacks coach Mike Piatkowski.  He’s been a graduate assistant the past four years, first under Chris Creighton at Eastern Michigan, then the past two seasons at Indiana.  He played for Creighton at Drake, and seems destined to be a coordinator, maybe after a full year of being a full staff member.  They’ll have the pieces at receiver, particularly Dylan Drummond, who is poised for a breakout, but a dismal running game figures to be even worse without Shaq Vann.  The defense looks strong up front, but the secondary, which allowed a 8.1 ypa, should get thrown on even more.  If tMikey Haney takes a step forward from a surprisingly strong freshman campaign, the defensive line has a chance to be outstanding.  He’s a Lucas County kid, that Eastern Michigan is fortunate Toledo didn’t want.

	KEY PLAYERS
WR	Dylan Drummond, Junior
WR	Quian Williams, Junior
C	Mike Van Hoeven, Senior
	.
DE	Turan Rush, Senior
DT	Mikey Haney, Sophomore
LB	Terry Myrick, Senior