| #106 Central Michigan Chippewas |
| #7 in MAC |
Jim McElwain may have slightly rehabbed his image in his first year at Central Michigan, turning the Chippewas from a winless MAC team, into a division champ, who led in the second half of the conference championship game. The remarkable change came on offense, as McElwain turned one of, if not the, worst offenses in the FBS into an upper echelon MAC offense, third in the league at 6.1 ypp. While McElwain deserves a lot of the credit for that, getting a grad transfer from the SEC, in former Tennessee quarterback Quentin Dormady, sure helped. No such help appears to be in the pipeline, and former starter Tommy Lazzaro has also graduated. The starter prior to Lazzaro, Tony Poljan is there, but now that he’s an all-conference tight end, it seems unlikely he’s headed back. You do wonder, he had Big Ten offers from Michigan State and Minnesota, as a tight end, but went to Central Michigan so he could play quarterback, if he regrets going the mid-major route. The Chips also bring back receiver Kalil Pimperton, whose 90 receptions and 934 receiving yards led the MAC by a wide margin (by 29 receptions and 250 yards), so the pass catching options look solid. But the backfield is a mess. Aside from the major question mark at quarterback, Central Michigan also lost tailback Jonathan Ward, who finished 5th in the MAC in rushing, but his 6.2 ypc was best of any back with at least 130 carries. Kobe Lewis, who was the 1-b to Ward’s 1-a does return, but considering probably no team in the country epitomized the concept of a shared backfield more than Central Michigan, a second option needs to emerge, or Lewis needs to be ready to probably nearly double his workload. The reasons to still be optimistic about the Chips’ chances to return to Detroit are (1) being in a West Division that looks like it will be dismal this year; and (2) the defense. The story was the turnaround on offense, so the equally solid defense was sort of buried. But if the offense’s expectations were low based on prior results, the defense’s should have been based on the fact that the Chips had one of the youngest and least proven units in the nation. Only 5 schools returned less defensive production in 2019 than Central Michigan, and yet, the Chippewas allowed just 5.4 ypp, third best in the MAC, led by the conference’s second best run defense. Now that young unproven unit, is a veteran, proven one, that doesn’t even count Alonzo McCoy, who tied for the team lead in interceptions, among their returning starters. This year, Central Michigan returns the second most defensive production in the MAC, but the chances the offense, just one year removed from being one of the worst in the FBS, falls back to that form, considering the departures, prevents me from picking a return to Detroit, to seek their first conference championship game win, since taking three of four from 2006-2009.
| KEY PLAYERS |
| RB | Kobe Lewis, Junior |
| WR | Kalil Pimperton, Junior |
| TE | Tony Poljan, Senior |
| . |
| DT | Robi Stuart, Junior |
| LB | Troy Brown, Junior |
| CB | Alonzo McCoy, Senior |
| #105 Vanderbilt Commodores |
| #14 in SEC |
While Vanderbilt has frequently flirted with the honor of being the Power Five debut in the countdown, off the top of my head, this is the first time they’ve “earned” that honor. Last year I was impressed by the high end skill position talent of the Commodores, but was a little wary of their defense and line play. Turned out the quantity of bad players outweighed the impact of the handful of great players, in positions of importance. Instead, transfer Riley Neal, who had been all conference at Ball State, was mediocre against SEC competition, and getting passed over caused backup blue chipper Mo Hasan to transfer to USC. To make matters worse, the other two players on the depth chart last year, both transferred out as well. So it’s a totally clean slate under center. It might be up to true freshman Ken Seals from Weatherford, Texas, who was one of the highest rated players in the Commodores’ 2020 class. Tailback Ke’Shawn Vaughn graduated, as did wideout Kalija Lipscomb and tight end Jared Pinkney, after a disappointing senior efforts. And even WITH all of that skill position talent, Vandy went 3-9, a disappointing 2019, coming off a bowl effort in 2018. Now, as stated the offense has to start nearly from scratch. True freshman Keyon Brooks, who finished with 258 yards on 4.5 ypc, was the only other back to get more than 10 carries on the season, and wasn’t particularly effective with what he did get. To add insult to injury, starting left tackle Devin Cochran announced his intention to transfer to Georgia Tech, and starting center Sean McMoore was not listed on the spring depth chart. They did add a grad transfer from Michigan, Stephen Spanellis, and he’ll probably go from rotation guy in Ann Arbor, to the best lineman in Nashville. The offensive line wasn’t the only place that Vanderbilt bolstered themselves with a transfer from the Big Ten East, also adding defensive end Alex Williams from Ohio State. The defense has the opposite problem, tons of returning “talent” from a defense that was awful, giving up an SEC worst, nearly 7 ypp. But...they return all 11 starters, 93% of their production, 4th best in the country. Vanderbilt had a turnover in the athletic director role, so Derek Mason might be done either way, but without a vast improvement in 2020, he’s certainly gone. He replaced both of his coordinators, but it might be a year too late, particularly on offense. Last year was the year to capitalize on all that talent, but they not only botched it, they ran off a quarterback, by pinning their hopes on a grad transfer who failed. There is reason to at least hope that the defense can carry this team at least to a bowl. Mason himself is a defensive guy, serving also as coordinator early in his tenure, but now also bringing in Ted Roof, who has a strong Power Five background, and resurrected his reputation last year by leading a top 20 defense with Appalachian State.
| KEY PLAYERS |
| WR | Cam Johnson, Sophomore |
| T | Tyler Steen, Sophomore |
| G | Jonathan Junior, Junior |
| . |
| LB | Dimitri Moore, Junior |
| LB | Andre Mintze, Senior |
| S | Tae Daley, Senior |
