Saturday and Sunday
#98 Georgia State Panthers |
#6 in Sun Belt |
In terms of returning starters, Georgia State’s offense appears to be in fine shape. Then you look a little deeper, and it’s the offensive line and tight end that seemingly have a monopoly on that. The Panthers have to replace their all-conference starting quarterback, their all-conference, Sun Belt rushing leader, running back, and two of their top three receivers. Their best bet might just be to get as many big bodies as possible on the field, and just try to bully opponents. They return four starting offensive linemen, three of whom played as underclassmen last year, and three of whom earned all-conference honors. They also bring back a pair of all-conference tight ends. And this from an offensive line that was very good last year, even playing that young, ranking #13 in the nation in average push yards, and #12 in stuff rate prevention. This should easily be the best line in the conference. The one proven skill position player they have is receiver Cornelius McCoy, who was tied for fourth in the league with 70 receptions. The fact that Georgia State hasn’t brought in a transfer quarterback yet is shocking. The roster is three redshirt freshmen, which includes a walk on, and one true freshman. Miami transfer Jarren Williams is still out there on the market. I’m sure he thinks higher of himself, but he graduated from Central Gwinnett, just 30 miles away from the Georgia State campus, two years ago, so you could maybe sell him on being the Day 1 starter (if he gets a waiver), close to home. For as well as the offensive line played in 2019, the defensive line was equally as bad, bottom 10 in the FBS in the metrics where their offensive line was top 15. Must have made for some brutal practices for them. Iron sharpens iron, but it also cuts through paper. Anchored by Hardrick Willis and Dontae Wilson, there is no excuse for the line not to vastly improve in 2020. If Willis is able to build off a solid 2019, the Panthers look to be pretty strong up the middle, with inside linebacker Trajan Stephens-McQueen quarterbacking the defense from the middle, and leading the team with 110 tackles, fifth in the conference, including 8 tackles for loss. That strength up the middle didn’t help much last year, when Georgia State allowed a Sun Belt worst 5.4 ypc, and allowed an obscene 40 touchdowns on 55 red zone trips. There is talent on the back end, but offenses just put this team in a phone booth, and bullied them, in an age, where most offenses try to develop new ways to get their players into space.
| KEY PLAYERS |
WR | Cornelius McCoy, Junior |
TE | Aubry Payne, Senior |
G | Shamarious Gilmore, Senior |
| . |
DE | Hardrick Willis, Junior |
DT | Dontae Wilson, Senior |
LB | Trajan Stephens-McQueen, Senior |
#97 Kansas Jayhawks |
#10 in Big XII |
The overall hope with the Les Miles hire was to at least stabilize the program to a point that in a few years, a younger hire didn’t view the situation quite so direly. There were moments, a blowout win in Chestnut Hill over Boston College on a Friday night, and a homecoming win over Texas Tech. But even David Beatty got those, a 2018 upset win over a better TCU team, and an upset of Texas in 2017. Ultimately the 2019 result was the same, a 3-9 season, 1-8 in the Big XII. The Jayhawks haven’t won more than 3 games in a season since going 5-7 in 2009, and haven’t won more than one conference game since 2008. In the eleven seasons since, Kansas has won a COMBINED 7 Big XII games. Baylor won 8 conference games last year alone, and they got the closest thing to an NCAA death penalty just four years ago. It’s a shame nobody gets to see just how fun Pooka Williams Jr. is. He wound up second in the Big XII in rushing, for the second year in a row, even though he’s the only guy you have to worry about, and Kansas generally finds itself playing from behind too often to fully lean into him. He’s enough to make an underwhelming Jayhawk offense, at least somewhat respectable. Kansas’ weird problem is that they were more explosive than consistent, but not explosive enough. Williams was top 30 in the nation in runs of over 10 yards and runs of over 20 yards. But he only had 4 runs of over 30 yards, which kept him outside the top 100. Yet, Kansas only averaged 18.7 first downs per game, second lowest in the conference, on 39% third down conversion rate, and 35% 4th down conversion rate, the worst in the Big XII. So they were too reliant on big plays, but the big plays they got, which were fairly frequent, weren’t big enough. Considering the bulk of returning talent is at the skill positions, that will probably be the gameplan again. Aside from Williams, Velton Gardner flashed signs on limited touches. JUCO transfer receiver Andrew Parchment won postseason newcomer of the year, and is their best and most consistent receiver, but Stephon Robinson Jr., and his 16.2 ypc probably scares defenses more. But Kansas will be breaking in a new starter at quarterback, and trying to replace 3 starting offensive linemen, plus a fourth part time starter. So the whole thing is sort of a deck of cards. It probably doesn’t matter because of how truly terrible the defense is going to be though. The Jayhawks fell to #106 in defensive SP+, and rank #117 in returning production. Per Bill Connelly, the Jayhawks defense basically just didn’t allow big plays. They were dismal at everything else. They generated a Big XII low 17 sacks, and lose 4 of their top 6 havoc creators, including their two leading sackers. Good luck trying to attempt to compete in the Big XII with no pass rush. The one bright spot was true freshman linebacker Gavin Potter from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.
| KEY PLAYERS |
RB | Pooka Williams Jr., Junior |
FB | Ben Miles, Junior |
WR | Andrew Parchment, Senior |
| . |
LB | Gavin Potter, Sophomore |
LB | Kyron Johnson, Senior |
P | Kyle Thompson, Senior |
#96 South Florida Bulls |
#10 in American |
While simply bringing Willie Taggert back seems like it would have been the easy choice, scroll a little ways back up to the UConn breakdown to see why that isn’t necessarily the best call. The coach who worked on his way up, isn’t going to necessarily work at the same location on his way back down. While it was a different school on his way up, South Florida sort of learned that lesson with Charlie Strong. Instead they made a higher upside require, by hiring Clemson co-offensive coordinator Jeff Scott. Scott was hired at Clemson in 2008 as a graduate assistant, and promoted to wide receiver coach, midseason, when Dabo Swinney was named interim coach. When the Swinney hire was made permanent, Scott also took over as recruiting coordinator, which he held through 2014. So the rise in talent that Clemson has undergone, yeah, that’s Swinney, but Scott very well might be the second most important person involved in that. The level to which the talent in Tampa had depleted is inexcusable. A number of AAC programs are at historic highs, and for South Florida to be pulling in less talent than schools like Cincinnati, Memphis and Temple, makes no sense. Strong’s final class finished ranked outside the top 100 nationally, #9 out of 11 in the American. They should be bringing in top 3 AAC classes, top 50-60 classes overall, every single year. Scott inherits a young starting quarterback in Jordan McCloud, who Strong rolled with last year, for better or worse, often worse, after the often transferred Blake Barnett simply wasn’t working out. But the result was the lowest completion rate and fewest passing touchdowns in the conference, this side of Navy, and at just 6.2 ypa, the worst passing average in the conference, to go with the lowest passing efficiency. The run game was slightly better, but with the graduation of Jordan Cronkite, a lot more falls on Kelley Joiner, who, like McCloud played last year as a true freshman. He averaged 5.1 ypc, but on under 7 carries per game, and nearly zero red zone work. Considering he was a 5’9”, 175 pound 18 year old, giving him limited work, and no goal line work, makes sense. Those dimensions aren’t really changing, so while his work load should increase, they also need a bigger back to emerge. The answer to both questions may be power five transfers, as South Florida brought in quarterback Cade Fortin from North Carolina, and running backs Darrian Felix and Lavonte Valentine, from Oregon and South Carolina, respectively. They also got interior defensive tackle Bo Peek from Stanford, who has already been cleared for immediate eligibility. He should help strengthen the middle of a Bulls defense that was very good against the pass, but terrible against the run. South Florida held teams to under 190 passing yards per game, on a solid 7.0 ypa, thanks in part to 12 interceptions, a 3.69% rate, #12 in the nation. But the run defense allowed 4.5 ypc, over 200 yards per game, second worst in the American, to only UConn. The Bulls had the second most lopsided run defense-pass defense splits, with 54.8% of the yards they allowed, coming on the ground. On the whole, South Florida returns the 38th most defensive production in the nation from what was the makings of a very good defense. The return both interior linemen, and along with the addition of Peek, means maybe the Bulls can become an elite defensive unit, from a team that lost three games where they allowed 20 points or less.
| KEY PLAYERS |
QB | Jordan McCloud, Sophomore |
RB | Kelley Joiner, Sophomore |
WR | Randall St. Felix, Junior |
| . |
LB | Dwayne Boyles, Junior |
LB | Antonio Grier, Junior |
CB | K.J. Sails, Senior |