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

Yep.  Exhibit #1.

#51 West Virginia Mountaineers

#7 in Big XII

We continue our run on Big XII teams, but leave the state of Texas.  I thought West Virginia’s drop last year would be more muted than most, but I don’t think I fully appreciated just how bare the cupboard was left by Holgorson.  I still think Neal Brown was a really good hire, but while the offense figures to rebound from last year, he’s got his work cut out for him defensively.  The Stills brothers from nearby Fairmont, West Virginia are rock solid on the line, and allow a lot of freedom behind them, but the Mountaineers lost nearly all the depth along the line, and 5 of the 8 starters behind them have moved on.  Gaining some stability on the back end is needed after a pair of very talented players let the program down.  Kenny Robinson Jr. was expelled for an academic violation, and spent last season playing in the XFL, before entering the 2020 NFL Draft.  Then Kwantel Raines, who was one of the highest rated safety recruits in the nation was unable to find the field, and wound up transferring to Temple.  Defensive coordinator Vic Koenning, 60 years old, with 17 season of coordinating experience, showed that off in maximizing what talent he had there, trying to create havoc, and largely succeeding.  They were top 30 in the nation in havoc rate; the problem is they racked up negative plays, but not turnovers, ranking bottom 25 nationally in turnovers created rate.  When the offense is as bad as the Mountaineers’ was last year, you need to create some turnovers, and probably score off some yourself.  Because where I really undersold West Virginia’s dropoff though was on the offensive side of the ball, where I figured there was at least some talent left behind.  It appears I was wrong.  The offensive production plummeted from #9 in SP+ in 2018, to #100 last year.  They return their starting quarterback, leading rusher, and six of their seven top receivers.  Is it really as simple as experience though?  The offensive line never recovered from the injury, and eventual transfer of Josh Sills, and now has to replace both starting tackles.  It was the middle of the line that really struggled to open running lanes, as the Mountaineers sputtered to just 2.6 ypc, worst in the Big XII by over a yard and a half per carry, second worst in the entire FBS, ahead of only Akron.  So I’m not sure what sort of progression can necessarily be expected there.  In Sam Jones at wide receiver, they do have an absolute star in the making though.  He finished third in the Big XII with 69 receptions, as only a freshman.  Now, he just needs to figure out how to do more with it after the reception.  His 9.8 ypc was easily the least of any player in the conference with at least 19 receptions, with 11.5 being the next lowest, and his 2 receiving touchdowns put him only third on his own team, a team that had the third fewest touchdown passes in the Big XII.  While there is some growing buzz to turn from Oklahoma transfer Austin Kendall as starting quarterback, to Bowling Green transfer Jarrett Doege, I’m not ready to buy in yet.  Kendall had injury problems, but was never replaced for performance.  Yes, Doege had better numbers in his three game stint at the end, but Kendall was in and out all year, and gave the staff plenty of chance to replace him, and they never did.

	KEY PLAYERS
QB	Austin Kendall, Senior
RB	Leddie Brown, Junior
WR	Sam James, Sophomore
	.
DE	Dante Stills, Junior
DT	Darius Stills, Senior
LB	Josh Chandler, Junior

#50 SMU Mustangs

#6 in American

And now we leave the Big XII, but return to Texas, where SMU had their best season since 1984, pre death penalty.  The Mustangs were 8-0 and ranked #15, the visiting team when Gameday went to Memphis on November 2.  They had an uneven finish, losing by one score to the Tigers, and Navy, and then a lousy performance against Florida Atlantic in the Boca Raton Bowl.  So while they didn’t get the Group of Five’s New Years Six slot, which appeared possible on Halloween, the season was a success, and after his failure at Cal, I don’t think any Power Five school is coming after a 51 year old Sonny Dykes for a second shot.  But as 2020 goes, he’s got some major retooling to do.  At least starting quarterback Shane Buchele returns, but when Buchele lines up under center, he’s going to look around and need an armband just to remember the names of the guys around him.  The Mustangs have to replace their two leading rushers, and two of their three starting receivers.  Retaining Buchele is big, but finding someone to replace James Proche, and his 111 receptions, is probably not happening.  T.J. McDaniel at running back and Reggie Roberson at receiver seem like the next big stars, but they have big shoes to fill.  JUCO transfer Danny Gray, who flipped from TCU, and is the highest rated recruit SMU has pulled in in a decade also could be an immediate contributor.  Dykes knows his stuff, the Mustangs have the best quarterback in the conference, and the line is anchored by Jaylon Thomas, the best NFL prospect in the conference.  I trust it will get sorted out to some level.  It’s the defense that is far more concerning, losing seven starters off a unit that allowed the fourth most ypp in the American.  Their defensive “success” last year was predicated off of pressuring the quarterback, tallying easily the most sacks in the conference, with the third highest sack rate of any Group of Five team.  Problem is replacing Patrick Nelson and Delontae Scott, who combined for 22 sacks and 36 tackles for loss.  They were the only set of teammates in the nation to both record at least 18 tackles for loss, and one of just two sets of teammates (along with Zack Baun and Chris Orr of Wisconsin) to both have double digit sacks.  They did get a little bit of instant help, from grad transfer defensive tackle Michael Williams from Stanford, but their high school recruiting didn’t get quite the quick uptick you’d hope for in such a talent rich market.  Sometimes that success is too deep in the recruiting cycle (particularly now with the early Signing Day), that it takes a year for it to reflect in the interest of prospects.  It’s hard to judge where a class is headed based on three prospects, but any class, particularly at this level, currently headed by a top 70 national recruit, the #4 dual threat quarterback in the nation, and easily the highest rated prospect SMU has reeled in in the 247 era, Preston Stone, is going to be pretty good.  Signing Day is a long way away, but if Dykes can keep him in the fold, expect him to start Day 1 in 2021.

	KEY PLAYERS
QB	Shane Buchele, Senior
TE	Kylen Granson, Senior
T	Jaylon Thomas, Junior
	.
DE	Turner Coxe, Junior
LB	Richard McBryde, Senior
LB	Delano Robinson, Senior

#49 Missouri Tigers

#9 in SEC

I know the bowl ban set a damper on the season, but Missouri had WAY too much talent for the season they had.  They went 6-6, without a win over a single bowl team, with losses to Wyoming and Vanderbilt, and weren’t competitive against Kentucky, Georgia or Florida.  They had plenty of NFL talent, including three players who departed early, and added Kelly Bryant from Clemson.  You can’t say they hadn’t bought into coach Barry Odom either, because when given the chance to transfer without penalty, prior to the season, once the penalties came out, the players didn’t.  It just somehow didn’t work.  The 2020 team is certainly less talented than the 2019 version, but the quick rising Eliah Drinwitz will be given time to build his program his way.  The 37 year old was a position coach in the Group of Five, just six years ago, and has only one year of head coaching experience, taking Appalachian State to a 12-1 season last year.  The defense lost their three best players, but return all eight other starters after allowing just 4.9 ypp last year, fourth best in the SEC.  They could be even better this year, projected as the #18 SP+ defense, assuming that all of the surrounding pieces progress.  They are very solid in the middle with Nick Bolton, who could be a preseason first team All-SEC linebacker.  If the Tigers become a top 25ish team, he’ll be a name.  Just by chance, you assume two of the other seven returning starters will take a big leap.  But oh boy, the offense has some issues.  The flip side to taking a senior transfer quarterback is that if it doesn’t work, as Bryant didn’t, you also have set yourself back going forward.  If one is to look at what Drinkwitz ran last year at Appalachian State, it was a run heavy approach, which only attempted about 26 passes a game, the 20th most run heavy team in the country.  Granted when you are running roughshod over the Sun Belt, it’s easy to lean into the run.  However once he takes a look at his offensive personnel in Columbia, he may feel the same.  Larry Rountree III and Tyler Badie form a solid 1-2 punch at running back, with Rountree getting more the carries, at about a 63%-37% split.  But Badie is a major threat as a pass catcher, with 32 receptions last year, to Rountree’s 3.  The problem is those 32 receptions led the team.  And from that disappointing group of receivers, they lost their top two, plus their starting tight end.  It’s no coincidence that the top 4 rated players in Missouri’s 2020 recruiting class are three receivers and an all-purpose back, who may translate to a slot receiver in college.  All four have a chance to see immediate playing time, at a position of need, for a new coach, installing a new offense.  To replace Kelly Bryant, TCU transfer Shawn Robinson was supposed to have the spring to stake his claim to a lead, with his only competition coming from last year’s back up Taylor Powell, because redshirt freshman Connor Bazelak is still rehabbing a torn ACL, true freshman Brady Cook did not enroll early, and Lindsey Scott transferred to Nebraska.  With spring being lost, it could be a wide open four man battle going into fall.  I would bet on either Robinson or Cook though.

	KEY PLAYERS
RB	Larry Rountree III, Senior
T	Larry Borom, Junior
G	Case Cook, Junior
	.
DT	Kobie Whiteside, Senior
LB	Nick Bolton, Junior
S	Tyree Gillespie, Senior

Breaking the P5s down by division:

Acc: 4 Atlantic/4 Coastal
Big Ten: 5 East/4 West
Pac 12: 4 North/3 South
Sec: 4 East/4 West
Big Xii: 6 teams (no divisions)

In the G5: 
Aac: 3 East/2 West
Mwc: 2 Mountain/0 West (odd considering that the West "should" have a tremendous recruiting advantage with CA, HI and NV)
Sunbelt: 1 East/1 West

So a lot of parity within these conferences, at least with regards to the way in which the divisions are divvied up. 

Interesting E/W splits there, both sides have the same number of pretty bad teams across conferences.

#48 Michigan State Spartans

#9 in Big Ten

When I made these rankings, I knew Michigan State was going through a very late coaching transition.  What I didn’t know is that spring practice would be totally washed out, so that if we have football in the fall, it will be a very small amount of time this new staff has to implement what they want to run.  That said, I’m not sure it was going to be any worse than if the coaching staff had remained in place.  The Spartans had a bounceback 2017, after a horrible 2016, when a very young roster that seemed poised to get Michigan State back to where they had been from 2011-2015.  Instead they went 14-12 as that 10-3 roster matured, and a lot of the overlooked 2017 issues reared their head.  They were still incredibly thin from bad recruiting and departures.  As healthy as they stayed in 2017, they did not the following two years.  And the offensive issues in 2017 were ignored by going 6-0 in games decided by one score or less (including 4 wins when scoring 17 or fewer).  That flipped to 5-5 over 2018 and 2019, and 1-10 in the games where they scored 17 or fewer, the lone win being a 14-10 snore-fest at home against Rutgers.  The fact that the team had 11 such games over the past two seasons is why fresh blood was needed on offense.  While the quarterback position is in flux, the remaining slots actually are showing promise.  Elijah Collins emerged as a freshman running back, to earn third team all-Big Ten honors, with the most rushing yards by a Spartan since Jeremy Langford in 2014.  He did that in spite of an offensive line that gave him nothing to work with.  Then, the areas Michigan State seemed to struggle in all year, offensive line and receiver, seemed to improve late, as the staff turned to the freshmen.  Somewhat reminiscent of 2016, when guys like Joe Bachie and Kenny Willekes and Justin Layne started getting worked int, and the defense started playing a little better.  But the quarterback position remains potentially a big problem.  Rocky Lombardi is the only one with any meaningful experience...and no Michigan State fan wants him to win the job.  He had a strong debut against Purdue, and then fell off a cliff.  The other options are redshirt sophomore Theo Day, who was the highest rated recruit of the quarterbacks, redshirt freshman Payton Thorne, who flipped from Western Michigan once Michigan State lost their quarterback commit to Ohio State, and incoming freshman Noah Kim, who flipped from Virginia Tech.  While certainly not every Michigan State quarterback has worked out (Andrew Maxwell, Tyler O’Conner), I haven’t felt this unconfident in the quarterbacking spot since 2009, when Kirk Cousins and Keith Nichol battled to replace Brian Hoyer.  The defense is in serious need of some dudes.  The horrible offense wasted a pair of great defenses, and now Michigan State must replace 7 starters, including 4 likely NFL Draft picks (writing this Saturday).  While Kenny Willekes and Joe Bachie were the emotional leaders of the defense, Antjuan Simmons was the brains of the operation.  A well spoken, natural leader, his return might be more important than his more heralded teammates, particularly considering the shape of the front seven.  The secondary, even with Josiah Scott’s early departure looks solid, even more so if the rumors of WR/CB Julian Barnett, the jewel of the Spartans’ 2019 class, sticking on defense are true.  While “No Fly Zone” is premature, Barnett and fellow sophomore Kalon Gervin would be the highest upside cornerback pair of the Dantonio/Tucker era.  But the front seven, aside from Simmons, has a ton of questions  Naquan Jones goes from part of a great three man interior line rotation to the only known commodity.  And the Spartans could be starting two walk ons at linebacker.  Throw in the consensus toughest schedule in the country, and just getting bowl eligible seems like too tall of a task for this group.

	KEY PLAYERS
RB	Elijah Collins, Sophomore
C	Nick Samac, Sophomore
K	Matt Coghlin, Senior
	.
DE	Jacub Panasiuk, Senior
LB	Antjuan Simmons, Junior
S	Xavier Henderson, Junior

SP+ has them projected #45, FPI has them #58.

And if I had known there's be no spring ball, I'd have probably have out them in the 55-60 range.