crash-and-burn team candidates this year?

Aug 4, 2015, 3:29 PM

Football doesn't go in a straight line. If it did, the team that signed the best recruits every year would just waltz to the championship. Teams tumble from the top all the time...we're seeing distinct signs with, say, Oklahoma - we put a big nail in that coffin at the end of last year - and we're going to see it with others as well. I think we watched it happen with South Carolina last year too.

Sometimes it's probation. Sometimes it's a coaching change. More often, a team struggles at the most-important spot - QB - and then there just isn't enough around the guy to compensate. A lot of time this coincides with a bunch of off-the-field stuff coming to a head as well.

What happens is, a perennial 10-win team has some bad games, usually towards the end of the year, slides to 8-5, even 7-6. People grumble...but it's not like the team has fallen that far, after all, and the coach has gotten it done in the past so let's stay loyal...but if you take a closer look, you see that the go-getters on the coaching staff are gone and have been replaced with careerist place-holders who are good at collecting paychecks and sounding veteran and knowledgeable but don't actually do much. And somehow, the edge is off the team...and they're just another team again.

So...all that said...who are your picks for the Big Fall this year?

Here's mine....
1) Alabama. They recruit like gangbusters. They also have QB issues, had a bunch of off-the-field issues, and sorry, I just don't see Nick Saban and Lane Kiffin co-existing indefinitely. I don't see them plummeting to the basement but they've looked a lot more ordinary in the past couple seasons...I could see them dropping to the 8-or-9-win level this year, courtesy of the likes of Arkansas, Texas A&M, and especially Auburn, who I think are all better, and have way more mo going their way. You lose your mojo in the SEC West and it gets dicey fast.

2) LSU. Speaking of teams on the tumble, LSU looks poised to drop to maybe even sub-.500. They still recruit like you'd expect a monster-money SEC program to recruit, but their offense was dismal last year even with Leonard Fournette and Les Miles still hasn't got the first clue what he's doing on that side of the ball, and now he's gone and replaced John Chavis with (drum roll)...Kevin Steele. Steele does not handle pressure situations well (to put it mildly), and his PTSD nerves are going to get quite a workout every week in the Wild SEC West. That looks like train-wreck to me. I think this is Les Miles' Last Stand, and I don't think he has enough Forest Gump magic left to survive it.

3) FSU. I don't think this shows up right away. If you look at the Seminole schedule it sets up very nicely for them...early, and I think they'll win - albeit in unimpressive fashion - and coast to a very deceptive 7-1 or even 8-0 early record. Their schedule is squishy-soft, actually, with the only - and I mean only games that should test them being Louisville (at home), Georgia Tech (away), and Clemson (away). But that SEC West-style OOC schedule is...well, an embarassment, and while I think they can sorta stumble and bumble their way to 10 wins with the talent they've got, I think they could well be the worst 10-win team in the country this year. All the ingredients for shipwreck are present - a potential QB problem, off-the-field distractions galore, and poor coaching, especially on the defensive side of the ball. Add to that an overly complicated offense that is not new-QB-friendly, which could be an issue if they're having to switch guys out.

4) Oregon. Mark Helfricht has done a good job keeping things going in Eugene but it's hard to not notice he's no Chip Kelly when it comes to personal leadership or confidence. In fact he looks like a bug under a magnifying glass when you watch him in pre-game interviews or on the sideline, and makes Tommy Bowden's gameday demeanor seem suave in comparison. Helfricht's obviously a bright guy and a Kelly disciple, but inertia only carries you so far...or in this case, it might have carried him only as long as he still had Marcus Mariota. The Ducks did bring in Eastern Washington transfer Vernon Adams, who broke scoreboards at the FCS level, but while Adams is undeniably magic dealing the ball around, he's also small and is no Marcus Mariota running the ball. It also begs the question of what exactly has happened to the Ducks' QB recruiting that they're having to raid the FCS for fifth-year transfers for an emergency starter? The Ducks are also not killers on the defensive side of the ball either. Are they good for eight to ten wins? Probably. Are they a playoff contender in a Pac-12 that features killer offenses that can themselves set scoreboards alight every week? I have doubts. I look at Southern Cal, UCLA, Arizona, Arizona State, or even Stanford as teams that could end Duck Dynasty in emphatic fashion, and I also doubt they've forgotten all the times the Ducks poured it to them in the last decade. I personally think last year's championship loss to Ohio State was probably the high-water mark for the Oregon program, and it's downhill from here. The Pac-12 is such that if you stumble, Oh My, can it get ugly fast.

I'd also count Oklahoma and South Carolina as teams that tumbled last year, and aren't coming back anytime soon.

What say you guys? Who's teetering on the edge of the abyss?

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So they might be a little bit too easy of targets, even if Bama and Oregon have put together pretty long strings of elite-level football. FSU really does seem ripe for a let down, but they also had similar problems the year they won the national championship.

Maybe the only other team in the country that recruits like FSU is Alabama, and while I think their defense seems to be taking steps back, they should be pretty strong along the DL. If they can figure out how to rush the passer, they'll be improved. I think they'll be fine with whoever plays QB- most likely to be Jacob Coker- but they also have to replace their top 3 WRs from last year.

I can really see LSU falling to 7 or 8 wins or less. They couldn't pass the ball last year, and while they have some good young talent at WR, there's nobody returning with more than 800 yards receiving. Their leading receiver, Travin Dural, had nearly 500 yards receiving in his first 4 games, but then only went over 50 yards receiving one more time. Malachi Dupre was the #1 WR out of high school but only caught 14 balls last year and had only 1 game where he was really a factor. If Steele's defense doesn't pan out- and I tend to think they'll do better than a lot of people do, considering what Steele did in his first couple of years at Clemson when he had some talent- LSU could look pretty bad.

I don't know that OU will take a total swan dive with Samaje Perine still at RB. There's also the x-factor there of new OC Lincoln Riley.

So my own picks are more along the lines of programs that haven't really built for long term success, but which have been at a high level over the last 3-4 years. South Carolina is definitely one of those, as I think the departure of all that talent on the defensive side of the ball was not replaced with equal talent, and I don't see anybody besides Pharoh Cooper who will scare defenses on the offensive side of the ball. I could see them losing 7 or 8 games this year.

Another pick of mine is Mississippi State. Yes, they'll still have Prescott, but their defense fell apart at the end of last year.

I can also see Ole Miss falling back to earth this year, as they have to break in a new QB (Chad Kelly?). However, they've really recruited well at DL and WR, so they may have a little more staying power.

Stanford seems like the team in the PAC with the best possibility of disappearing. They didn't look particularly good last year, and I don't think they have enough in their program to resist a downward trend. That said... I don't really know a ton about what they have on their team.

crash-and-burn team candidates this year?

I agree with your 4. Those are mine too. I can't wait to see

I agree on 'Bama...

Re: crash-and-burn team candidates this year?

Re: crash-and-burn team candidates this year?

Notre Dame...

Except for LSU, the only place for those teams to go is down

OU could be a surprise contender this year...

Oregon is the obvious pick.

Re: crash-and-burn team candidates this year?

i vote UGA

LSU. 70 Reasons why. Real head-scratcher.....***

Re: crash-and-burn team candidates this year?

Re: crash-and-burn team candidates this year?

Re: crash-and-burn team candidates this year?

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