College football’s 2024 season is one of the most anticipated and historic in the sport’s history.
The year aligns with a slew of changes to the industry. You probably know many of them, like the expanded 12-team playoff, the realignment-triggered new power conferences and the player-to-helmet communications system now legalized in the college game.
As the season kicks off, here’s a viewer’s guide to the 12 most intriguing new faces, elements and rules in 2024 and beyond…
1: New Alabama coach
The sport lost one of its greats with the retirement of former Alabama coach Nick Saban. He presided over, arguably, the most dominant dynasty in college football history — a 17-season run in Tuscaloosa that included 201 wins, 29 losses, nine conference championships and six national titles.
The new face in Tuscaloosa is Kalen DeBoer, who last led Washington to the national title game. He’s an offensive guru who’s also built offensive juggernauts at the Group of Five (Fresno State) and NAIA (Sioux Falls) levels. In nine seasons as a head coach, he’s lost 12 games. But the SEC is different and replacing a legend is never easy. During a visit to Tuscaloosa this spring, DeBoer quipped to Yahoo Sports on replacing such a successful coach: “Yeah, I get it, but I don’t think anyone is going to put more pressure on me than myself. I understand there’s a lot more eyeballs and critiquing. It’s on another level here, I’m sure.”
To be sure, it is. Remember, after all, an Alabama fan once went to jail for poisoning the trees of arch-rival Auburn. It’s, uh, different down there.
2: Minute warning
For those who continue to disagree with college football’s evolution into a more professional sport like the NFL, they won’t like this one. In the latest NFL-like change, the sport is adopting the two-minute warning.
Two minutes before the end of the second and fourth quarters, the game will break in an automatic timeout. The rule change synchronizes all timing rules, such as 10-second runoffs and stopping the clock when a first down is gained in bounds. These coincide with the two-minute timeout.
3: Thousand miles
That’s the most distance between two conference members. Yes, 3,000 miles. If you drove from Stanford to Boston College — both now in the ACC — you’d cross over about 3,100 miles of roadway, spend 46 hours in your vehicle and pass through 11 states. If that seems wacky, it’s because it is wacky. Alas, conference realignment has brought us some wild distances between programs.
The ACC isn’t alone. In the Big Ten, a trip from Eugene to Rutgers is more than 2,900 miles. In the Big 12, Utah and UCF are separated by nearly 2,400 miles. In the SEC, the two farthest programs are only 1,165 miles from one another: Oklahoma and Florida.
4: Power conferences
The most significant, landscape-altering conference realignment wave in the sport’s history resulted in the demise of a 108-year-old conference and the expansion — by 13 teams — of the four other power leagues.
The SEC, with the additions of Oklahoma and Texas, now has 16 members. So does the Big 12, as it picked up Utah, Colorado, Arizona State and Arizona. The Big Ten, with new teams Washington, Oregon, USC and UCLA, and the ACC with new teams Cal, Stanford and SMU, are at 18 members each.
Be prepared for some weird conference games, such as USC at Maryland, Washington at Rutgers, Oklahoma at LSU, Texas at Florida and a real doozy: Cal at SMU (who’d a thunk they’d both be in the ACC last July?).
5: New Big Ten head coaches
No power conference saw more head coaching changes than the Big Ten.
At UCLA, DeShaun Foster takes over for Chip Kelly, who left for a coordinator position at new Big Ten conference mate Ohio State. At Indiana, Curt Cignetti replaces the fired Tom Allen, who also remains in the Big Ten (he’s the defensive coordinator at Penn State).
In Ann Arbor, Sherrone Moore is Michigan’s first first-time head coach in nearly 30 years after his promotion upon Jim Harbaugh’s departure for the NFL. Michigan State hired Jonathan Smith, formerly of Oregon State, to replace the fired Mel Tucker. And, finally, there’s Washington, where Jedd Fisch arrived from Arizona following DeBoer’s exit to Tuscaloosa.
Whew! Got all that? They each face their own kind of adversity.
Moore and Michigan are embroiled in the NCAA’s investigation into the sign-stealing scandal. Cignetti, despite returning about 20 starters, takes over a program that has finished with a winning record twice in the last 16 years. Smith and the Spartans get a schedule that features trips to Oregon and Michigan and a home game against Ohio State.
In Los Angeles, Foster is searching for a quarterback after five-star prospect Dante Moore left for Oregon, and in Seattle, Fisch returns, at most, two starters from last year’s team that lost to Michigan in the championship game.
Good luck, guys!
6: Ohio State transfers
Did any program in the country land more highly rated transfers this offseason than the Buckeyes? The half-dozen transfers are likely to all start or at least contribute greatly (except, perhaps, for one).
SEC freshman of the year Caleb Downs was ranked by most as the top transfer in the portal. After all, the safety became the first Alabama freshman to lead the team in tackles (107) last season. Running back and Ole Miss transfer Quinshon Judkins and his 31 touchdowns should help out tremendously in the backfield with returning veteran TreVeyon Henderson.
The Buckeyes turned to Kansas State to find their starting quarterback in Will Howard, and they added Alabama starting center Seth McLaughlin to bolster the offensive line. Tight end Will Kacmarek, from Ohio, is a 6-6, 260-pounder who provides a blocking and receiving threat. And, finally, there’s Julian Sayin, the former No. 1-ranked quarterback prospect who left Alabama for a chance to, at least eventually, start behind center for the Buckeyes.
No coach has more pressure this year to win, and win big, than Ryan Day. Ohio State’s football roster budget is near the $20 million mark.
7: Conferences with newfound hope
This isn’t just a Big Ten and SEC playoff party any longer (well, maybe not). The new College Football Playoff provides a path for the seven other leagues to reach the postseason: the ACC, Big 12 and the Group of Five conferences.
The five highest-ranked conference champions receive an automatic berth into the field. Not only that but four of the top five champions get byes into the quarterfinals. Yes! There is hope for the Other Seven!
But how much hope exactly? Well, if you applied the 12-team format to the previous 10 years of the CFP, you’ll find pure domination from the SEC and Big Ten (they would have accounted for 72 of the 120 playoff spots). Still, that’s 48 spots for the Other Seven.
8: Weekends with three or more top-25 matchups
Many fans bristle at conference realignment (unless your team is getting a promotion). But the unintended (or intended, in some cases) consequences of realignment is more big branded matchups and top-25 showdowns more often.
Using the AP preseason poll, a whopping eight weekends of the 14-week season feature at least top-25 meetings. Five of those feature four top-25 games in blockbuster, ratings bonanza-type Saturdays that likely have folks at Fox, ESPN, CBS and NBC drooling.
Take for instance Nov. 9. That Saturday features Oklahoma at Missouri, Alabama at LSU, Georgia at Ole Miss, Texas at Florida, FSU at Notre Dame and the new Big 12 Holy War, when BYU meets Utah in a conference game.
9: Playing seasons for Miami TE Cam McCormick
Cam McCormick is believed to have set a college football record for years of eligibility. He’s 26 years old and is a ninth-year senior. You read that correctly. The tight end, originally from Oregon, spent his first seven seasons with the Ducks before transferring to Miami.
Get this: McCormick was in the same signing class (2016) as former Michigan defensive lineman Rashan Gary, who begins his sixth season in the NFL this year.
Wondering how he’s still competing in college? It is mostly rooted in receiving extra years of eligibility for injuries and the COVID season, of course. McCormick redshirted as a freshman in 2016; played in all 13 games in 2017; missed most of 2018 after an injury in the season opener; missed all of 2019 and 2020 with injuries; played in two games in 2021 before suffering another season-ending injury; played a full season in 2022 in Eugene; and started 11 games last year at Miami.
This reminds us of something: This is the final year of players using their COVID redshirt season, when the NCAA granted each athlete an extra year of eligibility for the impacted 2020-21 COVID year. Most of those sixth and even seventh-year seniors will be out of eligibility next year.
10: Years of the new athlete revenue-sharing model
By now, surely you’ve heard about the House antitrust lawsuit and the 10-year settlement of that lawsuit, which will usher into college sports next fall an athlete revenue-sharing model.
If you haven’t, well, we’ve got a short explanation for you (here’s a longer version). The NCAA and power conferences agreed to pay nearly $2.8 billion in back pay to former athletes as well as share revenue with future athletes. Each school will have the ability to distribute as much as $22 million annually to their athletes. The settlement is 10 years in length, but could be extended beyond that time frame.
While each party has agreed to the settlement, the judge in the case, Claudia Wilken, must approve it. A hearing is set for the preliminary approval of the suit Sept. 5.
11: Smart tablets on the sideline
Teams are actually permitted to have as many as 18 smart tablets on the sideline, coaches’ booth and in the locker room during a game to review previous plays. Like the two-minute warning, it’s one of three significant rule changes this year.
The other: coach-to-player communication systems. Yes! College football is advancing into the technological age more than two decades after the NFL did this. Each school will have the option to use the communications through the helmet to one player on the field at one time. That player will be identified with a green dot on the back midline of his helmet. The communication from the coach to the player will be turned off with 15 seconds remaining on the play clock or when the ball is snapped, whichever comes first.
12: Playoff teams
We saved the best for last. An expanded playoff! As mentioned above, the expanded playoff gives access to all conferences, paving the way for an incredibly exciting November as teams jockey to either grab one of the five automatic qualifying bids by winning their league or finishing high enough to capture one of seven at-large spots.
This 5+7 format comes with some peculiar rules that are bound to confuse fans as December rolls around. Let’s clear things up.
1) The CFP selection committee will continue to rank the top 25 teams as it does now. The ranking and seeding are two different sets of numbers. See No. 2.
2) The committee will slot the four highest-ranked conference champions as Nos. 1-4 seeds and those teams receive a bye into the quarterfinals. A team cannot receive a bye if it does not win its conference championship.
Yes, this means the second-best team from a conference can be ranked in the top four of the committee’s top 25 but be seeded outside of the top four. This would have happened in 2022, when Ohio State finished ranked No. 4 as the second-best Big Ten team behind No. 2 Michigan, the league’s champion. If the 12-team format was applied to that year, Ohio State, ranked No. 4, would have been seeded No. 5.
3) After the four highest-ranked conference champions are seeded Nos. 1-4, the committee seeds Nos. 5-12 based on the top-25 rankings while assuring that a fifth conference champion — likely from the Group of Five — is in the field.
4) Four first-round games pit seeds 5 vs. 12, 8 vs. 9, 7 vs. 10 and 6 vs. 11, played on the campus of the better seed. The quarterfinals and semifinals are hosted by the New Year’s Six bowl games in a rotation.
5) Seeds Nos. 1-4 host first-round winners at bowl sites. The top four seeds are assigned to bowls using their conference’s historical bowl affiliation and taking geography into account.
Ta-da! Done.
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