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59. Wake Forest Demon Deacons

#11 in ACC

Wake Forest was one of a handful of ACC teams that I was higher than most on a year ago, and the Deacons let me down.  The Deacons did it largely off the strength of a revitalized offense that was overhauled two years ago and has since set basically every school record in back to back season.  Leading rusher Cade Carney returns, but aside from him, Wake Forest is nearly starting from scratch.  While Carney does return, and was Wake Forest’s back last year, he was 1A to to Matt Colburn’s 1B.  Those 159 carries and 759 yards have to now be found somewhere else?  Is it likely Carney sees an increased workload, that puts him over 200 carries?  Probably, but at the pace Warren Ruggiero wants to go at, he needs to find a second guy.  The irreplaceable talent is Greg Dortch, who redshirted in 2016, making him eligible for the NFL Draft after just two seasons in Winston-Salem, an opportunity he took.  Dortch was the type of elite athlete that Wake Forest does not get, an all-conference/all-American player at both receiver and special teams.  He’s tough to replace at most places, at a school like Wake Forest, impossible.  But the replacement may come through quantity, not quality.  Sage Surratt, who himself redshirted in 2017, had a breakout redshirt freshman season, finishing second on the team in receiving, with a pair of 100 yard games.  He goes from unknown second option to the guy though, and defenses will adjust accordingly.  He will be bolstered by some special freshman talent though.  Wake Forest signed their second best class of the 247 era, and the top two players in the class are a pair of 4* receivers in Donavon Greene and Nolan Groulx, a pair of in state players who individually rate as the first and third best recruits for the program in the past fifteen years.  It’s not an exact science, but receiver seems to translate well to this level, and it’s not like Wake Forest is flush with athletes like that to beat out.  Quarterback remains a battle going into the spring, as neither Sam Hartman or Jamie Newman were able to take control of the job last season.  For what this offense likes to do, I like the more accurate passing of Newman, to keep the pace up, but Clawson seems noncommittal.  The offensive line, which was one of the most experienced units in the nation a year ago has to find a way to replace four starters.  The defense has been much maligned, giving up over 33 points a game last year, leading to Jay Sawvel being fired as coordinator after the 56-27 loss at Notre Dame last year in September.  Tom Gilmore replaced him, but the long time Holy Cross coach, after spending one season as an assistant, returned to head coaching at the FCS level at a different Patriot League school, Lehigh.  Wake promoted defensive backs coach Lyle Hemphill, who served in that capacity at Stony Brook from 2013-2016.  In his final two years Stony Brook finished 1st and 3rd in the FCS in total defense and yards per play, leading to him being named the FCS’s top coordinator in 2015.  The last two years as position coach are his only FBS experience, but he certainly has proven it before at a fairly high level.  The issue is Wake’s defense wasn’t that bad last year, 13th in the ACC in total defense, but 9th in yards allowed per play.  The offensive adjustments are simply going to lead to these types of shootouts.  Essang Bassey is a shutdown corner, but aside from him the secondary looks to continue to be shaky.

	KEY PLAYERS
RB	Cade Carney, Senior
WR	Sage Surratt, Sophomore
T	Jake Benzinger, Senior
	.
LB	Justin Strnad, Senior
CB	Essang Bassey, Senior
S	Luke Masterson, Junior

58. Vanderbilt Commodores

#12 in SEC

Vanderbilt found a way to exceed expectations off of a disappointing 2017 season, after which the defense was gutted, and found its way into a bowl game.  Four of their six regular season losses came to top 15 teams, and they had chances to beat three of them (Notre Dame, Florida, Kentucky).  All of their losses came to bowl teams.  The flip side to that is that their six wins came against Middle Tennessee, Nevada, Tennessee State and the three worst SEC teams, who were a combined 3-21 in conference games.  In a sport we love for its craziness, Vanderbilt had about the most predictable 6-7 season ever.  The Commodores have plenty of returning offensive pieces, but the one missing piece is a big one, due to the graduation of Kyle Shurmur, perhaps the most underappreciated quarterback in the country last year.  Not that Vanderbilt has a rich football tradition, but Shurmur finished his career as the school’s all time leader in passing yardage and passing touchdowns, and was second to Jay Cutler in completion percentage among quarterbacks who had at least 350 career attempts.  Former JUCO transfer Mo Hasan is next up by default, but watch for Ball State grad transfer Riley Neal to emerge.  Neal threw for over 7,000 yards in his Ball State career.  Whoever wins the job will have the best running back you’ve never heard of to work with in Ke’Shawn Vaughn.  Vaughn had a solid start to his career at Illinois, before transferring.  He won the job last spring, and took off, finishing second in the SEC at 1,244 yards, on 7.9 ypc, best in the SEC, and 6th in the FBS.  He is paired with Kalija Lipscomb on the outside, who finished 3rd in the SEC, with 916 yards on an SEC best 87 catches.  It feels weird to say this about Vanderbilt football, but just to add to the embarrassment of riches at the skill positions, they also return tight end Jared Pinkney who led all SEC tight ends in receptions (50) and was second in yardage (774).  That glaring hole at quarterback might simply be too much to overcome though.  The defense was expected to struggle though, and struggle it did, the second worst unit in the SEC, above only Ole Miss, finishing 13th in both total defense and yards per play.  They did create a lot of turnovers, an average of 1.7 per game, which helped keep their points per game lower than it probably otherwise deserved to be.  Unfortunately for the second straight year Vanderbilt graduated a lot of seniors, particularly this year in the secondary, led by cornerback JoeJuan Williams, who is looking to be a second day NFL Draft pick.  Tae Daley showed promise last year, moving between cornerback and free safety, but Williams was an all-SEC pick, who took away one side of the field.  A rising star to keep an eye on is inside linebacker Dimitri Moore.  As a redshirt freshman a year ago, Moore won the job, and wound up finishing second on the team in tackles.  With the graduation of Jordan Griffin, Moore is expected to take on more of a leadership role, and solidify the inside while Kenny Hebert, the team’s best pass rusher, just goes nuts on the outside.

	KEY PLAYERS
RB	Ke'Shawn Vaughn, Senior
WR	Kalija Lipscomb, Senior
TE	Jared Pinkney, Senior
	.
LB	Kenny Hebert, Junior
LB	Dimitri Moore, Sophomore
CB	Tae Daley, Junior

57. Memphis Tigers

#3 in American

Alabama...Clemson...Georgia...Oklahoma...Michigan...Washington...Memphis?  Those are the seven schools currently listed as favorites in all of their 2018 games.  They don’t play Central Florida, and I’d disagree with them being favored over Cincinnati, even at home, but still, a minor quibble.  While the structure of college football leads us to only care about Group of 5 teams inasmuch as they are competing for the lone spot in a bowl we probably won’t watch anyway, and therefore only barely care about that, what Memphis has done over the past few years has been remarkable.  The school had an ok run under Tommy West from 2003-2008, but still never won a division, let alone the conference, even playing down in Conference USA.  But since Justin Fuente got the program running in their second year in the American, in 2014, they’ve won a conference title, another pair of divisional divisional titles, a pair of double digit win seasons, and two AP Top 25 finishes.  They had a pair of NFL quarterbacks in Paxton Lynch and Riley Ferguson, but even without those guys last year, they rode perhaps the best running back in the nation, Doak Walker finalist, and First Team All-American Darrell Henderson, to another divisional title.  Henderson left early for the NFL, but with Arizona State transfer Brady White returning at quarterback with a deep group of receivers, led by a pair of all-conference players at the top, Memphis should flip back to a more pass happy offense.  Memphis averaged 8.2 ypa a year ago, second best in the conference, but with Henderson running the ball, they only passed it 41.2% of the time, in the bottom quarter nationally.  Memphis didn’t just lose Henderson, but the versatile Tony Pollard, who also declared early, who was used as a tailback, H back, or split out wide.  But be nice to have two backs declare for the Draft early, and still return a 1,000 yard rusher in Patrick Taylor Jr.  Much credit should go to the offensive line, an offensive line that was among the best nationally in run blocking, including #1 in Power Success Rate, meaning 93.1% of the time they converted 3rd or 4th and 2 or less.  They graduate both tackles and the center from the line.  As good as they were in run blocking, they struggled to pass protect, so maybe the tackles won’t be a huge loss.  They’ll just keep running the ball behind all-conference performer Dustin Woodard.  The Tigers will be favorites win the division again, although a road trip to Houston late in the year should determine that.  They have to figure out the UCF problem though to get over that hump for a conference title though.  They seemed to have the Knights dead to rights a year ago, up 38-21 at the half, and UCF playing without McKenzie Milton.  But the Knights outscored Memphis 35-3 in the second half, holding the Tigers scoreless for the final 17 minutes to win.  So while it was a nice year, it remains a question whether they were a product of their schedule, losing twice to UCF, and missing both Temple and Cincinnati, going a combined 1-3 against conference opponents who finished over .500 in league play.  They’ll need the defense to come up much bigger in big games.  They were fine shutting down inferior opponents, but surrendered 41.8 ppg in their six losses.  The Tigers scored over 30 points in four of their six losses a year ago.  The back seven should be solid if they can find someone to play opposite T.J. Carter (Jacobi Francis is the best bet), but the line could have major problems.  They use multiple looks, and may show more 3 man fronts, with Bryce Huff playing with his hand off the ground this year.

	KEY PLAYERS
WR	Damonte Coxie, Junior
WR	Pop Williams, Senior
G	Dustin Woodard, Senior
	.
LB	Bryce Huff, Senior
LB	Austin Hall, Senior
CB	T.J. Carter, Junior

The Sunbelt must have one helluva trio sitting atop their ELA preseason rankings.

Speaking as ELA's marketing director,you'll have to pay handsomely for that issue,Pal

Surprised Mike Norvell doesn’t get more attention from HC searches given his sustained first 3 years of success at Memphis.

In no order, the coaches I’m most surprised are going into this season still at their current schools:

Mike Norvell at Memphis
Dino Babers at Syracuse
Matt Campbell at Iowa State
Jeff Brohm at Purdue

56. California Golden Bears

#7 in Pac 12

You knew the longer Justin Wilcox’s fingerprints were on this Cal program, the more its defensive identity would begin to take shape.  The Golden Bears seemed even ahead of schedule in Year 2 under Wilcox on that side of the ball, and the 2019 defense could be even better.  Cal only graduates three starters on defense, and while they lose their best pass rusher in outside linebacker Alex Funches, they return all of their other key defenders, with All-Pac 12 players at all three levels.  The improvement in just two years has been remarkable, taking over a roster that surrendered 42.6 ppg in 2016, and improving by 14.2 ppg in his first year, and then another 8 ppg last year, down to just 20.4 ppg allowed.  That’s an improvement of 22.2 ppg in just two year, with a defense last year that had to replace 5 starters in the front seven.  Now he has an experienced group with a two deep filled with guys who have spent multiple years in his system, from a defense whose advanced metrics were even better, ranking #13 nationally overall in defensive S&P+, including top 10 against the pass, which serves them well on the West Coast.  The problem is, as the defense has improved, the offense has fallen off a cliff.  An offense which scored 9.3 ppg fewer in 2017 from 2016, declined by another 6.3 ppg in 2018.  So that defensive improvement has resulted in a net gain of just 6.6 ppg.  The offensive struggles are obviously concerning, because there was no shortage of talent a year ago, with ten returning starters from 2017, and the lone “new” starter being receiver Demetris Robertson, who simply missed all of 2017  with an injury, after being a Freshman All-American in 2016.  All of that talent, all of that experience, added up to the worst offense in the Pac 12, and the second worst offense in the entire Power Five, staying ahead of Rutgers.  Granted one of those returning starters was quarterback Ross Bowers, who started every game in 2017, was named starter going into 2018, started the opener against North Carolina, was pulled after a poor start, and never saw the field again all season.  Unsurprisingly Bowers, and six other Bears announced their plans to transfer.  We’ll see if the decision to let freshman Chase Garbers learn on the fly pays off going into 2019.  Bowers wasn’t exactly a star prior to his benching, but a major reason for the dropoff was the running game, where Patrick Laird excelled in 2017, and was a preseason darkhorse Heisman candidate depending on Cal’s team success, running behind an intact offensive line.  While his 997 rushing yards were fine, it also represented a drop of over 200 yards from his junior season on over 30 additional carries, seeing a drop in ypc from 5.9 to 4.3.  The inability to balance the offense was an ongoing issue all year.  The graduation of Laird, and 3 offensive linemen, the entire left side, suggests improvement in 2019 is unlikely.  The S&P+ gap between Cal’s offense and defense, in favor of the defense, was the second largest in the Pac 12, behind only Michigan State.  Considering how much better the defense should be, and how the only reason to think the offense won’t be worse is that they are no longer starting a freshman quarterback, the Golden Bears are the leader in the clubhouse for that title in 2019.

	KEY PLAYERS
QB	Chase Garbers, Sophomore
T	Valentino Daltoso, Junior
T	Jake Curhan, Junior
	.
DE	Luc Bequette, Senior
LB	Evan Weaver, Senior
CB	Camryn Bynum, Junior

55. Troy Trojans

#2 in Sun Belt

Troy fans felt fortunate to retain Neal Brown last offseason, but they were not as lucky this go around.  It wasn’t losing Brown that had to surprise them as much as who they chose to replace him.  Chip Lindsey, former Auburn offensive coordinator, is an Alabama native, who played for North Alabama, graduated from Alabama, and previously spent one year at Troy as quarterbacks coach in 2010.  But Auburn’s offense struggled mightily last year under Lindsey and Gus Malzahn, and Lindsey was out, heading for the offensive coordinator job at Kansas, when Troy hired him to be their head coach.  In fairness, while Lindsey was a perfect fit for Auburn quarterback Jarrett Stidham, his offensive style clashed with Malzahn, and the whole thing sputtered.  He inherits a turn key offense, that should be ready to roll.  Quarterback Kaleb Barker, who was lost for the season a year ago in early October is back, and people should know his name this year.  He was completing 73% of his passes, and already had 10 touchdowns to go with just 2 interceptions once he was lost, and averaging nearly 5 yards per carry on the ground.  And it’s not the worst case to have a backup in Sawyer Smith who started 7 games himself, completing 63% of his passes.  The Trojans do lose their top three receivers, each of whom had at least 43 receptions, earned all-Sun Belt honors, and combined for 21 touchdowns.  That’s why, despite how good Barker is, Lindsey would be wise to lean heavily on the running game, with B.J. Smith, who finished 1 yard short of the conference rushing title returning behind three senior all-conference linemen.  Jabir Daughtry-Frye is an all purpose change of pace back, who led the team with a 7.0 ypc average, and was fifth on the team with 22 receptions.  He is going to have to carry a larger workload than the 4.1 carries per game he got last year to see any dynamic in playcalling change from a team with the third highest pass to run ratio in the Sun Belt a year ago.  Ultimately, that’s where Lindsey wants to fall too, but it will be interesting to see if he adjusts to his personnel in Year 1.  The conference’s second best defense may have more depth than it did a year ago, but it has a lot of top end talent to replace, losing three senior first team all-Sun Belt players.  It’s the opposite issue from what the Trojans faced a year ago, retaining a few top players, but graduating the bulk of a unit that was best in the conference and #11 nationally in scoring defense in 2017.  It’s no surprise then, that Neal Brown took defensive coordinator Vic Koenning with him to West Virginia, but it’s also no surprise that Lindsey wanted to stay within the program, and promote linebackers coach Brandon Hall to defensive coordinator.  He has experience at the position to boot, coming to Troy after four years as defensive coordinator at FCS Jacksonville State, where his defenses were top 5 in the FCS in his final two years.  Troy shouldn’t miss Brown too much this year, but the clash between offensive styles and offensive personnel, and the fact that Troy’s defense may take another step back, keeps them slightly behind Appalachian State.  But if some receivers emerge, and Lindsey can adapt, there’s no reason to think they can’t win a league title.  It’s going forward with Lindsey that does slightly concern me.

	KEY PLAYERS
RB	B.J. Smith, Senior
T	J.L. Gaston, Senior
G	Kirk Kelley, Senior
	.
NT	Antoine Barker, Senior
LB	Tron Folsom, Senior
CB	Marcus Jones, Junior

Troy and Texas Tech are tied for 55th?