The 2011 Washington Huskies are probably best remembered for losing 67-56 in last year’s Alamo Bowl. Steve Sarkisian is an offensive wizard, but it has become completely clear that this team must find a way to play a little more defense if they are going to contend with the best teams in the PAC 12 on a weekly basis.
The Utah Utes took a major step up in class last year when they joined the PAC 12 Conference. No longer would the team have breathers every other week like they did in the Mountain West. The Utes went 8-5 on the season, and 4-5 in the PAC 12.
Auburn fans weren’t thrilled when Gene Chizik, then from Iowa State, was hired to replace Tommy Tuberville, but Chizik has done an excellent job with the Tigers. He delivered the program’s second national title in 2010, its first since 1957.
Todd Graham didn’t make any friends during his 11 month stay at Pittsburgh. Graham bolted from Pittsburgh in the blink of an eye last December to take the job at Arizona State.
He believed it would be a better fit for him and his family.
Ah, the Tennessee Volunteers. The Vols. The Sherbet and White. Rocky Top. What a wild ride UT has had over the past few seasons – and what an interesting case study the Vols make! A few years ago, head coach Phil Fulmer was an institution in Knoxville, owning a career 152-52 record as Tennessee coach.
In comes former Arkansas State head coach Hugh Freeze to try and fix the mess in Oxford, Mississippi.
Last year was Houston Nutt’s final chance holding the clipboard at Ole Miss, and once it was announced that Nutt wouldn’t be back, the Rebs got crushed in three consecutive games, including embarrassing losses to LSU (52-3) and – even more shamefully – to in-state rival Mississippi State, 31-3 in the Egg Bowl.
The Oregon Ducks have become a true national power in college football over the last three years. Chip Kelly had no previous head coaching experience, but he has proven to be an excellent hire for Oregon. Kelly has taken the program from a solid yearly winner to a team capable of playing for a title each year.
It’s hard to believe the Colorado Buffaloes won the NCAA Football Championship in 1990. This program is a proud program that has really fallen on hard times in the last few years. The Dan Hawkins experiment didn’t go as planned, and now Jon Embree has been left to pick up the pieces.
A few years ago it seemed Mike Riley had the Oregon State football program moving in the right direction. The team was knocking off some highly ranked opponents and going to bowl games on an annual basis. The past couple years have been big disappointments. In 2011, the Beavers only managed three wins all season long.
South Carolina was knocking on the door for a long time, with a good-but-unspectacular SEC East team under “the Ole Ball Coach” Steve Spurrier.
Last season saw the Gamecocks kick the door in, with an 11-win season that included victories over Florida, Georgia and Tennessee (for the second straight year, actually) and a drubbing of #21 Nebraska in the Capital One Bowl.
While it is a tragedy to college football fans that the storied Texas-Texas A&M rivalry has come to a close, there will be plenty of excitement around College Station in 2012 with A&M’s move to the SEC. The Aggies will play in the West division; they move to a conference and division that – with all due respect to Texas, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State – is more ferocious than the Big 12.
MSU head coach Dan Mullen has already been a miracle-worker, without even scraping near a BCS bowl; he has made the Bulldogs relevant in the suffocating SEC West division and has re-energized a fanbase that was sorely in need of it.
The last time the UCLA Bruins won the Rose Bowl was 1984. The Bruins haven’t even been a part of the Rose Bowl since 14 years ago. Rick Neuheisel promised to take the program back to the top, but that never panned out. Jim Mora was brought in to try things a different way in Westwood.
Connecticut has always been known as a basketball school. The Huskies had a brief successful run under Randy Edsall a few years ago, but the past couple years have been small steps backward for this football program.
It seemed Syracuse had entered the national stage when they dominated nationally-ranked West Virginia 49-23 last year in October. The win took the team to 5-2, and they looked like a team that could win the Big East. Instead, Syracuse confusingly lost its last five games to go 5-7 and miss out on a bowl berth.
After a seven-year absence the Temple Owls are back in the Big East. Temple never dominated the MAC the way many thought it could, but the last couple years Temple started to look like a program that could make a serious move. Unfortunately, Temple has to replace several key letter winners this year.
