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Articles by Barton Simmons
College football recruiting: Seven announcements to watch as 2020 National Signing Day approaches
It's been a long time coming, but as the early signing period arrives on Wednesday, this weird, disjointed recruiting cycle will come to an end for most college football prospects around the country. Distracted by the ongoing college football schedule, the coaching carousel and all of the typical December festivities, this year's early signing period may feel less of an event than in years past. But due to those same factors, we could see plenty of drama and surprises.
College football recruiting: Three biggest storylines to watch on early National Signing Day 2020
Consider this your alarm clock. This may be Conference Championship Week in college football. In the case of the Pac-12, the season basically just started. But the third Wednesday in December marks the arrival of something much more important than most of the games being played this weekend. Dec. 16 is Early Signing Day, or perhaps it would be more apt to simply call it Signing Day.
From late bloomer to No. 1 pick: QB superlatives for 2021
Manage A strange 2021 recruiting cycle is about to reach a bit of finality during the Early Signing Period (Dec. 16-18), with college football’s next crop of stars inking their letters of intent. In a year without most of the in-person, all-star events that we’re used to, several deserving prospects are without the hype they’d usually be getting.
One theory as to why coaches keep messing up QB decisions
College football is at the peak of an offensive fever pitch and the quarterback position has never been more consequential. Quarterbacks have won the Heisman Trophy 10 of the last 11 years. College football playoff participants are rarely without an NFL arm. The transfer portal lurks as a temptation for your backup plan and as an answer for your primary plan.
College football coaching highlights and lowlights for Week 12
This week in college football coaching adventures: We saw a vintage Northwestern performance put the Wildcats in the driver’s seat in the Big Ten West, a new identity begin to emerge at Oklahoma on the defensive side of the ball and one of the hottest names in the Group of Five ranks add another notch to his belt in this weekend’s most important coaching performances.
Updated Top247 for class of 2021: The battles are heating up
Today, 247Sports has released an update to our Top247 rankings. In a typical year, this would be the second-to-last Top247 release of the 2021 cycle with one more after the All-American Game in January to finish things off. This is not a typical year. This update primarily reflects senior season film and production but is much less comprehensive than a typical November release. Some players started late. Some players ended early. Some players have had senior seasons deferred to the spring.
The coaches who caught our eye in Week 11
This weekend we saw a team that has typically folded show some resilience, a team that has struggled with defense produce the weekend’s best defensive showing, and a new narrative emerge for one of the Group of Five’s best hopes. We also saw more disappointment out of Ann Arbor. Here were the weekend’s top efforts from the coaching ranks. Head Coach of the Week: Manny Diaz, Miami The calendar says it's the middle of November, and the win-loss column say sMiami is 7-1. That's solid.
The key to Notre Dame's talent rebuild that beat Clemson
Manage It's been a hot topic of conversation in recent years, particularly after the Playoff loss to Clemson in 2018: How does Notre Dame take that next step from great to elite, a la Clemson/Alabama/Ohio State? Notre Dame still has to get to the ACC championship game, still has to likely beat Clemson again and then potential playoff juggernauts await but I think it's worth discussing why Notre Dame was able to play toe-to-toe and look like an athletic equal against Clemson on Saturday night.
Coach of the week: Brian Kelly makes a statement
The weight of the 2020 season is increasing. A No. 1 team in the country has lost. A changing of the guard in the SEC East may have commenced. The Pac-12 has arrived and is doing Pac-12 stuff right out of the gate. As we creep slowly towards a playoff in bizarro college football, this weekend shifted the pieces on the board more so than any weekend this season before it. These are the coaches of the weekend that had the most significant impacts.
A fully-realized USC would be the Pac-12's best playoff hope
A disjointed and discombobulated college football season gets another injection of new life this weekend when the Pac-12 becomes the last FBS conference to join the fold. Isolated to six regular season games of intraconference matchups, the conference will be battling for relevance in a fragmented football season that has the No. 1 team in the country with a seven-game head start on its West Coast newcomers.
Week 9 coaching column: The best and worst from the weekend
It took two weeks for the Big Ten to turn into a total mess. Sure, Ohio State is still the class of the conference. But just as the calendar turned to November, we already have 2-0 Northwestern and Purdue sitting atop the Big Ten West, Rutgers snapping a 21-game conference losing streak and Michigan going down in the most unacceptable of ways to an arch-rival. The Big Ten volatility inspires some of this week’s most notable coaching performances.
In surviving Boston College, Clemson gives a taste of the future
The question has been answered. Playing with its backup quarterback, facing an 18-point deficit and with No. 5 ranked Notre Dame looming on the horizon, Clemson came storming back in the second half to defeat Boston College 34-28. The question, of course, was how Clemson would look without perhaps the best player in college football. Dabo Swinney’s little ole Clemson had a big ole answer.
LSU's baller freshmen mean the future is blindingly bright
The argument for Ed Orgeron as the right man for LSU back in 2016 was always grounded in recruiting. Yes, his evolution as a coach — the ability to motivate, manage and hire — were important elements to his profile, but recruiting was always going to be his bread and butter. With that in mind, we can more easily excuse LSU’s 2-2 start to this season. It hasn’t been pretty. The hire of defensive coordinator Bo Pelini might have been a mistake. There was a ton of attrition, both expected and otherwise.
College football coaching highlights and lowlights for Week 8
The debut of the Big Ten brought some weighty performances. Northwestern went from inept to downright good on offense, Ohio State appears to be a playoff contender as expected and Rutgers snapped a 21-game Big Ten losing streak in Greg Schiano’s first game back as head coach. That’s just from the guys that didn’t make our list of top coaching performances from the weekend.
Michigan needs Jim Harbaugh to rediscover his QB pixie dust
Jim Harbaugh was the quarterback whisperer. Do you remember? There was a time where that defined him as a coach much more than his idiosyncrasies, his recruiting antics or his record against Ohio State. The reputation wasn’t some media creation. It was well-earned, curated with recruiting wins, evaluation acumen, developmental success and results.
Updated Top247 for 2022 means a ton of new names, big risers
As college football programs continue to wrestle with recruiting in a pandemic, the class that may be most heavily impacted is the class of 2022. Early discovery and evaluations have been more hamstrung than ever, in-person coaching opportunities and relationship building have been non-existent and, on top of all of it, scholarship numbers for the 2022 cycle may be limited due to rosters absorbing extra years of eligibility.
Nuggets to chew on from the initial Big Ten depth charts
Manage The college football season is in full swing featuring all the accompanying reality checks in the SEC, ACC and Big 12. But over in Big Ten country, there's get a wafting of preseason optimism to send us into Week 8 as depth charts have trickled out ahead of season opening weekend.
College football coaching highlights and lowlights for Week 7
In the last weekend of the season before the Big Ten’s arrival and with only one Big 12 game on the schedule, several SEC coaches took advantage of the stage to themselves with some statement performances. These were the top coaching performances of the weekend. Head Coach of the Week – Mark Stoops, Kentucky Kentucky won in Knoxville for the first time since 1984 on Saturday. That’s 17 straight losses that came to an end in resounding fashion when the Wildcats posted a 34-7 upset win.
It's time to have the Hugh Freeze conversation
Sit down. It’s time to have the conversation – the Hugh Freeze conversation. In case you haven’t noticed, Freeze’s Liberty Flames are off to an undefeated start. Liberty got its fifth win of the season on Saturday and its first win over a Power Five opponent, cruising to a 38-21 win over Syracuse. In under two years at Liberty, Freeze is 13-5 during his Liberty tenure. He’s a good football coach. At this point, that’s indisputable.
The 2020 Team Talent Composite: Key takeaways, new No. 1
Who has the most talent in college football? It’s an impossible question with a subjective answer and no standard definition. But it’s still an important one to address. Who is doing the most with the least? Who is doing the least with the most? Who is too good to lose or too bad to win? Where is your talent trajectory arrow pointed?
College football coaching highlights and lowlights for Week 6
We’re only three weeks into the SEC season and already narratives are shifting. Over the weekend we saw a statement out of Clemson’s defense. Ditto for Alabama’s offense. And look at Texas A&M finding life. An infusion of new, creative coaching had Missouri looking like the better team against the defending national champions. Down in Dallas, Tom Herman got into a battle of mediocrity with arch-rival Oklahoma and finds himself on a hotter seat than we thought possible at the start of the season.
Jimbo Fisher finally has something real to build on at Texas A&M
Seventy-five million dollars is supposed to buy you a lot. Prior to Saturday, in two years for Texas A&M, it had bought Jimbo Fisher, his 18-10 overall record and a 1-7 mark against top 10 teams. So, basically, nothing. A rebuild takes time. Recruiting efforts take time. Culture, continuity and buy-in take time. But last week’s 52-24 loss to Alabama wasn’t where the $75 million man was supposed to be in Year 3. On Saturday, the Aggies started to get a return on their investment.
Big Orange Bruisers: Beefed-up line leading Vols' revival
When Jeremy Pruitt started dreaming up his vision of an SEC East contender at Tennessee, likely at the forefront of his mind was what he wanted his offensive line to look like. The season before Pruitt arrived, Tennessee in 2017 had allowed 35 sacks (107th in the country) and according to Pro Football Focus, only three teams had produced less yards before contact for their running backs. No real surprise the Vols went 4-8, firing Butch Jones with two games to go.
College football highlights and lowlights for Week 5
Whether it was a new head coaching getting his first win, or an old head coach continuing to torment the blue bloods, this weekend saw a lot of upsets and wake up calls. Here are the weekend’s top coaching performances.
No hype, no problem: Tennessee has quietly turned the corner
On Saturday afternoon, Tennessee dismantled Missouri, 35-12. It was a game never in doubt — a monotonous, ho-hum victory to bring the Vols to 2-0. It feels like we need to pay that more attention. That’s no normal 2-0, it’s an SEC 2-0, and after the last few years (decades?) of Tennessee football, it’s a big deal. The Vols are 8-0 in their last eight games, a streak few saw coming after they started 0-2 in 2019.
Week 1 Report Card: Ranking the SEC QBs
If the opening week of the season was any indication, this is going to be a fun year in the SEC. It’s also going to be a mystifying year for quarterback play. We’ve come to get well-acquainted with some recent SEC standouts like Joe Burrow, Tua Tagovailoa, Jalen Hurts and Jake Fromm. This year we’re seeing a lot of new faces, new places or new offenses to judge them in.
College football coaching highlights and lowlights of Week 4
Whether it was the arrival of the SEC or just a natural acceleration of the season, college football was wild over the weekend. Intra-conference matchups in all three Power Five conferences that have kicked off, including seven SEC-on-SEC matchups, produced a thrilling day and some big winners on the coaching trail. Here are the coaches that impressed.
There will be no stopping Florida's Kyle Pitts this fall
Florida opponents now have their marching orders: Find a way to slow down Kyle Pitts. The hybrid tight end gave us the first dominating performance of the SEC season on Saturday when he went off in Florida’s 51-35 win over Ole Miss. Pitts finished the day with eight catches for 170 yards and four touchdowns, tied for the second most in a single game in SEC history.
Kirby Smart is barreling towards another defining QB dilemma
Any head coach in college football better be comfortable with making difficult decisions. The bigger the stage, the bigger the decisions placed in front of him. As he enters his fifth year as head coach at Georgia, Kirby Smart has demonstrated a tolerance, perhaps even an appetite, for weighty decisions. His stomach for it is rare among college head coaches.
These teams went transfer-heavy in building their 2020 rosters
Manage The transfer age isn’t coming. It’s already here. With rosters about to be bursting at the seams with players due to COVID-19 eligibility bonuses, NCAA legislation likely offering penalty-free one-time transfers in the coming months and a general loosening of the negative transfer stigma, college football programs are going to be increasingly impacted by the arrival of experienced veterans as newcomers.
Analyzing the new SEC depth charts ahead of opening weekend
A modest drip of college football action will accelerate this weekend into a steady flow with the arrival of the SEC to the party. What we’re calling the Week 4 slates features 21 teams playing their first game of the season, including a full slate of SEC intra-conference matchups. All the new participants mean new depth charts to dig into, giving us insight into what to expect. Here are the biggest takeaways from new depth chart releases around the country.
College football coaching highlights and lowlights of Week 3
A light Week 3 slate in college football — the final weekend before the SEC joins the party — brought us coaching debuts, reality checks and even some returns from the dead. The spotlight will dim as the SEC, Big Ten and Pac-12 start to enter into the national college football equation and saturate the slate. While many coaches have thrived with the stage to themselves, others will welcome the distraction of more big boys in college football.
Oklahoma State's sloppy opener doesn't mean all hope is lost
I picked Oklahoma State to make the playoffs. One game into its 2020 season, that pick seems, let’s say, overly optimistic. The Cowboys survived Saturday, eking out a 16-7 win. A sloppy offseason for Oklahoma State produced a sloppy first game, but I’m not turning my back on that playoff pick just yet. This team was always going to be dependent on health — mainly, its big three: Quarterback Spencer Sanders, running back Chuba Hubbard and wide receiver Tylan Wallace.
A branch from the Kliff Kingsbury tree: HBU's Zach Kittley
After the first weekend of Power Five football in the 2020 college football season, a simple scroll of the top FBS passing performances produces some eye-popping numbers. Sam Ehlinger at Texas threw for 426 yards against UTEP. Trevor Lawrence went for an easy 351 against Wake Forest. Texas State’s Tyler Vitt and Louisville's Micale Cunningham breezed past the 300 mark with 346 and 343 yards, respectively. At the top of the list is Texas Tech’s Alan Bowman.
Depth chart changes worth noting ahead of Week 3
We got our first taste of Power Five football last week and it felt good. More first looks are coming this week with teams like Oklahoma State, NC State, Boston College and Cincinnati slated to kick off their seasons. Here are some of the notables and takeaways from the depth chart releases early this week (and start getting excited for next week, in which we'll have a loaded look at updated SEC depth charts).
College football coaching highlights and lowlights of Week 2
As glorious and welcomed as the arrival of a semi-full slate of Power Five college football was over the weekend, it’s become very clear very quickly that this is going to be a mess. Depleted or incomplete rosters, a truncated offseason, no spring practice and significant disruptions in preseason practice have all contributed to a challenging environment to create cohesion.
Big Ten Buzz: Big expectations for up-and-coming players
We don’t know when we will get Big Ten football again. Coaches and parents continue to fight for a season while players continue to practice, preparing for the possibility. Thursday night we got our first Power Five football game played with Miami beating UAB in front of 13,000 fans. Saturday an extended slate of Big 12 and ACC games will kick off. But as the rest of college football soldiers on, we’re not forgetting about the Big Ten.
Jaelan Phillips' comeback story is easy to root for
I have a confession to make regarding the ever-scrutinized objectivity of the 247Sports rankings process: We are fans of the five-stars. Granted, that fandom doesn’t begin until the final rankings are locked, but from that point forward, we become fully invested in the successes of the guys that we ranked high. If it ruins your week when you lose to your rival, it ruins ours when a five-star loses a starting job.
Snap judgments from nationwide unveiling of depth charts
It’s depth chart season in college football and never has it been more relevant. This week marks the arrival of Week 2, which features our introduction to Power Five football. ACC and Big 12 games kick off as early as Thursday when Miami plays UAB. In the preceding days, we get our first concrete, official information from coaches as to who is winning out in position battles, who has emerged as starters, who has settled into backup roles and how the team is constructed.
Tactics, results vary in recruiting QBs after signing 'the guy'
Roster management in the current college football era is continuous and complex. There are the natural challenges of consistently recruiting classes that build and sustain success, there is the transfer market to mine, the roster attrition to manage and then there’s the quarterback position. The most important position in sports, a bad quarterback can disqualify you from a national championship. A great one can elevate the 84 other scholarship players on your roster.
The star players to watch in today's opening game
The 2020 college football season begins Saturday. Yes, you read that right: Austin Peay will play Central Arkansas (ESPN, 8 p.m. CT) on Saturday in the 2020 Guardian Credit Union FCS Kickoff in Montgomery, Alabama. Central Arkansas (-4.5) is the favorite, according to William Hill. Both teams made the FCS playoffs last season, with Central Arkansas sharing the Southland Conference title with a 9-4 campaign (7-2 in the conference).
The star players to watch in college football's opening game
The 2020 college football season begins tomorrow. Yes, you read that right: Austin Peay will play Central Arkansas (ESPN, 8 p.m. CT) on Saturday in the 2020 Guardian Credit Union FCS Kickoff in Montgomery, Ala. Central Arkansas (-4.5) is the favorite, according to William Hill. Both teams made the FCS playoffs last season, with Central Arkansas sharing the Southland Conference title with a 9-4 campaign (7-2 in the conference).
Big 12's best camp battles taking place at QB, RB
While we all hold our collective breaths and cross our collective fingers for college football games to kick off in September, we can take at least a little bit of comfort in the competition that has already been raging and continues into preseason practice. Team by team, roster by roster, depth chart battles are being sorted out, many predated by zero spring practice sessions to set the table. Here are some of the most important and interesting preseason position battles in the Big 12.
The biggest fall camp position battles across the ACC
While we all hold our collective breaths and cross our collective fingers for college football games to kick off in September, we can take at least a little bit of comfort in the competition that has already been raging and continues into preseason practice. Team by team, roster by roster, depth chart battles are being sorted out, many predated by zero spring practice sessions to set the table. Here are some of the most important and interesting preseason position battles in the SEC.
The biggest fall camp position battles across the SEC
While we all hold our collective breaths and cross our collective fingers for college football games to kick off in September, we can take at least a little bit of comfort in the competition that has already been raging and continues into preseason practice. Team by team, roster by roster, depth chart battles are being sorted out, many predated by zero spring practice sessions to set the table. Here are some of the most important and interesting preseason position battles in the SEC.
Auburn's Malcolm Johnson gets new rating as member of 2020 class
Auburn landed one of the top wide receivers in the class of 2021 when Malcolm Johnson Jr. committed last week. With his announcement that he would forego his senior season and enroll at Auburn for the 2020 cycle, the class year may have changed, but the talent did not. Johnson remains a huge pickup and helps Auburn build on one of the fastest wide receiver rooms in college football but with his reclassification, it’s necessary to address his rating on 247Sports.
Tom Herman has Texas' QB room finally roaring to life
Manage Texas has tasted the fruit of national championship football more recently than most. It was back in 2005 and despite a loaded roster that would go on to produce a remarkable 32 players that would appear in NFL games, it still took the heroics of a former No. 1 overall recruit in Vince Young to finish the job. On Friday, Texas landed the No. 1 player in the country once again: 20 recruiting classes after Young, Quinn Ewers, out of the class of 2022, committed to Texas.
Michigan State lands commitment from Tennessee defender
On Sunday, Michigan State head coach Mel Tucker tapped into his SEC roots to land a defensive end out of SEC country. Alex Okelo, a 6-foot-5, 215-pound upside defender committed to the Spartans despite never visiting East Lansing in person. It’s a leap of faith consistent with a player only one year into his high school football career. “Michigan State, that’s the decision,” Okelo told 247Sports prior to his announcement. “The coaching staff is great. They have great communication.
The big takeaways from the Elite 11
Wednesday concluded the Elite 11 for the class of 2021. The MVP as named by the Elite 11 staff was the same quarterback that sits atop the 247Sports quarterback rankings, Caleb Williams. While that ranking remains consistent, there was plenty of other significant takeaways that we were able to pull from three days of workouts.
Top combine performances at Atlanta Elite Underclassmen Showcase
The Elite Underclassmen Showcase combine hit the Atlanta area over the weekend and revealed some emerging names for the class of 2022 and beyond. The event measures, tests and films college football prospects in combine events and position drills, and makes that information available to college coaching staffs through the UCReport database.
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