College Football with Sam

On this cut of Touchdown Talk with College Football with Sam, @JTSports and I discuss whether or not USC Football can contend for the Big Ten and National Championships. I think USC is a year away from being a dominant Big Ten power, while JTSports believes Lincoln Riley and the Trojans can have a huge bounce-back year in 2024. One thing we absolutely agree on is USC Football needs to be physical...

The Penn State Nittany Lions hosted their spring game on Saturday, April 13th, concluding their spring practice and giving us a glimpse of what Penn State Football will look like in 2024. Several starters on both offense and defense sat out, but quarterback Drew Allar, most of the wide receiver corps, and the starting defensive line and linebacker corps played. Allar struggled as a passer and his...

Ohio State's spring game, in my opinion, was a success. Reacting to a spring game is difficult because you can only take so much out of what is essentially an open practice. However, there are a few takeaways we can make, especially when we have continuity on the roster and coaching staff to work with. The defense could be the best in college football, particularly in the secondary. Safety Lat...

Tonight we welcome @JTSports to discuss various College Football topics. I am a Michigan Wolverines Football fan, and JTSports is a Miami Hurricanes Football fan, so we will talk about our favorite teams' portal needs. In addition, we want to discuss Nebraska Football's future, and whether they can rise to the top of football again. How will the Cornhuskers do in 2024? Can they win the Big...

Minnesota Football hosted their only spring practice open to the public yesterday, April 11th. PJ Fleck and the Golden Gophers went 6-7 last year with a win in the Quick Lane Bowl, a high note to end the season after a disappointing season by the standard that Fleck bears. Minnesota Football looks to improve in 2024 with 71% of their production returning, and yesterday's spring practice report...

Most Big Ten Football teams, such as Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, and Maryland, have questions in their quarterback room. Rutgers Football has them too, and today we will be talking about the quarterback battle between Athan Kaliakmanis and Gavin Wimsatt. Not only do I think Wimsatt will win the job, but my thoughts on the quarterback room as a whole is that it will significantly improve ente...

Four Big Ten Football teams host their spring games this week, on April 11th and 13th specifically. Ohio State Football, Penn State Football, Minnesota Football, and Purdue Football each have unique questions to answer and areas of strength and weakness, but they are all a part of the Big Ten conference and we will get to see them play football this week. Minnesota and Purdue have a plethora of qu...

The Michigan Wolverines have a 3-game win streak over the Ohio State Buckeyes, starting with a 42-27 win in 2021, and following that up with 45-23 and 302-4 wins in 2022 and 2023 respectively. Michigan vs Ohio State is the best rivalry in the country right now, with the winner of The Game playing for the Big Ten Championship and reaching the College Football Playoff every year since 2020. Even the...

ESPN ranked their Top 10 college football head coaches entering the 2024 college football season, and I had many issues with this ranking. Ryan Day was ranked as the 10th best head coach in this list, behind Lane Kiffin, Steve Sarkisian, Dan Lanning, Dabo Swinney, Mike Norvell, and others as well. The Ohio State Football head coach must be hated by ESPN, as there is absolutely no reason other than...

Is Georgia Football in a tier of their own entering 2024? I expect this college football season to be weak compared to previous years, similar to the 2021 season when Georgia was clearly the best team in the country. Unlike any other teams I have studied, Georgia does not appear to have any obvious weaknesses or question marks on their roster or coaching staff. Georgia is the only team in the Top...

The Wisconsin Badgers went 7-6 and 5-4 in Big Ten conference play last season. Wisconsin Football was an up and down team with not much of an identity, competing with Ohio State but losing to Washington State and Indiana for example. This year, I expect Wisconsin to improve because they return 71% of their 2023 production, bring in a Top 25 high school recruiting class, and they will have great pl...

After running backs coach Tony Alford left for the same job at Michigan, Ohio State Football wasted no time and started their search for the next running backs coach. The hiring process took longer than expected, but the Buckeyes made a great hire in Oregon's Carlos Locklyn. Coach Locklyn has been the running backs coach at Oregon for the past two seasons, and before then he has had jobs as th...

Shortly after completing their staff for the 2024 college football season, the Michigan Wolverines received the resignation of Greg Scruggs. Yesterday, about a week after Scruggs' resignation, Michigan Football announced Lou Esposito as the new defensive line coach. Esposito previously was the co-defensive coordinator and defensive line coach at Memphis for a few months, and from 2017-2023 he...

The Nebraska Cornhuskers will be entering year two of the Matt Rhule era. Rhule is a proven program builder, which is exactly what Nebraska Football needed after Scott Frost's 15-31 run from 2018-2022. Every year since I have made predictions on this channel I have predicted Nebraska Football to win six games or more every year, and overshooting every time. So, what is their ceiling this year?...

Michigan Football's best safety, Rod Moore, suffered a non-contact ACL tear in practice earlier this week. Moore plays free safety at Michigan and last year he recorded a critical interception against Ohio State, along with another interception against Indiana and three passes defended throughout the season. With his injury likely causing him to sit out for most or all of the 2024 college foot...

Who are the Big Ten's breakout candidates at quarterback entering the 2024 season? I have five of them in Michigan State's Aidan Chiles, Michigan's Alex Orji, Nebraska's Dylan Raiola, Northwestern's Brendan Sullivan, and Penn State's Drew Allar. Big Ten Football is not known for producing high-level quarterback play. Still, with JJ McCarthy, Kyle McCord, and Taulia Tagovail...

Is Michigan State Football set up for success entering 2024 and beyond? Not long ago, Kenneth Walker was in the Heisman Trophy conversation and Mel Tucker and Michigan State were buzzing in national headlines like Deion Sanders and Colorado were in 2023. The 2021 Michigan State Football Team shocked the college football world, and Tucker's firing early last year only adds to the Cinderella sto...

The 2024 College Football season marks the inaugural showing of the 12-team College Football Playoff. The 2024-2025 College Football Playoff will be complicated for sure. The four highest-ranked conference champions will automatically receive first-round bye weeks. In contrast, the fifth highest-ranked conference champion will get an automatic bid ranging from the five to 12 seed. In the first rou...

Trev Alberts has left for the athletic director job at Texas A&M and has seemingly taken a good chunk of the Nebraska faithful's hope with him. Nebraska Football's future was full of confidence due to how Alberts prioritized the program and the investment he directed toward Memorial Stadium. Now that he is gone, Nebraska Football's future beyond 2024 seems to be in doubt, or is it?...

Ohio State's quarterback battle is one of the most intriguing position battles in the Big Ten this season. Ohio State Football is known for producing great quarterbacks under head coach Ryan Day. These include Dwayne Haskins, Justin Fields, and CJ Stroud, all of whom won 1st team All-Big Ten mentions and each made at least one trip to New York City for the Heisman Trophy ceremony. However, las...

Today, Sherrone Moore hired former Ohio State running backs coach Tony Alford to be the next running backs coach for the Michigan Wolverines. Make no mistake, this was a massive hire for Michigan Football and a big loss for the Ohio State Buckeyes. Alford brings over a decade of experience coaching running backs, including star College Football running backs like Michael Floyd, Ezekiel Elliot, Mik...

The Iowa Hawkeyes are a weird football program. The defense and special teams are elite year in and year out, the strength and conditioning is NFL level, and Iowa has participated in the Big Ten Championship game in two of the previous three seasons. And yet, their offense has been abysmal, holding them back from competing with Michigan (both years) in the Big Ten Championship game and being a dom...

The USC Trojans hired Lincoln Riley, expecting they would compete for championships in no time. Now, they are trying to rebuild from an awful defense, resulting from terrible choices made on the defensive side of the ball. USC Football will once again have a tough schedule, facing four opponents in ESPN's preseason Top 15 rankings. Despite this, there is reason to believe that USC can improve...

The Michigan Wolverines may have lost most of their 2023 coaching staff and roster, but they are set to compete for the Big Ten and National Championships in 2024. Michigan Football has developed a culture that will take years to erode, and Sherrone Moore has done an excellent job at keeping that process from taking place by keeping several key players from entering the transfer portal. Michigan i...

After posting an impressive 69-5 record, 5 ACC Championships, and 2 National Championships from 2015 to 2019, Clemson Football has yet to finish the season ranked inside the Top 10, and they have only won the ACC twice. Dabo Swinney and Clemson have grown stale. They are not evolving with the sport. After a disappointing 9-4 season with a 4-4 record in ACC play, Swinney upgraded his offensive and...