Uncle TBONE Top 20 Pre-Season 2024
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1. Michigan - Defending National Champions maintain Number One ranking until they are knocked off. Week Two looms large for the Wolverines as they host Texas. Folks in Ann Arbor better not sleep on Week One against a salty Fresno State team. No Harbaugh, no dice!
2. Ohio State – Buckeyes have more talent than the ‘85 Bears heading into 2024 campaign with one of the easiest schedules in the Big 18 conference or whatever it’s called now. This season is National Champion or “BUST” in Columbus, Ohio.
3. Texas – The stars of Texas look to fall all over the SEC in the Longhorns' first year as members of the best football league in college. QB Quinn Ewers looks to stay healthy all year in a legit Heisman candidacy. Texas will have no problem acclimating to the SEC with experienced Steve Sarkisian as their head coach, highlighted by stampeding into Tuscaloosa last season to help send Nick Saban into retirement (sort of).
4. Alabama – No Nick? No problem in Alabama as former Washington Huskie Coach Kalen DeBoer takes over replacing the GOAT. The Tide takes football way too seriously to let whomever the replacement was going to be flounder. Despite a massive amount of turnover on the roster and in the program, Jalen Milroe returns as QB at Alabama looking to anchor that side of the ball with stability. The real questions will be about the defense in 2024 and what happens if Deboer drops a few early. Does “The Godfather” ever really retire?
5. Georgia – Unlike the last 10 years of UGA football, Dawgs 2024 schedule is one of the most competitive in all the SEC. UGA travels to Tuscaloosa, to Austin, to Oxford and draws perennial ACC power Clemson to open the season in Atlanta. Tough to believe they lose all those, but what if they drop 50% of those games with the rest of the 2024 campaign looming?
6. Oregon – Former Pac 12 startup looks to make noise in their new conference in the Great White North. Dan Lanning continues to be one of the hottest new waves of young coaches in college football fearlessly pressuring teams defensively while scoring more points every week than Michael Jordan with the Bulls. Can that pace of play sustain against Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State? What about off the map trips to Madison, WI or West Lafayette, IN? Can Oregon fans find those places on a map?
7. Missouri – By the end of last season, NO ONE wanted to play Mizzou. They practically return everyone from that roster and added some key pieces in the portal. Losing DC Blake Baker to LSU will hurt, but a softer SEC schedule by most standards, a pathetic non-conference schedule that includes a trip to The University of Massachusetts and 7 returning offensive starters has “The Misery” ready to break out of their perpetual funk.
8. Ole Miss – See Missouri minus a trip to UMASS. Even better, Lane Kiffin dodges not only Nick Saban but Alabama for the first time in forever. Rebels should easily be 6-0 heading into their annual showdown against LSU on Oct. 12th. After that, Oklahoma and Georgia come to town but at Arky, at Florida and home to end the season in The Egg Bowl makes 2024 it for Ole Miss. If Joey Freshwater cannot do it now, will he ever?
9. Penn State – The underachievers in Happy Valley just have not been able to get by Big Brothers Ohio State and Michigan. Good news, Nittany Lion fans, only Ohio State remains on the regular season schedule in 2024. Penn State has a tricky opener against West Virginia on the road but should be fine until Oct. 12th at USC. No team not named Mississippi or Missouri in 2024 should benefit more from the expanded college football playoff than Penn State. Maybe this “Best of the Good Programs” can finally make a run with the new format.
10. Utah – Speaking of “Best of the Good Programs”, has there been anyone for the last 50 years who has been more consistent than Kyle Whittingham as head coach of The Utah Utes in football? Darkhorse Heisman candidate, Cam Rising, returns to Utah at QB this season after missing 2023 with a lower leg injury. Parlayed with a nasty Utah defense, the move into The Big 12 where Utah will be a bully, and his dynamic playmaking ability, if Rising stays healthy, watch out for Utah in late December.
11. Florida State – Former Clemson and Oregon State QB, D.J. Uiagalelei takes over for wounded Jordan Travis at QB for The Seminoles in 2024. Head Coach Mike Norvell has almost “portaled” the proud Nole program to a College Football Playoff berth and looks to do just that in 2024. FSU should be 5-0 heading into an ACC showdown on October 5th against Clemson at home. The rest of the schedule is very manageable for an athletic squad out of Tallahassee, FL.
12. Oklahoma State – Head Coach Mike Gundy returns for his 40th season at Oklahoma State after one of his best coaching jobs ever in 2023. After losing to South Alabama at home last year 33-7, Gundy rallied the Pokes to a Big 12 title birth and win over Texas AM in the Texas Bowl. The Sept. 21st matchup against Utah may be a preview of the Conference Title Game. Tailback Ollie Gordon II, love the name, may be the best running back in college football. Cowboys will lean on him early and often looking to bully a league that on paper looks like it can be bullied.
13. Tennessee – The “8-million-dollar man” Nico Iamaleava takes over at QB in Knoxville this season to run Head Coach Josh Heupel’s high octane offense. The Volunteers will score points in bunches this season but with only 3 returning starters on defense, will they give them up in bunches also? The portal giveth, the portal taketh away and no team suffered more losses on defense not named Bama in the off season than UT. Ten, that is right, ten defensive backs are gone from last year’s roster including only three that went to the NFL. There will be a lot of new faces on that side of the ball this season for DC Tim Banks.
14. Clemson – Like FSU, Clemson is doing everything it can to leave the ACC while trying to win it. QB Cade Klubnik returns this season to lead The Tigers to a possible ACC Title and berth in The College Football Playoff. With eight returning starters on the offense, there is hope he can do so. Unfortunately, two returning starters come back from a defense not supplemented by the transfer portal which Head Coach Dabo Sweeney is vehemently opposed to utilizing. While Kirby Smart, Kalen DeBoer, and the rest of the free world rakes talent yearly now from the transfer portal, Premier Dabo stands up his “Iron Curtain” in Upstate South Carolina fighting his own little “Cold War” against the rest of college football. Better win now because that wall will fall like Yugoslavia did eventually. FACT.
15. LSU – No big deal here in Baton Rouge. Head Coach only must replace his starting QB and two receivers who were all drafted in the first round of the 2024 NFL Draft. I mean, they only were almost the entire offense last season. Better news though, LSU revamps one of its worst defenses ever with the addition of former Mizzou DC, Blake Baker. The only team that the defense shut down last year was woeful Auburn and that is not saying much. Look, in Baton Rouge there will always be a few constants with LSU football. Overblown night games, gobs of talent on the roster no matter how experienced, gumbo at tailgates, and greasy old Cajun women smoking hot cigs and trying to fight opposing fans post-game. Pre-game, too! The Bayou Bengals dodge both Georgia and Texas this regular season. Could they see one of them in Atlanta for The SEC Championship?
16. Notre Dame – Transfer QB Riley Leonard from Duke looks to upgrade the Irish offense out of the stone ages of college football. That statement may be unfair but has there been a more boring offense in college football from a traditional program since 1988 not named Iowa or Michigan than Notre Dame. And since 1988 when Notre Dame last won a national championship, Michigan won two in both 1997 and 2024. Former Buckeye linebacker and head coach, Marcus Freeman, is 19-8 in South Bend despite lackluster offenses in his tenure. His forte, defense, and Notre Dame continues to play physically in the modern world of football on that side of the ball. Will it be enough to get Notre Dame into the college football playoffs? If The Irish squeak by at Texas A&M to open the season, they should be 8-0 hosting FSU on Nov. 8th making this one of the easiest ND schedules this writer has ever seen.
17. Kansas – “All we are is dust in the wind”. No, not the band but Kansas Jayhawk football! That’s right, not basketball but football! Head Coach Lance Leipold, love the name, has established the Jayhawk football program as a tough team to play week in, week out. Returning QB Jalon Daniels is dynamic, RB Devin Neal is solid, defensively the Jayhawks return six starters and Kansas misses both Oklahoma State and Utah in the regular season. If Kansas can manage a very manageable schedule, they should find themselves in the Big 12 Championship Game in early December.
18. Miami – Did anyone have 12-13 on their Bingo Cards for Mario Cristobal’s record his first two season while in Coral Gables? The “U” continues to spend like a drunken sailor in the portal for talent but have not been able to put old-school Hurricane football on the field in years. Now, in walks QB Cam Ward from Washington State and All-Pac 12 RB Damien Martinez from Oregon State this season. Hoping to capture some “portal gold” like Lane Kiffin has at Ole Miss, Cristobal must stack up wins this season to avoid the dreaded “hot seat” heading into 2025. If Miami gets by in-state rival Florida on August 31st, The Canes could be 7-0 hosting another in-state rival FSU on Oct. 26th.
19. Iowa – 17 returning starters from last year’s 10-win season anchors one of the most consistent, yet boring college football programs over the last 100 years. I cannot really think of anything Iowa does exceptionally except turn out pro level tight ends and cause me to go into a “food coma” from cheese dip and wings while watching their games. Despite not wowing anyone but farmer’s daughters, head coach Kirk Ferentz has quietly won 196 games over 25 years in Iowa City. The Hawkeyes do not have Michigan, Oregon, Penn State or USC on the regular season slate. A trip to Columbus against Ohio State on Oct. 5th could be the only Top 20 opponent Iowa faces all season. This could be a sleeper team to slip into the College Football Playoffs.
20. Liberty/Appalachian State – One of these two teams will be your non-power five representatives in the 2024 College Football Playoffs.
Others receiving votes – Oklahoma (brutal schedule keeps Sooners out of Top 20), Arizona, NC State, Wisconsin, Fresno State, Texas AM, Boise State (where you at, Harsin?), Tulane, and West Virginia