This article covers five teams that need to take a big step forward next season.
Texas
Texas has been “back” forever now, but they always seem to have three-to-five losses every season, and sometimes more. They have been recruiting great lately and that should continue. They have Quinn Ewers for at least another year or two and then Arch Manning takes over. That gives them a nice five or six-year window to get things back up to where expectations are in Austin. They’ll also be joining the SEC at the start of the 2024 season, so there will be plenty of opportunities for the Longhorns to win big games against good teams. We’ll see if they take advantage of their chances.
Penn State
Penn State seems to always be stuck behind Ohio State and Michigan recently. The Nittany Lions went 11-2 with their only losses being to the aforementioned teams. Drew Allar will be the starting quarterback and he was a five-star coming out of high school. It’ll be tough to overcome the Buckeyes and Wolverines, but it can be done. Penn State has beaten these teams before, and not too long ago. They need to put together a strong season where they defeat them both. Then Penn State could be looking at the CFP.
Notre Dame
The Fighting Irish seemed to be a team that couldn’t win the big game. They are 0-2 in CFP Semi-finals and neither of the games was close. They have beaten Clemson twice recently but it hasn’t gotten them anywhere. They lost to second-ranked Ohio State and sixth-ranked USC this past season, ninth-ranked Oklahoma State and seventh-ranked Cincinnati in 2021, first-ranked Alabama and third-ranked Clemson in 2020, 19th-ranked Michigan and thrid-ranked Georgia in 2019, second-ranked Clemson in 2018, and 21st-ranked Stanford, seventh-ranked Miami, and 15th-ranked Georgia in 2017. That is twelve losses to ranked teams in just five years. Notre Dame needs to start beating the good teams they play in order to be playoff competitors year in and year out.
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Miami
Miami used to be the standard in college football. They basically ran the 1980s and early 2000s, but only have one ten-win season since they joined the ACC in 2004. That came in 2017 and many people thought that could be the start of another Miami run, but they were wrong. Miami has had six, seven, three (shortened Covid season), five, and seven losses in each season since then. Mario Cristobal is recruiting well and is doing a good job of keeping the South Florida kids at home. That is the key to Miami rising up again.
Texas A&M
The Aggies are a mess right now. They went 5-7 last season and that is unacceptable. The money, resources, location, and conference that A&M has access to should make them a top-five team every year. They have the talent for it, but something just isn’t right there. I don’t know whether it is the culture of kids only going there for the money or what, but Jimbo Fisher needs to figure it out, and I have some faith that he will. Only time will tell.
