Category: College Football

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J’Marion Burnette, a four-star running back from Andalusia (Alabama) High School, announced Friday that he will stay in his home state and play for Hugh Freeze and the Auburn Tigers in 2024. Burnette chose the Tigers over several other FBS offers, including Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Florida State and Michigan.

Burnette is ranked No. 153 overall and is the 10th-ranked running back in the 2024 recruiting cycle. The 6-foot-1, 225-pound bruiser has rushed for 4,038 yards and 30 touchdowns during his three-year high school career. He rushed for 1,473 yards and 17 touchdowns as a junior, which helped lead his high school to a 14-1 record and a 4-A state title.

Burnette credited former interim head coach and current assistant Carnell “Cadillac” Williams as one of the big reasons why he chose to commit to the Tigers. 

“It’s because they make their recruits feel like family,” Burnette told Auburn Undercover. “It’s a great program, great coaching staff. Coach Caddy is amazing. He’s been going out of the way since Auburn first offered me a year ago. He’s just been keeping up with me nonstop.”

Burnette attended Auburn’s Junior Day on January 28, which led to 247Sports analysts giving him a 100% chance to join the Tigers in the 247Sports crystal ball. However, he made an unofficial visit to Florida State on March 21 prior to announcing his commitment on Friday. 

Burnette will join a program that could offer immediate playing time. Rising junior running back Jarquez Hunter will be eligible for the NFL…

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On Monday, Nick Saban and the Alabama Crimson Tide football team began spring practice in Tuscaloosa.

Over the course of five weeks, Alabama will complete 14 practices and will conclude the spring activities with the annual A-Day Game on Saturday, April 22 from inside Bryant-Denny Stadium.

With each new season, position battles and question marks take center stage and 2023 will be no different.

Coach Saban not only has a lot of new faces on the roster, but a ton of new coaches will also be making their Alabama debuts in 2023.

As spring practice gets underway, let’s take a look a look some of the top storylines on each side of the ball. We will begin with the offense!

Tommy Rees as OC

Syndication: Notre Dame Insider

After two seasons with Bill O’Brien as the Alabama offensive coordinator, Nick Saban hired a young gun in Tommy Rees to take over the play-calling duties for the Tide. Rees, even at a young age, brings a wealth of knowledge to the table and enjoys playing a physical brand of football and focusing on development at the quarterback position. How Rees fits in at Alabama is a huge piece of the puzzle.

The wide receivers

Andrew Wevers-USA TODAY Sports

Alabama returns a pair of veteran players at receiver in Jermaine Burton and Ja’Corey Brooks as well as a herd of true sophomores who received plenty of playing time in 2022 as freshmen. The wild card of the bunch is JUCO transfer Malik Benson, who by all accounts has the potential of some of the recent Alabama greats such as Jerry Jeudy or DeVonta Smith. It will be interesting to see how Alabama lines those guys up this spring.

The running back rotation

Andrew Wevers-USA TODAY Sports

Jase McClellan is back in the Alabama backfield for 2023 and will likely provide better production than most Alabama fans assume. After that, you have Roydell Williams, Jam Miller, and…

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For the more than half of the College Football Playoff’s existence as a four-team format, few teams were as consistently present as the Clemson Tigers. Coach Dabo Swinney’s ascent with the program he first joined in 2003, and later took over as the full-time coach in 2009, coincided with the sport’s evolution into a new era. First came snapping a 20-year ACC championship drought in 2011; then, in 2013, came the program’s first top-10 finish in the AP poll. 

Recruiting was improving, and Swinney had sparked real change on the field thanks to the hires of offensive coordinator Chad Morris and defensive coordinator Brent Venables. When the playoff era began, the Tigers were peaking as a program. Clemson won six straight ACC championships from 2015-2020, appearing in the CFP in each of those seasons. The Tigers reached the national championship four times, twice winning it all against Nick Saban and Alabama. At points during a 29-game winning streak that spanned the 2018 and 2019 seasons, Clemson’s status at the top of the sport seemed unshakeable. 

But then the razor-thin margin for high-level success in college football was revealed. After losing just three regular-season games combined from 2015-2020, the Tigers lost five times across 2021 and 2022. After six straight top-four finishes in the AP poll, Clemson found itself finishing the year outside of the CFP and outside of the top 10. 

The causes for this stumble came from many places, including a devastating series of injuries in 2021. However, the one area where fans and analysts alike could easily focus their criticism was the offensive side of the ball. Clemson ranked dead last in the ACC and No. 103 nationally in yards per play in 2021, with a slight improvement to 8th in the league and No….

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Pensacola Catholic wide receiver Koby Howard is one of the top players at his position in the class of 2025, and he’s not short on offers heading into his junior year of high school. To wrap up his sophomore year, Howard has a ton of visits lined up throughout the spring, and Florida’s should come in the middle of April at the latest, according to Gators Online.

“Right now, it’s looking like April 15. It’s set; I will most definitely be there for that one,” Howard said to GO. “I may get down there sooner to catch a practice; I just don’t know if I will have enough time to fit in a visit to catch a spring practice before the 15th.”

LSU and Miami are the teams that have hosted him so far in the spring. Howard also has plans to stop by Alabama, Texas, Texas A&M and TCU before the end of the month. Auburn, Clemson, Colorado, Florida State, Notre Dame, South Carolina and Tennessee are all on the schedule with Florida in April.

Howard most recently stopped by the Swamp in January for one of the team’s Junior Days, but that was before wide receiver coach Keary Colbert left the team. Metting the new position coach, Billy Gonzalez, is one thing he’ll have to look forward to for this upcoming trip.

Florida State is currently the favorite to land Howard with 21.0% odds, according to the On3 recruiting prediction machine. Florida is a close second though at 18.4%. Tennessee (11.9%) and Miami (9.9%) are also still in the race.

Howard is ranked No. 69 overall on the On3 industry ranking and is No. 11 among wide receivers in the class of 2025. He’s also ranked the 10th-best player in the Sunshine State.

More Football Recruiting!

Gators to host Colorado DB commit on two future visits

Blue-chip teammates set to visit the Swamp next weekend

Gators to get visit from this legacy 2025 ATH on his spring college tour

Florida…

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What an interesting time it is for the Wisconsin Badgers. The program has become a model of consistency over the last 30 years. Wisconsin was mostly an afterthought in the Big Ten when Barry Alvarez took over the program in 1990 but has since become one of the conference’s stalwarts, even as the Big Ten has undergone massive changes itself.

Things will look quite a bit different in 2023, however. While Wisconsin changed from Alvarez to Bret Bielema and then to Paul Chryst — with an odd Gary Andersen experiment thrown in — the formula essentially stayed the same. Wisconsin was big beefy boys doing beefy boy things. This was a program of multiple tight-end sets, 220-pound battering ram running backs and ferocious defensive fronts. It wasn’t 3 yards and a cloud of dust as much as it was 3 yards and a world of hurt.

But, for whatever reason, the blueprint that had long been successful lost steam in 2022. After a 2-3 start to the season, Paul Chryst was fired following a 34-10 home loss to Illinois. Jim Leonhard, the former Badger and defensive coordinator long assumed to be a head coach in waiting, was named interim. Leonhard did not get the full-time job, however. Instead, Wisconsin went outside the family and brought in Luke Fickell, the former Ohio State linebacker who led Cincinnati to the College Football Playoff.

After three decades of knowing what we would get from Wisconsin, this spring offers a lot of questions we don’t have the answers to yet.

Offseason changes

It’d probably take less time to write about what hasn’t changed. Paul Chryst is gone, as is most of his staff. Fickell has arrived, and he’s not only bringing in a new staff, but a new approach. The ground-and-pound style associated with Wisconsin football is gone. The…

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Spring practice is underway at Miami, where Mario Cristobal has a second chance at a first impression as the leader of a program where he once played and still cares for deeply. The 2023 season in Coral Gables is arguably the most pivotal of any Year 2 campaign in college football; coaching staff changes bring the expectation that last year’s results — a wildly disappointing 5-7 record — will not be replicated. 

Miami will have a new offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator and four new position coaches, bringing changes in philosophy and signaling that the results of 2022 will not be acceptable. There is some familiarity among the new, like Miami Dolphins legend Jason Taylor moving from an analyst role to defensive line or Tim Harris Jr. returning to his alma mater as running backs coach. Overall, however, Miami is preparing for the fall it’s like another crack at Year 1 of the Cristobal era. 

There are a myriad of reasons for the changes, and not all of them are tied to last year’s results. While former offensive coordinator Josh Gattis was dismissed, former defensive coordinator Kevin Steele was hired away by Nick Saban at Alabama. The ensuing dominoes saw quarterbacks coach Frank Ponce, co-defensive coordinator Charlie Strong, running backs coach Kevin Smith and defensive ends coach Rodrique Wright seek opportunities elsewhere. The winds of change have been blowing all around Cristobal and this program, and now here in spring practice it’s time to get settled and chart the course for 2023. 

Offseason changes 

New offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson brings with him an Air Raid system that aims to use the pass concepts to open up the run game. Dawson has told reporters that while he acknowledges the Air Raid label, his offense and its…

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One of the more exciting running backs in the class of 2024 is scheduled to be in Boulder for Colorado’s spring football game on April 22, per multiple reports.

After including the Buffs in his top eight in January, Florida blue-chip RB Stacy Gage has a visit scheduled during what’s shaping up to be a huge weekend for CU recruiting.

According to the 247Sports Composite, Gage is ranked No. 163 overall nationally and No. 10 at RB following a strong junior season. The 5-foot-11, 200-pound prospect recorded over 800 offensive yards with 14 touchdowns in the fall for St. Thomas Aquinas High School, which produced current CU running back Anthony Hankerson.

Gage told BuffStampede’s Adam Munsterteiger (subscription required) that his relationship with head coach Deion Sanders and running backs coach Gary Harrell has made Colorado an attractive destination.

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