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Michigan football lost a lot of talent from a year ago but looks to reload with some high-end players who are in their junior year this year.

From cornerback Will Johnson, defensive tackles Mason Graham and Kenneth Grant, and tight end Colston Loveland, there’s no shortage of potential first-round NFL draft picks who will be leading the Wolverines this year. But there’s another junior who could be an impact player that many aren’t discussing.

ESPN put out a list of each top team’s X-factor in 2024, and while your guess may be quarterback Alex Orji, the outlet actually looks to a third-year wide receiver who could make the big difference in the new year.

WR Tyler Morris. The Wolverines lost go-to receiver Roman Wilson to the Pittsburgh Steelers in the second round of the NFL draft. But that could create an opportunity for junior Morris to shine in his spot. Morris showed what he could do with a blistering 38-yard touchdown reception down the sideline in the CFP victory over Alabama. The Wolverines are banking that Morris can give them a lot more plays like that as their new go-to receiver. — Trotter

While that’s ESPN’s guess, really, it could be any number of Michigan receivers. The position group is mostly unknown, with Morris being the elder statesman, Semaj Morgan being the electric gadget player, Fred Moore and Kendrick Bell being the deep threats, while Amorion Walker (another third-year player) gets his feet wet back on offense and C.J. Charleston adds via the transfer portal.

Morris showed off his SEC speed against Alabama in the Rose Bowl, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see any of the above end up having a breakout year with Roman Wilson and Cornelius Johnson both having left for the NFL this year.

Morris had 13 catches for 197 yards and one touchdown as a starter in the slot last year, his…

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DALLAS — Josh Heupel isn’t one for showmanship or hype. Instead of his highly-touted quarterback Nico Iamaleava and potential No. 1 DE James Pearce, the Tennessee coach brought a senior offensive lineman and linebacker to SEC Media Days. 

Entering his fourth season, perhaps the greatest compliment one can pay to Heupel is that he’s made Tennessee… boring? 

“When I took this job three years ago, everybody can go back and kind of research what we were embarked on as far as challenges and how we had to navigate those,” Heupel said. “We’re at the point now where we’re almost free and clear of navigating all those things. Our roster is the deepest that it’s been by far.” 

With years of calm, it’s easy to forget the decade of turmoil Tennessee football once endured. The program fired previous coach Jeremy Pruitt amid alleged Level I NCAA violations. Numerous coaches turned the Vols job down after they fired Pruitt’s predecessor Butch Jones. Lane Kiffin abandoned the program after one year. Those messes ended not only with new football coaches but with new athletic directors, too. 

Heupel was seen by many as a bridge coach after joining his UCF athletic director Danny White in the move to Tennessee. Already, he’s well overperformed expectations. In 2022, the Vols beat Alabama and won 11 games. Perhaps most impressive, he followed it up with another nine-win campaign, giving Tennessee its most consistent two-year run since 2004. 

It comes through in interviews that Heupel is a quiet guy. He has seen the highs and lows of college football, from quarterbacking Oklahoma’s 2000 championship team to getting run off from his alma mater as an offensive coordinator in 2014. But more than anything, that calm consistency stands out to his…

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A new era of the Southeastern Conference was pushed in with the additions of the Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners, expanding the league to 16-member schools while doing away with the divisional structure that had been in place since 1992.

This week, the SEC is holding its annual media days events to allow both the conference itself as well as each respective program a chance to address the sports world ahead of the 20s4 campaign. Among the topics early on was the plan for the football conference championship game tiebreaker.

“There’s still a lot of tweaking to be done,” said Mark Womack, the SEC’s associate commissioner. “But our ADs have seen it. Our coaches have seen different versions of it as we’ve started to tweak and go through everything. So we just want to try to be sure that we’ve got all the different situations covered that could pop up so there are no surprises.”

While the final result is still quite nebulous, the conference brass seem to have a vision for what they want.

“We’ve got a pretty good idea, but we don’t want to put it out there just yet,” Womack said. “Because some of the tweaks that go through might impact (where) we might want to flip two (tiebreakers).”

That leaves a lot of leeway for what becomes the new league policy. Still, it appears that the SEC is leaving no stone unturned.

“But some of them as you go down the likelihood of everything being the same is probably not very high when you get into some of the other parameters out there,” Womack said. “To get to a coin flip or to get to a draw if you had more than two, would be possible but unlikely.”

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Story originally appeared on Gators Wire

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DALLAS — In the mad dash to replace Nick Saban as king of the SEC’s hill, an outsider leads the pack.

You know the coach and you recognize the championship resume, but he’s probably not the first name on the tip of your tongue. That man is Brian Kelly.

The LSU coach has won more games than his colleagues — seven straight 10-win seasons spread across Notre Dame and LSU leads all of college football — and is seemingly in the championship discussion year after year no matter the challenges or amount of talent on his roster. Heck, he won 10 games and led LSU to the SEC Championship Game after inheriting 39 scholarship players in his first season. The knock, of course, is the lack of national titles in a 33-year career that has included stops at Central Michigan, Cincinnati and Notre Dame.

But if there is to be a breakthrough, a changing of the tide, circle the 2024 season for LSU. History shows the third year is usually the best under Kelly’s leadership.

“Year 3 is a level of accountability in every program that I’ve taken over, that is heightened,” Kelly told CBS Sports at the SEC Media Days on Monday. “There’s a trust factor and an accountability level within our process that pops, if you will, and that’s this year.”

Much like Saban’s ballyhooed “process,” Kelly subscribes to the same path. As fans clamor for immediate turnarounds, Kelly provides success, but baked into that process is a slow build toward breakthrough in Year 3. 

For Central Michigan, it was a nine-win year and MAC title. 

For Cincinnati, it was an undefeated regular season and Big East title. 

At Notre Dame, perhaps the toughest gauge of his career, it was an undefeated regular season and trip to the BCS National Championship.

For LSU, well, continuing…

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