Editor’s note: So far, this piece has been a way to offer some additional commentary on whatever noteworthy happened during the week prior. Someone said something stupid? I wrote something equally ridiculous about it. Now that we’re approaching football season, that is changing just a bit. Once we have games to react to, this piece is going to grow more robust in its scope. It’ll be a way to recap everything that happened on the field all throughout the league. To give some context, here’s what we’re modeling it on. You’ll also be getting a Monday piece early on Sunday night because why not?

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Over the weekend, we wrapped Top 25 Week with a piece from my colleague, Matt Hinton, ranking the top 100 players in college football for the new season. 

That’s a tough task. Ten writers are going to have 10 different lists. And everyone with a Twitter account is going to have at least one player they think is too low or too high or undeserving. I’m not here to offer any comments on the order. 

The group featured only eight Pac-12 players—USC’s Tuli Tuipulotu (99), Washington’s Jaxson Kirkland (87), USC’s Andrew Vorhees (49), Utah’s Clark Phillips III (48), UCLA’s Zach Charbonnet (35), Oregon’s Noah Sewell (10), USC’s Caleb Williams (8), and USC’s Jordan Addison (7). 

Of the eight, four belong to USC. That feels pretty emblematic of the Pac-12’s current predicament. It has been an afterthought on the national scale, and outside of the Lincoln Riley-led Trojans, that remains the case heading into the new season. 

How many SEC writers know who Justin Flowe is? How many folks in the ACC know about UCLA’s three-game close to 2021? How many in Columbus, Ohio, knew about Tavion Thomas before the Rose Bowl?

The best way to solve a perceived lack of respect? Win. Going 0-for-7 in bowl games over the last two seasons doesn’t do you any favors. Neither does missing out on the Playoffs for what feels like a decade.

But the league begins the new year with one team that is a very legitimate contender to make the CFP and at least two teams who could crash the party if things break right. A step in the right direction? You bet. But one of these teams is going to need to make good on its potential for anything to stick. 

To that end, here are a few players I think could play a role in helping accomplish that goal, and, in doing so, land themselves on a Top 100 list at the end of the year.

Cameron Rising, Utah quarterback: I’ll admit I was a little surprised to see Rising missed the cut. Those who don’t know about the Utah quarterback are going to learn pretty quickly. Utah opens the season at Florida in a game with CFP stakes and national attention. As someone who isn’t sold on the 2021 Gators, I think Utah could roll in this game if Rising plays up to his potential. Utah’s next step offensively is developing an over-the-top threat in the passing game. Accomplish that and Rising is a darkhorse to land in New York for the Heisman trophy ceremony. He posted the sixth-best QBR in the country last year, and with a full offseason working as the starter and a full season to work as the unquestioned leader of the team, Rising should put up bigger counting stats in 2022.

Tavion Thomas, Utah running back: All he did was set a program record for rushing touchdowns in a season. The 6-foot-2, 238-pound Thomas found the end zone 21 times in 13 games. He racked up 1,108 rushing yards, which might not seem absurd on the surface, but consider that 53 backs topped 1,000 rushing yards last year and only 13 of them did it on fewer than 16 carries a game. Thomas was in that group. The three-headed backfield in Salt Lake City helped keep everyone fresh and even though one of those backs has moved on the NFL, Utah has a player I like to fill that opening and keep things running business as usual. Thomas should be in for another monster campaign. If Utah is in the CFP picture, Thomas is going to become a household name. He’s a battering ram with swagger. Folks love that.

Brant Kuithe, Utah tight end: What’s happening with the tight end in the college game is fascinating. We’re seeing more and more guys with tremendously versatile skillsets lining up all over the formation and doing all manner of things. Here’s Kuithe, who doesn’t have plus size at the position, but has a tremendous amount of skill and spent the offseason working out wide. He played a little over 200 snaps in the slot last year and 87 split out wide. If that vertical pass game develops how I think it will, Kuithe is going to have plenty of opportunities to put up big numbers.

Brandon Dorlus, Oregon defensive lineman: He’s cut weight this offseason, he’s gotten himself healthy, and he’s been watching a ton of Travon Walker tape. Walker, as you might know, was the No. 1 pick in the 2021 NFL Draft after starring in a Dan Lanning-led defense. Now, Lanning is at Oregon and Dorlus is taking the torch from Kayvon Thibodeaux as the group’s chief disruptor up front. The big man had 42 quarterback pressures last season, per PFF. That ranked seventh among all interior defensive linemen last year. I think he’s due for a big season under Lanning’s tutelage.   

Justin Flowe, Oregon linebacker: The defense proclaimed Flowe their spirit animal. The energy is unmatched. The athleticism is second to known. As we wait to see him in extended action, the patience required of all of us has been excruciating. If Flowe plays an entire season, he’s an All-American. You heard it here first.

DJ Johnson, Oregon edge: Oregon head coach Dan Lanning thinks the converted tight end (sort of) can be one of the best pass-rushers in the country. I do, too.

Zion Tupuola-Fetui, Washington edge: Washington probably doesn’t have a CFP impact unless it’s beating a team in the running for one of the four spots. But ZTF still belongs on a list like this if he gets through the season healthy. It’s fine to leave him off a preseason list on the heels of an injury-riddled 2021, but there were few players as disruptive as Tupuola-Fetui during the 2020 season. Oklahoma’s Nik Bonitto was the only qualified edge rusher in 2020 with a better win rate in pass-rushing situations, per PFF. He averaged a quarterback pressure every five snaps. For reference, that was the same rate as Army’s Andre Carter II, the highest-graded pass-rusher in college football last season, per PFF.

Notebook

>> USC… overrated? Or just right? I’m expecting the Trojans to be in the 12-17 range when the preseason Associated Press Top 25 gets released. USC came in at No. 15 in the preseason AFCA Coaches Poll. Maybe the media is a little more excited by the Caleb Williams-Jordan Addison duo. 

One thing that was clear after the Coaches Poll was released: the majority of the non-poll-voting public thinks it’s ridiculous to rank a 4-8 team a year ago in the top 20 of a preseason poll. Everyone thinks USC is overrated heading into the new season. 

Every voter has their own rationale in the preseason. Do you rank for right now or for how you think the end-of-year picture will look? Here’s 12-17 in the final Coaches Poll for each of the last five seasons:

  • 2021: Utah (10-4), Pitt (11-3), Wake Forest (11-3), Kentucky (11-3), Clemson (10-3), Houston (12-2)
  • 2020: Florida (9-4), Indiana (6-2), Coastal Carolina (11-1), Iowa (6-2), Louisiana (10-1), North Carolina (8-4)
  • 2019: Baylor (11-3), Wisconsin (10-4), Auburn (9-4), Iowa (10-3), Utah (11-3), Memphis (12-2)
  • 2018: UCF (12-1), Washington (10-4), Michigan (10-3), Syracuse (10-3), Texas A&M (9-4), Penn State (9-4)
  • 2017: Auburn (10-4), Miami (10-3), Oklahoma State (10-3), Washington (10-3), Michigan State (10-3), Northwestern (10-3)

I see lots of three- and four-loss teams. USC isn’t losing more than four games in 2022. Putting it at No. 15 felt like the perfect spot to acknowledge the talent influx along with the questions, whether you were ranking teams based on where they stand now or where you think they’ll be come year’s end.

>> To that end… I don’t have a vote in the AP poll, but if I did, here’s how I’d order my first Top 25:

  1. Alabama
  2. Ohio State
  3. Georgia
  4. Utah
  5. Clemson
  6. Notre Dame
  7. Michigan
  8. Baylor
  9. NC State
  10. Oregon
  11. Texas A&M
  12. Arkansas
  13. Oklahoma State
  14. Oklahoma
  15. USC
  16. Tennessee
  17. Miami
  18. Kentucky
  19. Michigan State
  20. Pittsburgh
  21. Wake Forest
  22. Ole Miss
  23. Wisconsin
  24. Houston
  25. Cincinnati

>> Havoc-creators for a havoc-needy defense. Frequent readers see me reference havoc creation/havoc rate/havoc plays quite often. Tackles for loss, passes defended, and forced fumbles are all defined as havoc plays. How disruptive can a player or unit be? If the defense isn’t taking the ball away, the next best thing is creating as much disruption for the offense as possible. After the 2021 season it had, UCLA needs havoc-creators in the worst kind of way. So the offseason additions of Darius Muasau (Hawaii), Grayson Murphy (North Texas), and Gabriel Murphy (North Texas), while not really moving the needle at the national level, felt like perfect moves for the team. The latter two—the Murphy twins—combined for more than 100 quarterback pressures last season. 

“That’s what we pride ourselves on, is being disruptive and dominating,” Gabriel told reporters this week, via All Bruins’ Sam Connon. “Making the transition from Group of Five to Power Five, we always have a chip on our shoulder to prove to people that we can do it at this level, too. That’s kinda why we made the transition and that’s what powered us in the spring. … We wanna show the coaches that we’re capable of doing it and we wanna show them that in the fall, so we feel like we’ll be disruptive.”

UCLA’s defensive staff has to feel good about what it has in the twins. Grayson says they’ve been playing all over the defense so far in fall camp.

“They’re moving us across the whole defensive line, whether it be nose, 3, 5, 9, 7,” Grayson said, via Connon. “So we’ll get a little bit of everything, the best of both worlds. We’re just excited. That’s one of the reasons we came to UCLA, because (of) the versatility they offered to us.”

>> Ex nihilo nihil fit… The topic du saison for Arizona State so far this offseason has been what they lost to the transfer portal. It’s trendy to clown the Sun Devils, to put coach Herm Edwards on the hot seat, to talk about what this squad doesn’t have or can’t do. If another athletic director were in place, it would be entirely fair to question whether Edwards would still be running the program at this point, but Arizona State is making do with what it has—on a number of fronts. ASU lost a ton to the portal, sure, but it replenished nearly all those bodies with incoming transfers, too. One of the biggest ones fired off a tweet this weekend I very much appreciated.

That’s the Sun Devils’ offseason. It won’t matter what Arizona State says before the ball is kicked off against Northern Arizona on Thursday, Sept. 1. All that will matter is what this offseason of change produces on the football field this fall.

ASU has a tough early-season test in Stillwater against Oklahoma State. It plays Utah and USC to open up conference play. The work will be immediately put to the test. I have questions about the passing game, but I have zero concern about the front seven of this defense. The big man wearing the small number plays a big part in faith.