As we enter the month of June and inch closer to the start of the college football season, it’s going to become more common to see some preview articles start to pop up around the media landscape.
While the offseason has been dominated by recruiting and the transfer portal, now it’s becoming time to start looking at the rosters that will take the field this fall and go head to head in an insanely loaded Pac-12 conference, working toward a potential College Football Playoff berth.
We know who the star players will be, whether it’s any number of Heisman-worthy quarterbacks or the top-notch wide receivers that they are throwing to. We even have an idea of who some of the top defenders will be in the conference, many of whom found a new home via the transfer portal this offseason.
Those are not the names that we are interested in for this exercise. Rather, I want to take a look at some of the players who you may not be familiar with at the moment, but will likely become household names in the conference by the time December rolls around. On Saturday, we looked at the offensive candidates that are primed and ready for a breakout; now let’s shift gears to the defensive side of the ball.
This is not an article for the Jordan Burchs or Best Alexanders of the world, but instead for someone like Khyree Jackson or Jeffrey Bassa.
So who are the defensive players on each Pac-12 team that will have a breakout in 2023? Here are my predictions: