Tag: Bill Connelly

Which position group for Notre Dame that ESPN believes has CFP implications

Who do you think is key to the Irish’s success in 2022?

As the season is just about three weeks away, ESPN is ramping up their coverage of college football. They recently looked at which 25 players will be most impactful to the College Football Playoff race in 2022 and to no surprise it was a position group selected for Notre Dame.

The starting quarterback for the Irish came in second in ESPN’s rankings and although they believe that [autotag]Tyler Buchner[/autotag] will be the starter, [autotag]Drew Pyne[/autotag] was also mentioned as having importance as well.

Bill Connelly sees “at worst, a very good defensive front seven. The Fighting Irish are a top-10 team on paper, and if they get what they need from the QB position, they could easily be top-five.” Can’t disagree with Connelly there, as the season does hinge on quarterback play, as long as Buchner steps up.

It was noted that Buchner’s “big-plays-to-disasters ratio” last year was not great as a passer, throwing three interceptions in just 35 passes. If Buchner makes a big jump in the passing game, Connelly believes “he (Buchner) could bring a level of upside to the position that Irish fans haven’t seen in a while.”

In all reality, Buchner just needs to imitate one of his predecessors, [autotag]Ian Book[/autotag], by not making mistakes and taking advantage of what defenses give him. If Buchner can limit turnovers and keep defenses on their heels with his running ability, this could be a more complete team than the 2020 version that faced off against Alabama in the semi-finals of the College Football Playoff.

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A number of LSU teams make ESPN’s list of all time college football defenses

The Tigers have certainly put some talented defenses on the field over the years.

LSU has always played a tough and physical brand of football.

The Tigers have put countless defensive stars into the NFL, earning the moniker “DBU” in the process. It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that when running down the best defenses in the history of the sport, several LSU teams come to mind.

ESPN’s Bill Connelly recently put out his list of the 50 best defenses in the history of college football, and five Tigers units made the cut. The choices span decades, with teams from many eras represented. Here’s a breakdown of where each stands and Connelly’s logic behind each choice.

ESPN names three ‘If’s’ how Notre Dame wins the National Championship

What concerns you most for this upcoming season?

Each year every team enters the season with question marks, regardless of what their status was the year before. For many teams, the answers just aren’t there and there is no chance for them to win a title. Only a few squads across the country have a legit shot of being the last team standing, Notre Dame being one of them. ESPN looked at twenty teams title chances, ranking them by “If’s” with the Irish having just three of them (insider), according to Bill Connelly, the second best title odds in the country. These are the three question marks the Irish need to answer in order to win the College Football Playoff.

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Here’s what ESPN says about LSU in its SEC West preview

There’s a wide range of possibilities for LSU in the West this year.

ESPN’s Bill Connelly released his SEC West preview earlier this week. Connelly is best known for his SP+ ratings, a system that uses advanced metrics to predict results.

LSU fans may not be happy to see where SP+ has the team.

The rankings place the Tigers last in the West, projecting them to win just 2.8 conference games and giving them only a 45% chance to make a bowl game. However, Connelly writes that if transfers work out for LSU, [autotag]Brian Kelly[/autotag] could have a top 15 team this fall.

Connelly says LSU’s defensive line has the potential to be excellent and likes some of the transfers LSU brought in on defense. His guess is that Jayden Daniels wins the starting quarterback job, but that could change at any moment.

Continuing to discuss the offense, Connelly pointed out LSU’s strength at receiver and questions at other positions.

The running back position is terribly unproven, as is the offensive line, but the receiving corps — led by a healthy [autotag]Kayshon Boutte[/autotag] and reinforced by [autotag]Jaray Jenkins[/autotag] and a trio of sophomores ([autotag]Jack Bech,[/autotag] [autotag]Malik Nabers[/autotag] and [autotag]Brian Thomas Jr.[/autotag]) — is high end.

Whoever the quarterback is, offensive coordinator [autotag]Mike Denbrock[/autotag] might find himself leaning on the passing game in his first season as the play-caller in Baton Rouge.

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Here’s where LSU stands in the preseason SP+ projections

The Tigers are a notable outlier in the initial SP+ rankings.

We’re still quite a way off from the beginning of the 2022 season, but with ESPN’s Bill Connelly releasing the preseason projections for his propriety SP+ analytics system, we have some new data about this year’s LSU team to sink our teeth into.

Connelly’s SP+ system takes three main factors into account: returning production, recent recruiting and recent history. SP+ does not take wins and losses into account and is not a resume ranking but rather a predictive measure of efficiency. As a result, these rankings can often vary quite a bit from, say, the AP Top 25.

In the preseason projections for 2022, LSU has quite a bit of ground to make up. It ranks 36th nationally with the No. 47 offense and No. 27 defense. That sandwiches the Tigers right between Purdue and Fresno State, which may come as a bit of a surprise for a team with a lot of potential.

Connelly offered a specific explainer on why LSU (as well as USC, who ranks No. 53) fell so low in the projection, and it largely has to do with roster turnover. The 2021 production from players added in the transfer portal conflicts with these two teams’ recent history rankings.

New LSU head coach Brian Kelly has made similar changes, bringing in Arizona State quarterback Jayden Daniels, at least one transfer for every unit on the field and completely transforming the Tigers’ secondary, losing five of last year’s top six but bringing in five transfers. LSU will almost certainly be ranked relatively high in the AP poll this year as well, but after ranking 45th and 65th over the past two seasons, the Tigers get only so much benefit of the doubt from SP+.

Once we have dealt with a couple of years of evidence in how teams loading up on transfers change their ratings from year to year, I will get a pretty good idea of how to account for this in the projections. This is a very new phenomenon, however, and I don’t want to overreact in how I account for this, so for now we’re just going to have a couple of weird outliers.

It sounds like Connelly expects the Tigers to rise in the rankings once the actual games start being played, but they remain an outlier for now. It goes to show how much uncertainty surrounds this year’s team, but the potential for a surprising year in Baton Rouge remains.

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ESPN previews Independents: Notre Dame poised for success

The Irish once again will be at the head of the Independent pack

In a world of conferences, the Irish have avoided joining one sans the 2021 COVID-19 season where they were forced to join forces with the ACC. Gone forever is the argument that if [autotag]Notre Dame[/autotag] was in a conference they wouldn’t do well, the Irish did win the regular season ACC title before falling to Clemson in the [autotag]ACC Championship Game[/autotag].

The Irish returned to be king of the Independents last year and although the annual goal of making the [autotag]College Football Playoff [/autotag] fell short, a New Years Six Fiesta Bowl was the consolation prize. As ESPN looked ahead to the 2022 season, their preview of the Irish (insider), along with the rest of the Independents, showed the strength of the first regular season for a [autotag]Marcus Freeman[/autotag] led team.

Although projected to win 8.9 games, Bill Connelly of ESPN is still high on the Irish. It hinges on the quarterback “but if either (Tyler) Buchner or (Drew) Pyne thrives behind center, the rest of the roster is loaded with experience.” Connelly believes that Freeman could “hit the ground running” but what does that mean?

Is another trip to the CFP in store or will the Irish be back in a big time bowl game that doesn’t have Playoff implications? Regardless, it seems that Connelly is high on what Notre Dame can do this coming fall.

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Tennessee projected as a top 10 team in 2022

Tennessee is projected as a top 10 team in 2022 under second-year head coach Josh Heupel.

Josh Heupel guided Tennessee to a 7-6 (4-4 SEC) record during his first season as the Vols’ head coach in 2021.

Tennessee appeared in the TransPerfect Music City Bowl in 2021.

The Vols will kick off their 2022 football season Sept. 3 against Ball State at Neyland Stadium.

Vols Wire’s 2022 way-too-early game-by-game predictions for Tennessee football

Josh Heupel, Hendon Hooker ready for Atlanta run in 2022

Following national signing day, transfer portal activity and ahead of spring practices, Bill Connelly released ESPN’s SP+ Rankings for the 2022 season.

Rankings and projections are based on three primary factors, weighted by their predictiveness: Returning production, recent recruiting and recent history.

Below are ESPN’s college football SP+ preseason top 25 projections for 2022. Rankings for all FBS schools can be viewed here.

ESPN releases CFB SP+ rankings for 2022

UGA sitting pretty in ESPN’s CFB SP+ preseason projections

ESPN’s Bill Connelly has released his SP+ projections for the 2022 college football season.

These rankings take into account three major factors that yield a predictive measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football. He emphasizes that these are not intended to predict what the rankings will look like at the end of the season but are early offseason power rankings based on the following information, as outlined by Connelly:

Returning Production

The returning production numbers are based on rosters I have updated as much as possible to account for transfers and attrition.

Recent Recruiting

This piece informs us of the caliber of a team’s potential replacements (and/or new stars) in the lineup. It is determined by the last few years of recruiting rankings in diminishing order (meaning the most recent class carries the most weight).

Recent History:

Using a sliver of information from previous seasons (two to four years ago) gives us a good measure of overall program health. This is a minor piece of the puzzle, but the projections are better with it than without.

Here’s a look at the top 10:

ESPN names two Notre Dame parts that could shake up College Football Playoff

The Irish aren’t out of it yet!

The Irish are currently on the outside looking in for return trip to the College Football Playoff, sitting at No. 9 overall. There is still a path for the Irish to make the final four, but plenty of things will need to happen.

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ESPN recently looked at which games and players (insider) could impact the race for a National Title and named two Irish parts, running back Kyren Williams and the Virginia contest this coming weekend. Bill Connelly, who penned the article, had Williams and the game against the Cavaliers as his No. 15 and No. 16 points. Connelly first went over William’s impact.

In the past four games, he has averaged 159 rushing and receiving yards per game (6.2 yards per touch) with seven touchdowns. The Irish’s offense has ignited right along with him, averaging 35 points per game and 6.5 yards per play.

As for this Saturdays game against Virginia, well you might see a whole lot of points up on the board if Connelly is correct.

… UVA boasts one of the most explosive offenses in the country and could suck Notre Dame into a shootout.

It’s important for the defense to show up and hold off Virginia as much as possible. The Irish are still in the race for a CFP spot, but can’t afford to trip up this weekend or any other for the remainder of the regular season.

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ESPN writers agree, Clemson has best entrance in college football

It’s no secret that Clemson possesses the most unique entrance in college football. In just a few short weeks the Tigers will leave the playing surface to board the team buses in the west end zone and drive around to the top of the hill for the …

It’s no secret that Clemson possesses the most unique entrance in college football.

In just a few short weeks the Tigers will leave the playing surface to board the team buses in the west end zone and drive around to the top of the hill for the “most exciting 25 seconds in college football” before they take on South Carolina State on Sept. 11 at Death Valley.

And this time the moment will be sweeter after a limited number of fans attended games last season due to COVID-19 protocols.

A panel of ESPN writers gave their thoughts on the traditions that make college football different from any other game. One of the topics the writers broke down was the best stadium entrance and the consensus pick did not surprise.

“I’ve been to Clemson only once, but what a game I saw: Clemson vs. Louisville in 2016. Deshaun Watson vs. Lamar Jackson. The Tigers’ run down the hill was absolutely electric — my second favorite moment next to hugging Ryan McGee in the press box,” Adam Rittenberg said in the discussion. “But it’s hard to top the anticipation of the team taking the buses around the stadium, assembling at Howard’s Rock and then sprinting down the hill. Can’t wait to be back in Death Valley.”

Bill Connelly echoed the same sentiment about the moment when the Tigers run down the hill.

“Clemson is definitely No. 1. The bus ride builds anticipation, and the hill itself adds some lovely ‘Oh man, what if one of them slips and falls?; anxiety, too. It’s perfect,” he said.

Heather Dinich, David Wilson and Andrea Adelson each mentioned the Tigers’ tradition in their answer as well.

While Clemson fans have to wait an extra week to see the Tigers run down the hill, Clemson opens the season against Georgia at Bank of America Stadium on Sept. 4 in the Duke’s Mayo Classic.