Dabo on last season: ‘Nobody’s fault but mine’ (0:58)Dabo Swinney takes the blame for the Clemson Tigers’ 2025-2026 season in a sit-down interview. (0:58)
Heather DinichMar 16, 2026, 08:15 AM ETMultiple Authors
Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer said he knows what fans expect — and it’s more than his 20-8 record over the past two seasons there.
“Ever since I came here, I knew it was always ‘must-win’ all the time,” he said. “We’re going to do things the right way. I feel like we took a good step from Year 1 to Year 2 and are looking forward to doing that again this year, but don’t get too far ahead of ourselves.”
DeBoer is hardly the only coach at a blue-blood program who entered this spring shouldering pressure. USC coach Lincoln Riley, who is in his fifth season with the Trojans, is looking for his first College Football Playoff appearance with them.
“We were one snap away from it last year, and those are some of the margins that you get into,” he said. “We put ourselves in that position. This team excites me a lot.”
Coach Dan Lanning said there were at least eight players who turned down the NFL draft to return for another season, including starting quarterback Dante Moore. That also includes defensive linemen A’Mauri Washington, Bear Alexander and Matayo Uiagalelei, and linebacker Teitum Tuioti. Lanning said it’s the biggest returning group of NFL prospects he has experienced in Eugune as he enters his fifth season as head coach of the Ducks.
“All those guys could have gone and declared for the draft and would have been drafted,” Lanning said. “They bet on themselves to come back and accomplish a little bit more.”
“Ultimately I think they all felt like they had something left on the table, and they’re mature enough to know that they could do that, and they also knew they could make some money.”
The Sooners are the only team to win back-to-back outright Big 12 titles, and also won three straight from 2006 to 2008
Texas Tech returns 14 starters from last year’s Big 12 title team, though three of the defensive players not returning are ranked in ESPN analyst Jordan Reid’s top 50 players following the NFL combine. On the offensive side of the ball, McGuire said he expects the Red Raiders to be better on the line.
“What’s crazy is, I thought we were a big team last year,” he said. “We’re an even bigger team than we were last year. When you see us get off the bus, we look the part. At different times at different positions we haven’t. Mass kicks ass. Let’s just keep getting bigger up front.”
Williams, who was ranked the No. 1 player in the state of Illinois, graduated from Lincoln-Way East High School in Frankfort (a suburb southwest of Chicago) a semester early to enroll at USC this spring. He holds the Illinois High School Association state records with 11,347 passing yards and 147 touchdown passes in his career.
“He’s carried himself up to this point like he’s a little bit older,” Riley said. “He’s got a good skill set. He’s a good athlete, he’s got a good mind for it. … He’s going to get a lot of reps. He’s going to have a great opportunity to improve and have a chance to really develop just because we don’t have a ton of guys in the room right now.”
Alabama: Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer said that although there’s more parity in college football and the transfer portal makes continuity challenging, he still believes it’s possible for one program to consistently dominate for “quite a few years consecutively.”
“We want to build it up to where that’s us again,” DeBoer said. “It’s definitely harder. I can’t say it could never be done much like it has where there’s cycles, especially here at Alabama, where that did occur.”
DeBoer said continuity on the roster and staff is the key, and he feels like for the most part, the Tide have that this season. DeBoer said he didn’t go into the transfer portal for a starting quarterback because, much like a year ago with Ty Simpson, he’s confident in what he has returning, this time with Austin Mack and Keelon Russell.
Mack, who transferred with DeBoer when he was hired, is entering his fourth season in the system, and Russell has “a high ceiling.” Neither has starting experience, but DeBoer said he thought Mack looked “like he belonged out there” in the Rose Bowl against Indiana. Mack completed 11 of 16 attempts for 103 yards after Simpson was injured.
“He runs well, especially when he gets moving, and he can cover a lot of ground in a hurry,” DeBoer said. “From an arm strength and arm talent standpoint, he can make all the throws. I mean, he can rip it from one hash to the opposite sideline. He can throw it down the field. He’s really improved just his timing and anticipation. A lot of that is he knows the offense. Now it’s just a matter of playing ball.”
Boise State: After winning three straight Mountain West titles, Boise State is headed to the Pac-12 this summer, where coach Spencer Danielson said “it’s going to be even more difficult” to reach the CFP.
“You’ve got really good coaches, really good players, and everyone’s investing in football and continuing to push forward to be that fifth conference,” he said, referring to the pecking order behind the Big Ten, SEC, ACC and Big 12. “That’s a big push, and I really believe it’s going to be that.”
The Broncos have a chance to make a huge playoff statement early with their season opener at Oregon — a game Danielson said the staff will start preparing for in May.
UNLV: Boise State has been a constant contender for a CFP spot and beat UNLV twice last year to win its third straight Mountain West Conference title. But the Broncos are moving to the Pac-12 this summer, which means UNLV could have an easier path to the conference title — and in turn a CFP bid — in just the second season under coach Dan Mullen.
BYU: Coach Kalani Sitake wanted to take a minute to remind everyone that his starting quarterback, Bear Bachmeier, was a true freshman last year who didn’t arrive on campus until June. He learned the playbook during the season, which meant the staff couldn’t really “open it up” until the very end.
“Now that he knows the offense, it’s like night-and-day difference,” Sitaki said. “It just helped that he was able to win us a lot of games last year while he was learning. Now I’m excited to see what happens with him knowing the offense. The spring ball has already been different because he’s not learning — he’s refining, which is good, but that comes with a lot of expectations, too.”
“I think Indiana has really shown what you can do with great strategy and great culture and playing a team game,” Sitake said. “That’s been a good example for not just us, but everyone out there — ‘Hey, you can do some really good things if you’re playing cohesively as a team.’ So that’s a goal, but we’ve got a long ways to go, a lot of work to do.”
Now he has more resources, a bigger staff (“What the hell do I need all these people for” he joked), and a Power 4 transfer quarterback from Georgia Tech in Aaron Philo, who is competing with Tramell Jones Jr. for the starting job.
“It’s probably going to be Philo or Tramell Jones Jr.,” Sumrall said, “but I’ve had this happen before where I thought it was going to be one guy or another and then someone else emerges, so I’m not assuming anything.”
SMU: SMU senior linebacker Alex Kilgore, one of the Mustangs’ team captains, recently told coach Rhett Lashlee that this year’s team has a similar vibe to the one in 2024 that went undefeated during regular-season ACC play and earned a spot in the CFP.
“I think we have the making of a group that – just from those intangibles – is going to have the things we need,” Lashlee said. “And I think we’ve upgraded our talent. So that’s another win.”
“Look, I’d rather you tell everybody we’re gonna be terrible,” he deadpanned, “but we’ve gone three straight years now where SMU either started the season in the top 25, finished in the top 25 or both. … I think we have the potential to be the best team we’ve had since we’ve been here.”
When leaders of the College Football Playoff decided to stay with the current 12-team format, the SEC coaches weren’t thrilled — especially as they prepare to enter their first season in a nine-game league schedule.
“Sitting at our conference meetings a couple of weeks ago, that was everybody’s bitch, was, ‘Man, we went to a nine-game schedule, but we didn’t get a 16-team playoff, and we’re all being evaluated on whether we made the playoff,'” an SEC coach said. “That’s how everybody sees it. And by everybody, I mean the entire room, from who was in the playoff to the teams that weren’t. Everybody sees it the same way.”
Many coaches want to know specifically how the committee weighs certain metrics such as scoring margin and schedule strength — factors that have been subjective for all 12 years of the system. One asked if he should keep his starters in and run up the score or if it’s OK to take them out and develop younger players.
“In the NFL, you know who gets in and you know who doesn’t because of the way the structure of the playoff is set up,” another SEC coach said. “Ours is set up so poorly and it’s up to a committee to decide who gets in? You have to give us something to say, ‘This is what you need to do to earn more points in favor to get in.’ The strength of schedule is bulls—. That doesn’t matter.”
USC coach Lincoln Riley said he’s in favor of a larger format that would give schools “a little bit more leeway in scheduling,” because right now, it’s more uneven than ever.
Although the Big Ten’s push for 24 teams remains on hold for now, decision-makers in every conference have become more open to the idea. The question is if enough SEC leaders will latch on.
“Let’s see how this season plays out,” one SEC source said. “There may be a change in our attitude depending on how this plays out, that we may be more amenable to 24 than we are at this time right now. I think you’ll have some schools in our conference that are going to say, ‘We think 24 will be good.’ I think some coaches in our conference would like that because most of our teams, if you have a decent year, you’re going to be in the top 24.”