It's year four of the Lance Leipold era at Kansas, and everything seems different for the Jayhawks. Part of it due to the the successful way he's turned around the program, and the rest is from college football being like an Etch A Sketch that a child didn't know what to do next with and subsequently shook vigorously for a couple of seconds. It wasn't enough to wipe the slate clean, but what remained was completely different.
We'll start with the Jayhawks, and why there's so muhc optimism. For the first time since 2009, Kansas was ranked in the preseason AP Top 25 (at No. 22). It may not be considered the team to beat in the revamped Big 12 (Utah is the consensus pick, more on that later), but Kansas is in the top tier, and that alone is significant. Its coming off the program's first winning season since 2007, and first back-to-back bowl appearances since 2007-08.
Meanwhile, the first major game of the 2024 college football season resulted in the first upset last weekend, which many believe was a sign of things to come this season. Georgia Tech over Florida State in Dublin seemed to be a great introduction if not opening salvo. Overall, there's a lot for everyone to get accustomed to, and on numerous levels.
Welcome to the longest season in college football history, starting earlier and ending later, with plenty to fill in between. Here's a primer to get you through the changes minus all the player movement through the transfer portal:
Kansas Jayhawks
• Kansas was ranked in the preseason AP Top 25 for only the seventh time in its history. None of the previous six finished ranked. Will this team handle it better?
• Jeff Grimes is the new offensive coordinator.
• Kansas lost two players in the 2024 NFL Draft including offensive lineman Dominick Puni. Will the Jayhawks take a step back up front?
• The Jayhawks didn't have too much turnover in the transfer portal, at least compared to most other teams. The only position where they had to add someone to plug in immediately was at center.
• Kansas has most of its key playmakers back plus quarterback Jalon Daniels. We don't want to say he's the key to the whole season ... but he's the key to the whole season. Back issues bothered him all season last year and there's no experienced backup. If Daniels can stay healthy, Kansas is a popular pick to challenge and maybe even win the Big-12 title.
Re-alignment
• SEC: Added Texas and Oklahoma.
• Big Ten: The 18-team league added Oregon, USC, UCLA and Washington.
• Big 12: The 16-team league now includes Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah.
• ACC: The league goes coast-to-coast after adding Cal and Stanford, along with SMU.
• Pac-12: All that’s left are Oregon State and Washington State.
• Army has joined the American Athletic Conference. However, the Army-Navy game will remain a non-conference game.
No more divisions
The one exception is the Sun Belt, which still has an East and West Division. Meanwhile, the SEC recently announced the following tiebreakers:
1.Head-to-head competition among the tied teams.
2. Record versus all common conference opponents among the tied teams.
3. Record against highest-placed common conference opponent in the conference standings, and proceeding through the conference standings among the tied teams.
4. Cumulative conference winning percentage of all conference opponents among the tied teams.
5. Capped relative total scoring margin versus all conference opponents among the tied teams.
6. Random draw of the tied teams.
College Football Playoff
• The playoff is expanding from four to 12 teams.
•First round games will be Dec. 20-21 on college campuses. The quarterfinals will be at the Fiesta, Peach, Rose and Sugar Bowls on Dec. 31-Jan. 1. The semifinals will be at the Orange and Cotton Bowls on Jan. 9-10. The National Championship Game is set for Jan. 20 in Atlanta.
•The first CFP rankings will be revealed on Nov. 5, at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN. The subsequent rankings will be announced on every Tuesday through the Dec. 3, with the selection show set for Sunday, Dec. 8, the day after the final conference championship games are played.
The selection committee members are:
Chris Ault(former head coach and athletics director, University of Nevada)
Chet Gladchuk(athletics director, U.S. Naval Academy)
Jim Grobe(former head coach, Ohio University, Wake Forest and Baylor)
Warde Manuel(chair) (athletics director, University of Michigan)
Randall McDaniel(College and Pro Football Hall of Fame member and former All-American offensive lineman, Arizona State University)
Gary Pinkel(former head coach, University of Toledo and University of Missouri)
Mack Rhoades(athletics director, Baylor University)
Mike Riley(former college head coach, Oregon State and Nebraska, as well as head coach in the NFL, CFL, WLAF, AAF and USFL; played collegiately at Alabama 1971-74)
DavidSayler(athletics director, Miami University, OH)
Will Shields(College and Pro Football Hall of Fame member and former All-American offensive lineman, University of Nebraska)
Kelly Whiteside(professor in Sports Media and Journalism, Montclair State University; longtime sportswriter, USA Today, Sports Illustrated and Newsday)
Carla Williams(athletics director, University of Virginia)
Hunter Yurachek(athletics director, University of Arkansas).
Television
• The SEC game of the week is no longer on CBS, those games will now be seen on ESPN and ABC.
• The Big Ten will have three national windows with a game on Fox at 11 a.m. CT), CBS at 2:30 p.m., and NBC for a prime time game.
• Fox is breaking the unwritten rule of leaving high school football along on Friday nights and will broadcast a national game.
• The remaining teams in the Pac-12 have a broadcast deal with The CW, and the Mountain West will have games on truTV.
Saban beiung on College GameDay is great for fans in gneral in that everyhone else gets to hear many of the stories he's been telling in Tuscaloosa since 2007. Another major plus for fans is that kickoff times for most games will be announced well in advance, unlike previous seasons.
Rule changes
• The two-minute warning has been added to college football, during the second and fourth quarters, just like in the NFL.
• Teams have the option to use coach-to-player communications through the helmet to one player on the field. That player will be identified by having a green dot on the back midline of the player's helmet. The communication will be cut off when the play clock reaches 15 seconds or at the snap, whichever comes first.
• Coaches will be allowed to conduct broadcast TV interviews at the end of the first and third quarters of games.
• Video tablets will be allowed on the sideline. Video may include coach's sideline, coach's end zone, and a program feed per play from the current game only and may also display "game circ*mstances," including down / distance, time, quarter, play-number and score. A team may have up to 18 standard tablets active,
• Horse-collar tackles that occur within the tackle box will be penalized as a 15-yard personal foul penalty. Previously, a horse-collar tackle within the tackle box is not a foul.
Also, the limit on the number of coaches who can do hands-on, on-field coaching during practice and games has been lifted. Previously, only the 10 assistant coaches were allowed (analysts, etc, were banned).
