Burning questions
Who wins Sumrall-Wommack II? It wasn't a total surprise that either Troy or South Alabama would be strong in 2022. Troy fielded both good offense and good defense during Chip Lindsey's three seasons in charge (granted, not at the same time), and the Trojans' ambitions were tamped down in part by a 4-9 record in one-score games. Things had fallen apart late in 2021, prompting the change, but Sumrall walked into a pretty solid situation. Kane Wommack, meanwhile, crafted an exciting defense in his 2021 debut at South Alabama and brought in some interesting offensive pieces -- namely, Toledo quarterback
Carter Bradley -- for 2022.
It was still a surprise that these teams basically lapped the West field, though. South Alabama's defense improved further, and Troy's absolutely ignited behind linebacker and
all-time NCAA tackles leader Carlton Martial and a nasty secondary. Neither offense maintained an incredible level of form, but Bradley threw for 3,336 yards and 28 touchdowns, and Troy's
Gunnar Watson thrived late in the season and threw for 318 yards and three scores in the Sun Belt championship game.
The teams remain approximate mirror images heading into 2023. Both offenses return their aforementioned quarterbacks and leading rushers (Troy's
Kimani Vidal, USA's
La'Damian Webb), both are replacing their leading receivers, and both have lines that got thinned out a bit -- Troy replaces three starters (including two all-conference honorees), and while South Alabama replaces only two, most of last year's second string is gone. Wommack brought in a pair of SEC transfers up front, while Sumrall diversified, signing Oklahoma State transfer
Eli Russ, two FCS transfers and three jucos. In all, Sumrall was more aggressive in supplementing the offense through the portal, and both Russ and Memphis running back transfer
Asa Martin could find immediate roles. That could allow the Trojans to make up ground after ranking far below the Jags offensively last year.
For South Alabama to win the division, then, they'll have to make up the same ground on defense. They could absolutely do that. The Jaguars combined a well-rounded run defense with an aggressive and occasionally all-or-nothing secondary. Nearly the entire front six returns, including edge rusher
Jamie Sheriff and linebacker
Trey Kiser (10.5 tackles for loss), so it should be as hard as ever to run on them. Losing cornerback
Darrell Luter Jr. hurts, but nickel back
Yam Banks is incredible, and the safety corps returns mostly intact. Everything good about last year's South Alabama defense should remain so.
Troy has a few more pieces to replace. Of the 16 defenders who saw at least 300 snaps last year, seven are gone, including Martial and all-conference tackle
Will Choloh. But ace pass rushers
T.J. Jackson and
Richard Jibunor are back, as is all-conference corner
Reddy Steward. Sumrall had no interest in allowing a drop-off, bringing in three transfers and five juco defenders, but aside from linebacker, there aren't many holes to fill. The biggest one, in fact, may be in the coordinator role -- Shiel Wood left for Tulane in February, so Sumrall roped in former Louisville linebackers coach and Army defensive co-coordinator Greg Gasparato.
SP+ likes Troy a bit more, and it also likes the Trojans' schedule more. South Alabama has to play at not only Troy but also James Madison in Sun Belt play. (They head to Tulane and Oklahoma State in nonconference play too. Ambitious slate.) Troy plays only one conference road game against a top-100 foe. Maybe that makes the difference, but regardless, these two teams have excellent opportunities to build on last year's progress.
How does Louisiana make up lost ground? It's easy to simply assume that the new reality is the future reality. Troy and South Alabama were the power teams last year, and they return a lot of dudes, therefore they'll be the power teams moving forward, right? But things do change. Just ask Louisiana. The Ragin' Cajuns went 34-5 over Billy Napier's last four years in charge, and when the offense went wobbly in 2021, Napier's last season, the defense picked up the slack.
In Desormeaux's first season, Louisiana was
mostly the same team. The Cajuns fell from 85th to 98th in offensive SP+ and from 15th to 29th on defense. They were similar athletically, and their on-paper quality was only a bit lower. But close games were their enemy, and they plummeted from 13-1 to 6-7.
Maybe they just don't have that cutting edge anymore. Maybe they'll just keep losing close games and slowly fading until Desormeaux is let go. Or maybe, with quarterback
Ben Wooldridge, a big and experienced offensive line, and excellent defensive backs such as safety
Kam Pedescleaux and corner
Trey Amos returning, we'll find that 2022 was an odd blip, and what Napier began building will continue in his absence.
I can see both scenarios, but I struggle to see immediate rebound potential here. The offense has stumbled a long way since ranking 37th in 2020, and while the line should be solid, the loss of receivers
Michael Jefferson and
John Stephens Jr. means the loss of the only two known home run hitters in the skill corps.
The defense should still be good -- a running theme in the Sun Belt West -- but coordinator LaMar Morgan leaned heavily on a tight rotation. Only 11 guys saw 300-plus snaps, and six are gone. Pedescleaux and Amos are great, but they might have more weight to carry after the loss of pass rushers Zi'Yon Hill and
Andre Jones. Younger players such as tackle
Marcus Wiser and nickel
Courtline Flowers showed potential last year, but quite a few defenders will need to thrive in bigger roles. Otherwise, Louisiana will again be fighting for 6-6 instead of a West title.
Can Southern Miss find a dang quarterback (and keep him healthy)? Plenty of teams each year are forced to get through part of their season without their starting quarterback. Some teams struggle to figure out who their starting QB should be. That's just how things go. But few have had to deal with more of a mess behind center than Southern Miss.
In 2019, the Golden Eagles went 7-6 behind
Jack Abraham's 3,496 passing yards. Solid.
In 2020, Abraham got hurt, his backups struggled, and Southern Miss fell to 3-7. Head coach Jay Hopson was sent packing.
In 2021, Will Hall's first season in charge, three freshman QBs and a sophomore all saw time, and the most successful passer on the team was ... running back
Frank Gore Jr. The Eagles plummeted to 129th in offensive SP+ and 3-9 overall.
In 2022,
Ty Keyes won the QB job and got hurt almost immediately. Freshman
Zach Wilcke stepped in, and played well for a bit but backslid (as freshmen often do), and
Trey Lowe took over down the stretch. He looked great in the final two games ... and transferred to Liberty.
In 2023, Wilcke is back, and Hall brought in former Houston backup
Holman Edwards and Clemson backup
Billy Wiles.
Gore returns after rushing for 1,382 yards -- he set a bowl record with 329 in the Eagles' Lending Tree Bowl win over Rice -- and he is joined by explosive if inconsistent Memphis transfer
Dreke Clark. Slot receivers
Jakarius Caston and
Tiaquelin Mims averaged 14.8 yards per catch with eight touchdowns, and a line that had to start nine different guys last year returns seven of them. If someone is both good and healthy enough to keep the starting quarterback job, the offense could surge.
It will
need to surge because while Southern Miss rose to 40th in defensive SP+, those heights might be difficult to match. Coordinator Austin Armstrong left for Alabama, and his replacement, Dan O'Brien, has holes to fill. The line returns mostly intact and boasts a number of exciting 300-pounders, but the Eagles have to replace three of four disruptive linebackers and five of last year's top six defensive backs. Linebacker
Averie Habas and safety
Jay Stanley are stars, but they're going to be looking around at a lot of new pieces in the starting lineup.
How will the Incarnate Word transplant work out at Texas State? It's a new trend for the transfer portal era: We fall in love with an FCS offense, and someone imports it to FBS. In 2021, Western Kentucky's Tyson Helton brought Houston Christian's offensive coordinator (Zach Kittley), quarterback (Bailey Zappe) and star receivers to town, and the Hilltoppers leaped from 120th to sixth in offensive SP+.
Texas State is attempting something similar. Incarnate Word won 12 games with an absurd offense and nearly beat North Dakota State in the FCS semifinals last season. Star quarterback
Lindsey Scott Jr. finally ran out of eligibility, but after going just 13-35 in four seasons under Jake Spavital, TXST brought UIW coach GJ Kinne, both coordinators, a number of other assistants and at least seven UIW players -- including three all-conference offensive linemen and all-conference defensive back
Kaleb Culp -- to San Marcos.
Kinne brought in jucos and other transfers for every unit of both the offense and defense, most notably speedy Arkansas quarterback
Malik Hornsby, 1,200-yard juco running back Donerio Davenport,
five UIW O-linemen, Utah State defensive tackle
Tavian Coleman, Culp and three power-conference DBs. This Texas State team will not look like last year's, for better or worse.
Spavital wasn't opposed to quick changes either, of course. He was one of the first coaches to fully embrace the transfer portal, recruiting almost exclusively from it for part of his Texas State tenure. He lacked either the team culture or the talent (or both) to succeed, and, needless to say, almost completely forgoing high school recruiting in the state of Texas certainly has a downside. One assumes Kinne has some bridges to rebuild in that department, but while he does inherit a few exciting pieces -- high-efficiency slot man
Ashtyn Hawkins, pass rusher
Jordan Revels, a solid cornerback duo in
Chris Mills and
Alonzo Edwards Jr. -- transfers will probably decide Texas State's 2023 fate once again. Will the UIW transplant take hold?
Which veteran coach breaks through, Butch Jones or Terry Bowden? Neither? Both? Arkansas State and Louisiana-Monroe arrived at hiring ultra-experienced head coaches in different ways. For ASU, it was an attempt at a quick rebound. After hiring and losing three future SEC coaches in three years (Hugh Freeze, Gus Malzahn and Bryan Harsin), the school landed a long-term answer in
Blake Anderson, who took the Red Wolves to six straight bowls before stumbling to 4-7 in 2020 and leaving for Utah State. The 55-year-old Jones, who won or shared conference titles at Central Michigan and Cincinnati and won nine games twice at Tennessee before stumbling and taking on a rehabilitation stint as an offensive analyst at Alabama, seemed like a logical choice.
For ULM, it was, first and foremost, about finding someone with any sort of connection to winning and a willingness to take on one of the hardest jobs in FBS. The Warhawks have finished above .500 just once since returning to FBS in 1994. The 67-year-old Bowden, a former Auburn head coach who had managed to take Akron to two bowls and a division title (while still going just 35-52 overall), fit the bill.
Jones appeared to inherit the more positive situation, but he's gone just 5-19 in two seasons. Bowden hasn't exactly lit the world afire, but he's got three more wins, at least, after back-to-back 4-8 seasons.
ULM's offense had its explosive moments, thanks primarily to big-play wideout
Tyrone Howell, and when the defense brought anything whatsoever to the table, good things happened; the Warhawks allowed less than 5.7 yards per play on five occasions and went 4-1 in those games. Beyond maturation from players such as end
Kenard Snyder and corners Lucius Tillery and
Car'lin Vigers and the addition of lineman Adin Hutchinson (Kent State) and linebacker Ja'Terious Evans (Stephen F. Austin), there's reason to believe second-year coordinator Vic Koenning could engineer more consistency.
Howell has some interesting battery mates in the receiving corps in slot man
Alred Luke, Middle Tennessee transfer Bud Tolbert, juco transfer and onetime Ole Miss signee Marc Britt II and track star and former blue-chipper
Bugs Mortimer. It's unclear if ULM has what it needs at quarterback after
Chandler Rogers' transfer to North Texas. Either veteran
Jiya Wright or Louisville transfer
Hunter Herring needs to come through.
From the perspective of recruiting rankings, Jones has a lot more to work with than Bowden. Unfortunately, no one has really looked the part yet, at least on a defense that has ranked 128th and 119th in defensive SP+ in two seasons. Third-year coordinator Rob Harley needs a few breakthrough players to join known entities linebacker
Melique Straker and safety
Eddie Smith. I'm honestly not sure who that might be. Kansas linebacker transfer
Gavin Potter, perhaps?
The Arkansas State offense has been decent under coordinator Keith Heckendorf, but it's battling turnover: Quarterback
James Blackman and four of his top five targets are gone, as are three starters from a decent line. All-or-nothing wideout
Jeff Foreman will be joined by Syracuse's
Courtney Jackson and, possibly, former ASU star wideout
Corey Rucker, who transferred to South Carolina last season and moved back to Jonesboro but is awaiting an eligibility ruling. Jones signed a truckload of three-star freshman receivers, but he'll still need someone to provide competence at quarterback, be it Colorado transfer JT Shrout or well-touted redshirt freshman
Jaxon Dailey.