College football storylines to watch in the second half of 2023 season marking end of an era
These seven storylines will drive the conversation as the 2023 season wraps up in the weeks ahead
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13 min read
The 2023 college football season marks the end of an era in many ways. The structure of conferences and how the national championship is decided will be markedly different beginning in 2024, and that's why every twist and turn in the 2023 season has been all the more special. Programs that have not been in the spotlight in a decade or more surging back to prominence brings out the nostalgia for a bygone era, while thrilling battles between conference rivals are hitting a little different knowing many of these schools will no longer have that annual date on the schedule after this season.
When we return for the 2024 season, the Big 12 will no longer run through the Red River Rivalry but will include the Territorial Cup and Holy War. The ACC will still have "Atlantic Coast" in the name but include conference road trips out to Berkley, California, and Dallas, Texas. No. 18 USC and No. 25 UCLA will be playing road conference games in College Park, Maryland, and Piscataway, New Jersey, respectively. The sheer size of these conferences (four will be in excess of 16 teams) could lead to all kinds of headaches when trying to sort out conference title game tiebreakers.
Those conference title races will take heightened importance with a 12-team College Football Playoff format that currently includes automatic bids for conference champions. The days of "Who's In?" conversations with a laser focus on the top 4-6 teams in the country will be replaced by a two-prong look at the playoff that identifies the individual conference races and the best available teams at the same time. The CFP believes it will keep more fans engaged with the playoff race deeper into the year; however, additional games bring their own concerns for logistics, player well-being and fitting the new bracket into a calendar that's already crammed with transfer portal activity, Early Signing Day and semester endings at many schools.
But what's nice about the 2023 season to this point is that the uncertainty we have in our present is much less daunting than the uncertainty we have in college football's future. We don't know how the 2023 season will end because there is actual debate regarding the top teams in the country.
The AP Top 25 has kept Georgia at No. 1, but four or five different teams have received first-place votes during the season. The CBS Sports 133 recently moved Michigan -- No. 2 in the AP Top 25 -- into the top spot just ahead of the Bulldogs, but neither of those proven CFP contenders have played anything close to their toughest games yet. No. 3 Ohio State, No. 4 Florida State, No. 5 Washington and No. 6 Oklahoma are all more battle-tested to this point, while the door is open for No. 8 Texas, No. 9 Oregon or even No. 11 Alabama to come roaring back into the title picture after suffering losses in the first half of the season. No. 7 Penn State and No. 10 North Carolina are among the teams that still have a path as well with the Nittany Lions getting their first shot at joining the crew of contenders this weekend in Columbus, Ohio.
Previous seasons in the CFP era didn't have nearly a dozen teams with a real shot at the midseason point. That uncertainty is going to make the final weeks of this year extremely fun to follow as a college football fan. So don't let the uncertainty of the sport's future cloud what is happening right in front of us: an epic farewell to this chapter of college football's history.
Let's dive into some of the big storylines to follow over the second half of the 2023 season.
Georgia walks the tightrope
One of the biggest storylines heading into the season was whether Georgia could do something that had not been done in the modern era: three-peat as national champions. Currently undefeated, everything appears to be on schedule to at least have a shot at accomplishing this historic feat. But the outlook took an unexpected turn last weekend when star tight end Brock Bowers suffered an ankle injury that required surgery. He's expected to be out 4-6 weeks, missing some of the tougher games on the Bulldogs' backloaded schedule.
Georgia will still be favored in every game left on the schedule, but the margins for error against Florida, No. 20 Missouri, No. 13 Ole Miss and No. 17 Tennessee have shrunk without the best tight end in college football. His performance at Auburn helped Georgia stave off an early season defeat, and if such a moment occurs again during his absence, others will need to step up.
It is worth considering, however, that this development opens the door for the emergence of Carson Beck as the team's leader. He's waited in the wings for three years in preparation to take over as QB1 and stepped up in recent weeks. His decision to remain with Georgia instead of entering the transfer portal has been in preparation for this moment. This is Beck's offense, and he has now become the story for the two-time reigning champions in their chase for a historic third straight national title.
Can Washington, Penix hold off the pack out West?
Speaking of narrow margins, the impact of Washington's win will stretch from mid-October well into early December as the Huskies were the first team in a crowded Pac-12 title race to take a definitive step forward. A fourth-down call, a missed field goal and two incredibly clutch throws from Michael Penix Jr. have set the stage for a sprint to the finish line between Washington, Oregon, No. 12 Oregon State, No. 14 Utah and USC. The Trojans may have fallen in the rankings and seen star quarterback Caleb Williams supplanted by Penix in the Heisman Trophy battle, but last week's loss to No. 15 Notre Dame does nothing to their Pac-12 title hopes. The Trojans do have a chance to pick up their own crucial head-to-head win in a bounce back spot this weekend against Utah.
Washington and Oregon came out of last week's instant classic both looking like Pac-12 title favorites. Still, both have to play the trio of USC, Utah and Oregon State. USC also has its rivalry game against a stout UCLA defense that could disrupt the picture, while Washington finishes the season against a Washington State team that has hit a midseason slide but could be healthier and dangerous again by the end of November.
In the background, of course, is the question of whether the Pac-12 will snap its seven-year drought of earning a College Football Playoff berth as the league's future casts a shadow over everything. This is shaping up to be be the last year of the Pac-12 as we have known it in the modern era, so can the conference go out with a bang?
Trio of Big Ten powers square off with title implications
If you believe in a power ratings approach to evaluating conferences, there are three teams at the top of the Big Ten with very little separation between them and then a gulf the size of a Big Ten West offensive lineman before you get to the fourth-best team. Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State are all undefeated with College Football Playoff and national championship aspirations. Key data points in their respective pursuits are not only the results against each other but also the team that can win the Big Ten East and enter the Big Ten Championship Game as a heavy favorite.
These games already have massive meaning to the fanbases, but the stakes once again carry national implications. We do see some balance across the three heavyweight fights with all three teams playing one game at home and one game on the road. Penn State will begin this epic trilogy on Saturday at Ohio State before hosting Michigan on Nov. 11. The Wolverines will then play one more road game (at Maryland) before returning to Ann Arbor looking for a three-peat against Ohio State. Who will come out of the pack with two wins? Will all three teams end up 1-1? Perhaps even more interesting: Can they manage title expectations against the rest of the their second-half schedule with so much emotion leading into and coming out of these high-profile showdowns?
Is Florida State all the way back?
Nothing gets college football fans who famously yearn for glory years of the past going quite like a discussion of whether a former power is "back." One place to direct your attention when assessing "back-ness" is whether the accomplishments are starting to mirror the level of success seen during a time when said power was on top. The changes in college football's structure make Florida State's run of 14 straight top-five finishes from 1987-2000 seem highly unlikely. So, while Bobby Bowden's tenure set the foundation for any and all success that the Seminoles experience in the present, it should not be the standard when trying to determine where Mike Norvell is at on his aptly branded journey he calls "the climb."
Currently, the Seminoles are 6-0 overall and 4-0 in the ACC for the first time since 2015. The most recent AP Top 25 marked the Seminoles' seventh consecutive week with a top-five ranking, which is the school's longest streak of top-five rankings since 2013-14. Florida State is favored to win the ACC, something it has not done since 2014. If the 'Noles break that drought, they will have a chance to accomplish something else the program has not done since 2014: make the College Football Playoff. If Florida State is to match program accomplishments not seen since the Seminoles were winning national championships (2013) and competing in the playoff (2014), that's about as close to "back" as you can get in the modern era.
What does that path look like for the 2023 Seminoles? And as the pressure mounts to achieve this glory of years past, will the team that was 5-7 just two seasons ago be prepared to take on that pressure? Those become the points of intrigue as long as Florida State continues its winning ways, facing a regular-season schedule that has just one opponent left who is currently ranked in the AP Top 25: this weekend's Homecoming showdown against Duke.
What's Alabama's ceiling in 2023?
There are two reads on the situation in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. On its face, Alabama has one loss already and faces a narrow path to the College Football Playoff. However, the Crimson Tide have yet to lose in SEC play. If they run the table and beat Georgia in the SEC Championship Game, that 12-1 Tide team will be ranked in the top four of the final CFP Rankings. Alabama hosts its two toughest opponents remaining on its regular-season schedule: this Saturday's meeting against Tennessee and the Nov. 4 showdown with LSU. Otherwise, holding serve against teams Alabama is favored to beat should at least get Nick Saban to a win-and-you're-in scenario in Atlanta.
So, why the panic?
The panic is because the body of work has not resembled anything close to the expectation of what a title-contending Tide team looks like through seven games. Every season from 2016-20, Alabama had one of the largest scoring margins in the country and was beating teams by at least 24 points on average. Through seven games this season, the Tide have an average scoring margin of +14.1 with a 49-point win against Middle Tennessee in the season opener doing a lot of work to help that number. The offense has not clicked with consistency from week-to-week, and that's led to much smaller margins and the reliance on an elite defense to produce winning plays. No longer a juggernaut, Alabama is a very good team with flaws that are magnified by the program's own history.
Whether Alabama improves in the areas that have been shortcomings, whether it can continue to avoid the upset to a lesser team and how the Tide stack up against Georgia should it reach Atlanta all remain huge questions for a 2023 team that has not looked close to program standard but still has a path to competing for the championships at the end of the season.
How Colorado regroups
Though every week has felt like the biggest week of the season for Colorado, the bye this week for the Buffaloes might be the most important. The vibes were immaculate amid a 3-0 start to the season. At 4-2 following losses to Pac-12 powers Oregon and USC, the path to a bowl game was still clear. Now, at 4-3 after a double-overtime home loss to Stanford during which Colorado blew a 29-point halftime lead, the postseason future is much less clear. A roster that includes more than 50 players from the transfer portal has to spend the bye working together to refocus for a tough final stretch during which the Buffs may be an underdog in every single game. And all of this is being done under a spotlight commanded by Colorado and first-year coach Deion Sanders since the first week of the season with the college football media and the Coach Prime media empire taking in every detail and broadcasting it to the masses.
If Colorado football in 2023 is a reality show, this is the low point where the protagonists must face hard truths about what's happened and choose to either change the outcomes or crash and burn. The final five games are all against teams who also currently have a winning record with three being ranked in the current AP Top 25 and at least two (Oregon State, Utah) who are in the thick of the aforementioned Pac-12 title race. Three of the five games are on the road and one of those games will be on short rest with a Friday night showdown at Washington State following the final home game against Arizona. If Colorado gets home with a 2-3 finish or better, it's one of the biggest stories of the season. If the Buffs burn out, it will be as well. Either way, we'll be watching.
Early stages of offseason movement
We're not on track to experience anything close to the early stages of the 2021 coaching carousel when the USC and LSU coaching jobs were open by the end of November with Florida and Miami bubbling. Right now, the closest thing we have is Jimbo Fisher and Texas A&M with the off week for the Aggies providing everyone the opportunity to double down on how disappointing things have been and reports of how Texas A&M big money donors are ready to cut the checks if things don't turn around. If Texas A&M opens, it will undoubtedly look first to another sitting coach and one in a job that is otherwise coveted. If the Aggies were to hire said sitting Power Five coach, it sets off a domino effect that could make this hiring cycle more interesting than it's looking here at midseason.
Maybe there's a change coming at Indiana, Baylor, Houston or West Virginia, but outside of College Station, Texas, there doesn't appear to be a major carousel season on the horizon. Michigan State will have a search that could set off some Power Five dominoes, for sure, but outside of a retirement or NFL exit, the most impactful moves could end up being at the Group of Five and coordinator/assistant levels.
There is also the player side of offseason movement in this day and age as well. Though the NCAA has cracked down on second-time transfer waivers, the ability to move freely for a first-time transfer has us primed for another crazy portal window. How many players will shut it down at the first sign of of injury — or, more disappointing for fans, at the first sign of "injury" — if the season isn't going well and they've already decided an exit is on the horizon. Will we have situations where teams are struggling to field competitive rosters in November the way we've seen during the Bowl Season in this era of player movement? These situations are more novel than coaching changes and still hard to track, but as the clock speeds up with coaching changes happening earlier and a portal window that opens the day after conference championship games, the roster management game starts before the regular season ends.
