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Everybody is somebody else's weirdo.
College football sleeping giants: Programs due for breakthrough
Six teams whose best may be yet to come.
By now, the College Football Playoff national title contenders ahead of the 2024 season are at the forefront. Teams litter the preseason rankings, but there is the underrated second wave of programs not on everyone's radar just yet anxious to flex improvements.What constitutes holding the label of "sleeping giant" across college football? For starters, being in the middle of a prime recruiting area help and you need resources.
Those are some of the factors including in College Football Select's recently released list of the nation's "top sleeping giants", which includes several surprising picks.
Here are programs falling under the sleeping giant label, according to College Football Select:
NEBRASKA HUSKERS
CFB Select: "This answer shouldn’t surprise you. We’re not just dwelling on their history as a college football dynasty, either – regardless of how you feel about Nebraska, they objectively have some of the deepest athletic department support in the country. They have already utilized this to pull in some of the top recruits and transfers in the country."
Judging by the attention gained after five-star freshman Dylan Raiola turned heads in Nebraska's spring game, the Huskers might not be sleeping much longer. He's the biggest recruiting win in program history and the type of player who could be landscape-changing in the Big Ten if he pans out. Nebraska has one of the strongest collectives in college football and booster support has never been issue, those are major positives for a program trying to get back to the pedestal.
One underrated aspect of a "sleeping giant" is coaching stability and Matt Rhule sounds like he wants to stay at Nebraska as long as he can. Having been in the NFL and failed, there's no want or need to return. Managing expectations for Raiola will be vital for Rhule and this program's advancement.
"Joe Paterno used to say better a play too late than a play too soon. Put guys in when they're ready," Rhule said earlier this year before Raiola had 239 yards passing and a couple touchdowns in the first half of the Huskers' spring game. I told Dylan the moment he got there, don't worry about being the five-star quarterbacks. Don't worry about being all these things. Expectation weighs us down. Just play ball. I'm way more interested in (figuring out) where all our (quarterbacks) where they end up. Not where they are in Year 1.
"That's one of the things that's stressing out our young people. Based upon what I've seen, he's in here all the time. He's committed to doing this and doing this at a high level. I want to see him compete and have fun. I wanna see him play fearless. You're going to make mistakes. We had so many turnovers last year. We have to improve that as coaches. But I wanna see Dylan come in her and rip the the ball. I would say there's a chance we'll probably play all three (quarterbacks) because that's modern college football."
Just sayin': I find it humorous that Bo Pelini had a winning record every year (7 total) that he was head coach at Corn. He had just 4 losses each year; Corn thought that they should be better than that so they fired him. They have only had a winning record once (in 2016) since. Since then, Corn did have a golden opportunity when the B1G had 2 divisions and Corn was in the weaker division. With the B1G eliminating the divisions and adding 4 west coast teams that are potential "contenders", it just got a lot rougher for Corn.
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