As weird as it sounds, more than two wins in 2011 will be an improvement for the Washington State Cougars who went just 2-10 overall and 1-5 in conference play last season. But it won’t get any easier with the newly realigned PAC-12 that puts them in the North with powerhouses Stanford and Oregon.
Despite a spectacular year from quarterback Jake Locker, the Washington Huskies managed to barely finish the 2010 season with a better than .500 after a 19-7 win over the Nebraska Cornhuskers in last year’s version of the Holiday Bowl.
Edsall comes to College Park after building the program at the University of Connecticut basically from the ground up. He was the 2010 Big East Coach of the Year and looks to assert a Terps team that has an excellent underclassmen quarterback, but not much else.
Cutcliffe has made some progress with the Blue Devils, though with a team that went 3-9 last year, progress is a relative term.
The Cavaliers had some good years in the middle of the last decade, but they’ve had a bowl-less drought since 2007. Coach London is now in his second year in a bid to bring UVa back to respectability in the conference.
With Coach Johnson’s gameplan, which bucks convention but at the same time is tried, tested and true, he has a reputation of out-performing expectations.
When one thinks about top-shelf ACC programs, Boston College may not be the first team to come to mind, yet the Eagles have been surprisingly consistent over the years.
Between unsavory academic behavior and improper dealings with student-athletes hiring agents, it has been a shaky boat recently in Chapel Hill.
Edsall comes to College Park after building the program at the University of Connecticut basically from the ground up. He was the 2010 Big East Coach of the Year and looks to assert a Terps team that has an excellent underclassmen quarterback, but not much else.
DeWayne Walker will enter his second full season as head coach of the New Mexico State Aggies in 2011, and most are predicting another year at the bottom of the Western Athletic Conference. But will that be the case?
Things came together quite nicely for the Wolfpack in 2010; the Atlantic division title in the ACC was within their sights until near the end of the regular season, and a victory over West Virginia in the Champs Sports Bowl had NC State finishing at #25 – the first time the team has finished ranked since 2002.
Notre Dame football has a proud tradition not just in the NCAA, but almost as importantly as a part of the American fabric.
Mark Dantonio has been an absolutely terrific hire for the Michigan State football program. Dantonio has done a whole in just a few years to turn around this proud program that fallen victim to constant mediocrity.
Change is in the air in Ann Arbor. Rich Rodriguez is out the door and Brady Hoke is now the main man at Michigan. The Wolverines are part of the new Legends Division in the Big Ten, and the Nebraska Cornhuskers are the big favorite to finish at the top.
Penn State dropped back to 7-6 last year as quarterback play was an issue all season long. The legendary Joe Paterno is now entering his 45th year at Penn State, and he has amassed an amazing 401-135-3 record.
The Iowa Hawkeyes were expected to contend for a Big Ten title in 2010, but they finished just 4-4 in the conference.
