Non-Bowl College Football Teams That Will Improve Dramatically in 2021
While most of the college football world is getting revved up for the College Football Playoff, a whole bunch of non-bowl teams have already set their sights on 2021 in hopes of a strong bounce back from a disappointing season.
Publishing this piece before the NFL draft declaration deadline always makes it more of a guessing game than your average offseason projection, but it's particularly bizarre this year between everyone possessing the eligibility to return for another year, teams with .300 win percentages in bowls and teams with .667 win percentages opting out of bowls.
Let's give it a shot anyway.
For sake of argument, anyone who accepted a spot in a bowl game is considered a bowl team—even South Carolina and Tennessee, who went a combined 5-15 and were unable to play in their bowl games because of COVID-19 outbreaks.
Even without getting to consider those teams, there are still plenty of teams that finished .500 or worse and should be significantly better in 2021.
Teams are presented in no particular order, but we'll start things off with the team that won it all one year ago.
LSU Tigers
1 of 7
LSU's defense was just plain deplorable.
The Tigers opened the year by allowing 623 passing yards and 44 points in a loss to Mississippi State. And if you thought, "Well, maybe they'll improve and it was just a rough start after an offseason full of roster turnover," they were just as awful more than two months later. In their final three games, the Tigers allowed an average of 605.7 total yards and 45.7 points.
They won two of those three games, though, in large part because they finally figured out their future at quarterback.
True freshman Max Johnson finally got a chance to start at the end of the year against Florida and Ole Miss. He led the Tigers to a turnover-free upset of the Gators and racked up three passing touchdowns and two rushing touchdowns in the shootout victory over the Rebels.
Fellow freshman Kayshon Boutte also broke out in a colossal way down the stretch. He made 27 receptions for 527 yards and four touchdowns in LSU's final three games. He actually ended the year as LSU's leader in receiving yards. And while the running game struggled for most of the season, at least the Tigers know John Emery Jr. and Tyrion Davis-Price should be back next season.
So even though they're going to lose WR Terrace Marshall Jr. to the NFL and we have no clue whether star freshman TE Arik Gilbert—who opted out of the final two games but hasn't entered the transfer portal yet—will be back in 2021, at least they have a significant core returning. That will be a nice change after losing around 80 percent of their starters from the championship team.
LSU also already fired defensive coordinator Bo Pelini, and it still has at least one more year of Derek Stingley Jr. There should be improvement on that side of the ball—if only because things couldn't possibly get much worse.
Kansas State Wildcats
2 of 7
Early in the year, Kansas State had a formidable offense. The Wildcats averaged 33.3 points and 392.7 yards of total offense in their first three games, which included the shocking road win over Oklahoma.
Over the next seven games, though, they only averaged 23.7 points and 313.7 yards—and that even includes the 55-point performance against lowly Kansas.
What changed?
Senior quarterback Skylar Thompson suffered a season-ending shoulder injury during the team's third game, and the offense became painfully one-dimensional shortly thereafter. True freshman Will Howard did what he could as the unexpected starter the rest of the way, but it didn't take long for the rest of the Big 12 to figure out that Kansas State didn't have much of a downfield threat.
But Thompson announced Dec. 20 that he'll be returning next year, which was an immediate shot in the arm for Kansas State's 2021 prospects.
They'll also get back Deuce Vaughn, the 5'5" true freshman who did one heck of a Darren Sproles impression, breaking out as an all-purpose star. Vaughn racked up 652 rushing yards and 434 receiving yards, leading the Wildcats in both categories. They also worked him into the return game late in the year, resulting in 145 kick-return yards. Among Big 12 players, only Iowa State's Breece Hall had more all-purpose yards than Vaughn's 1,221.
The defense needs some work, as evidenced by the season-ending 69-31 loss to Texas. Chris Klieman was a defensive coach for most of his career, though, so I'm optimistic they'll improve.
Wyoming Cowboys
3 of 7
Defensively, Wyoming had a solid season.
The Cowboys held four of their six opponents to 17 points or fewer and allowed fewer than 350 yards in each of their final five games. In net margins, they were plus-5.5 points and plus-44.8 total yards per game.
Yet, they only went 2-4 thanks to four losses by 10 points or fewer and thanks to needing to cancel two home games against Air Force and Utah State.
Wyoming's passing attack has been a hot mess since Josh Allen left after 2017, and that trend certainly continued this year. The Cowboys barely averaged 150 passing yards per game and only threw for one touchdown all season. But between the defense and a run game led by Trey Smith and Xazavian Valladay, they should have won more than 33 percent of their games.
The limited supply of home games was the biggest problem, though.
That extreme altitude in Laramie usually gives the Cowboys an advantage. They went 6-0 at home last season and have been known to pull off the occasional major upset in the thin air. If they're able to play their full slate of home games next year—Montana State, Ball State, Colorado State, Fresno State, Hawaii and New Mexico—they're probably looking at no worse than a 7-5 record in 2021.
And, who knows, perhaps redshirt freshman quarterback Levi Williams will make some improvements before next fall. His play in the final two games was brutal, but he had some positive moments early in the short season.
.jpg?w=256 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
UCLA Bruins
4 of 7
It took longer than expected, but Chip Kelly finally has something brewing in Los Angeles.
UCLA only went 3-4, but it was substantially better than the previous two seasons, particularly on defense.
Now, I'm not saying the Bruins were great on defense this season, because they weren't. Colorado ran all over them in the season opener, and the secondary wilted in spectacular fashion toward the end of the final two games against USC and Stanford. But compared to last year's terrible defense (34.8 points, 456.3 yards, five total interceptions in 12 games), this year's effort (30.7 points, 409.9 yards, nine interceptions in seven games) was significantly better.
But UCLA didn't hire Chip Kelly for his defensive wizardry. The Bruins got him for his offensive genius, and that finally started shining through this year.
UCLA averaged an abysmal 24.6 points per game in Kelly's first season, and only improved slightly to 26.7 last year. In each season, the Bruins were limited to 21 points or fewer in 50 percent of their games. In 2020, though, they averaged 35.4 points and put up at least 25 in each contest—even the games against Oregon and Arizona that they had to play with backup, redshirt freshman quarterback Chase Griffin.
Most importantly, the run game improved by leaps and bounds. After back-to-back years of barely averaging 150 rushing yards per game, the Bruins eclipsed 230 with seniors Demetric Felton and Brittain Brown leading the way. Felton is off to the NFL draft, but Brown could return and serve as one of the offensive anchors that leads UCLA to its first winning record since 2015.
Arizona State Sun Devils
5 of 7
Arizona State's season was a mess.
The Sun Devils opened things up on the road against USC and led 27-14 with three minutes remaining. But the Trojans scored two late touchdowns for a 28-27 victory, after which Arizona State became a spectator for nearly a month.
November games against California, Colorado and Utah were all canceled because of COVID-19 cases and contact tracing within the Sun Devils program. When they were finally able to take the field again, they blew another late lead in a 25-18 loss to UCLA.
After that, though, they annihilated Arizona and somewhat easily took care of Oregon State to finish the year with a 2-2 record and an average scoring margin of 17.0 points.
Despite putting together just a .500 record during a brief, disjointed season, Arizona State did show a lot of promise.
The Sun Devils lost a 1,000-yard rusher (Eno Benjamin) and a 1,000-yard receiver (Brandon Aiyuk) from last season, and yet they improved on offense. JUCO transfer Rachaad White and true freshman DeaMonte Trayanum led a rushing attack that averaged 264 yards and 4.0 touchdowns per game. And the defense forced 13 turnovers, building on last year's strong finish of 21 turnovers in their final seven games.
And now we wait for the prized 2020 WR class to develop. Herm Edwards signed a trio of 4-star wideouts—Johnny Wilson, LV Bunkley-Shelton and Chad Johnson Jr.—last year to give Jayden Daniels more weapons to work with. They had a combined total of 17 receptions for 189 yards this year. Look for those numbers to go through the roof in 2021.
Michigan Wolverines
6 of 7
In the past 50 years, Michigan has only had two seasons with a .400 winning percentage or worse. The Wolverines went 3-9 in 2008 and had a completely forgettable 2-4 record this year.
Whether Jim Harbaugh comes back or not, we almost have to assume Michigan will improve just because it's Michigan.
Will it be Joe Milton, Cade McNamara or true freshman J.J. McCarthy at quarterback?
Will Ronnie Bell return to lead the receiving corps, or is he headed to the NFL draft?
Was Hassan Haskins rushing for 100-plus in each of the final two games a sign that a huge junior year is forthcoming? Or could Zach Charbonnet bounce back from an underutilized sophomore slump?
Will Don Brown's replacement at defensive coordinator actually be able to generate some pass rush in 2021?
I don't know the answer to any of those questions. But there is just too much talent for this team to be this bad again. And the defense allowing 34.5 points per game had to have been something of an anomaly after five consecutive seasons of holding opponents below 21.0 points.
Penn State Nittany Lions
7 of 7
Penn State opened the season as one of the top 10 candidates to reach the College Football Playoff. While the Big Ten never explicitly said as much, perhaps the biggest reason it hatched the plan of having every team play a ninth game during conference championship weekend was to enhance the likelihood of both Penn State and Ohio State reaching the playoff, assuming they would go a combined 16-0 aside from the head-to-head meeting.
Instead, Penn State started out 0-5 and entered Thanksgiving weekend as easily the biggest disappointment in the entire country.
The Nittany Lions had a great defense from 2017-19. In each season, they held at least five opponents to 10 points or fewer and limited 11 of 13 opponents to 28 points or fewer.
But after needing to replace most of their top defenders, they gave up at least 30 points in each of those first five games. Struggling with Ohio State's offense was to be expected, but getting lit up by Maryland, Nebraska and Iowa was much less forgivable.
Eventually, they improved on both sides of the field. Penn State's final four opponents averaged 17.3 points while the Nittany Lions offense finally looked competent. Granted, those opponents were Michigan, Michigan State, Rutgers and Illinois. But they won each of those games by multiple scores, which is much more in line with what was expected before the season.
I don't know if they'll bounce all the way back for what would be a fourth 11-win season in six years, but they should at least be one of the top challengers to Ohio State again.
.jpg?w=480 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
