2023 Stock Report: College football preseason narratives I'm buying this fall

Game week is here, people! Rejoice. 

Week 1 starts Thursday with a couple of bangers in Florida at Utah and Nebraska at Minnesota, among others, so as we wrap up our final preseason takes, it’s time to debut a new weekly column … with a bit of a twist. 

Each Monday, I’ll both look back at the week that was and project forward to the weeks to come with a Stock Report. Whose stock — be it team, coach, player, assistant or unit — is up? Whose stock is holding, and who’s stock is trending downward?

But with preseason narratives running wild, we’re going to do a little Buy or Sell: Stock Report on some 2023 preseason takes — some popular and others a bit off the grid. 

In a two-part series today, we start with narrative stocks I’m buying in college football this fall…

I’m buying … the 2023 season will be special 

Most every college football fan fell in love with the sport because of the actual games. The pageantry and tradition. The blocking. The tackling. Game-winning touchdowns and heartbreaking turnovers. Bets, sweats and bad beats. Good coaching, bad coaching and all the schadenfreude in-between. 

But college football’s offseason is over twice as long as the actual run of the season, and this year’s seemed particularly long.

After a slog of more than eight months of off-the-field preoccupations — the coaching carousel, conference realignment chaos, NIL and the transfer portal — the games are finally here. Week 0’s amuse-bouche was tasty, but this week — with games Thursday-Monday night — we’re blessed with the full 12-course meal to kickoff what should be a very special 2023 season. 

College football is the best, dumbest, silliest and craziest sport there is, and while the sport has a lot of problems and is undergoing stark changes rapidly, no one is going to be thinking about conference realignment complications or how much NIL money a kid got paid when Florida State faces a pivotal 3rd down against LSU on Sunday night. The games are what this whole pastime is all about, and now that the season is finally here, let’s enjoy the hell out of it. 

Georgia is the two-time champs, but the Bulldogs are not infallible. Ohio State and Alabama have real question marks at QB, too, and we don’t know how good JJ McCarthy or Cade Klubnik will be for two playoff contenders, either. I’m not sure there’s going to be a dominant team in the sport in 2023. The final year of the Pac-12 should be awesome. The last Bedlam for the foreseeable future will be a bar fight on grass. Are Florida State, Texas and Penn State truly ready for primetime? How will the final year of the four-team playoff shakeout?

2023 has all the makeup of being a very special season. 

I’m buying … the Quinn Ewers hype

My skepticism on Steve Sarkisian as a head coach is well-documented — 10 wins you say! — but I’m all-in on Texas’ second-year quarterback making a leap into (or near) Tier 1 status in 2023. The former 5-star and No. 1 player in the country has all the tools to be mentioned in the same breath as Caleb Williams or Drake Maye, and after an offseason changing his habits and mechanics, the production will come this fall. 

Quinn Ewers played like a freshman in 2022. He was erratic in the pocket. His accuracy waxed and waned. But he flashed enough to get Longhorns fans really excited, too. Everyone loves to point out the two drives against Alabama, but his most impressive performance was coming off the injury and totally torching Oklahoma (21 of 31 for 289 yards, 9.3 yards per attempt, four touchdowns) in Red River. 

With Texas’ stocked set of playmakers, Ewers will have similar stat-lines many times this fall. He buried any potential Arch Manning buzz this spring, and continued his development throughout fall camp. If Ewers leads Texas to 10+ wins and the Big 12 title, he just might take home the Heisman Trophy, too.

I’m buying … Kentucky will finish higher than fourth in the SEC East

While Georgia, LSU and Alabama have naturally stolen most of the SEC spotlight this offseason, an underrated storyline is who could finish No. 2 in the East behind the Bulldogs?

For some, perhaps we shouldn’t even write Georgia in ink to get to Atlanta. But I will. Tennessee and South Carolina have garnered the most attention to play second-fiddle to UGA in 2023, but why isn’t Kentucky mentioned in that grouping, too? 

The Wildcats will be better offensively this fall with the return of OC Liam Cohen. Their reshuffled OL (both positionally and with the addition of several key transfers) should be improved. Devin Leary could emerge as the best quarterback in the SEC by season’s end. The Wildcats added Ray Davis, a 1,000-yard rusher, from the portal, and Barion Brown and Dane Key are the best receiver duo in the SEC no one talks about. 

Stoops always fields a feisty defense (Top 5 in the conference scoring the last five years), so while I don’t know they can win 10 games again with a schedule that includes Georgia and Alabama, I absolutely could see this Wildcats team going 9-3 and finishing as high as No. 2 in the East. 

I’m buying … UCLA as a darkhorse Pac-12 contender capable of winning 10 games

Before the death of the longtime league in 2024, the Pac-12 stands to be the most exciting conference in college football this season. USC, Washington, Oregon, Utah and Oregon State are all ranked inside the Top 25. 

Is one team missing, though? Why can’t Chip Kelly and the Bruins play spoiler in the conference? Although UCLA no longer has Dorian Thompson-Robinson or Zach Charbonnet, the Bruins are still going to run the ball at a furious pace (and perhaps with a different flair with former Navy head coach Ken Niumatalolo on staff). Ball State tailback Carson Steele, who had 1,556 yards and 14 touchdowns last season, was one of many major offensive additions from the transfer portal, and the Bruins project to be one of the better Pac-12 teams along the lines of scrimmage. They also added Bowling Green safety Jordan Anderson (four interceptions) to help fix some spotty secondary play. 2022 backup Ethan Garbers seems like the frontrunner to start at quarterback, but 5-star freshman Dante Moore is an X-factor waiting in the wings. 

With a schedule that doesn’t include Washington or Oregon, there’s a plausible path for UCLA to win 10 games for the first time in close to a decade (2014). 

I’m buying … Mario Cristobal’s ‘Strike that. Reverse it’s reset at Miami

Mario Cristobal’s return to Coral Gables went about as well as the snooty kids’ visit to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. After suffering through a disastrous 5-7 season, Cristobal hit the reset button, cleaning house — both players (more than 25 transfers) and staff (both coordinators, seven new assistants in total). 

Miami then signed a Top 5 recruiting class and added a dozen veteran transfers with experience. Coming out of fall camp, there’s real optimism that the Hurricanes could have one of the better OLs (completely rebuilt through the portal and the addition of 5-star freshmen Francis Mauigoa and Samson Okunlola) and front-sevens in the ACC. I expect quarterback Tyler Van Dyke to be better operating Shannon Dawson’s ‘Air Raid’ offense, and there’s intriguing surrounding some of Miami’s new playmakers. 

Now, this is not an ACC title contender. Not in 2023.

But with the moves he’s made off the field — with the roster and his staff — Cristobal has positioned to program to rebound from its short-lived honeymoon and win 7-8 games in 2023.