2023 Stock Report: College football preseason narratives I'm selling 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 for the weeks to come with a Monday Stock Report. Who’s stock — be it team, coach, player, assistant or unit — is up? Who’s stock is holding, and who’s stock is trending downward?

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

Part 1 of the series was a look at stocks I’m buying in 2023. We wrap Part II with narrative stocks I’m selling in college football this fall…

I’m selling … Utah’s chances to win three-straight Pac-12 championships 

Perhaps it’s foolish to shortchange a Kyle Whittingham-coached team, but as much as I respect the 19-year veteran head coach, I don’t see the Utes pulling off a three-peat as conference champs entering the season with such uncertainty at quarterback. 

I don’t have any definitive intel, but based on how the line movement in Utah’s opener against Florida, it seems highly unlikely that quarterback Cam Rising will play in the game. Meanwhile, there’s concern that the Utes’ backup who took at the first-team reps during the spring could be unavailable, too. Obviously, this game means nothing in terms of Utah’s Pac-12 hopes, but there’s a domino effect to these uncertainties. 

What happens if Utah gets off to an 0-2 start (vs. Florida, at Baylor in Week 2) and Rising’s health is a question all year? What if the defense misses Clark Phillips more than people expect? What if a thin receiving corp suffers a couple of injuries? The schedule is much more difficult this season (they draw UCLA, at Oregon State, at USC, Oregon and at Washington), too. 

Utah should be really good up front (on both sides of the ball), so it’s going to pickoff one of the other big boys from the Pac-12 this fall. I just don’t see the Utes finding their way back to Las Vegas for the third straight year. 

I’m selling … Jayden Daniels’ Heisman odds

I understand the LSU hype. I love Harold Perkins Jr. as much as as the next CFB junkie. I agree with everyone’s take that the NCAA is a bunch of hypocritical buffoons for suspending Maason Smith. 

But should quarterback Jayden Daniels really have the second-best preseason odds to win the Heisman Trophy in 2023? Behind only Caleb Williams, who is aiming to become just the second two-time winner ever?

Daniels will certainly have plenty of opportunities to make his case as perhaps the best dual-threat quarterback in the country this fall, but he’ll need a monster spike in production to even get to New York — much less win the award. 

Last season, Daniels threw for less than 3,000 yards. He had 17 passing touchdowns and averaged fewer than 27 attempts per game. He did lead the nation in scramble yards and finished the season with 885 overall rushing yards and 11 scores. Still, his overall numbers were dwarfed by a bunch of guys last season — most all of whom are Heisman contenders in 2023, too. 

To take home the trophy, Daniels probably needs to have 1.5X the production as a passer, a slight uptick as a runner (say 1,000 yards) + guide LSU back to the SEC Championship. Since the College Football Playoff’s inception in 2016, Lamar Jackson is the only winner to not make the field in his Heisman season. 

So Daniels isn’t facing an impossible parlay, but it seems like a lot for someone who has the current second-best odds on the entire market. 

I’m selling … North Carolina to finish as the No. 3 team in the ACC

Are the Tar Heels going to squander a generational talent at quarterback this fall?

I think they might. 

Despite having Drake Maye, there’s an odd juju around North Carolina entering a massive tossup opener against South Carolina. Through no fault of its own, UNC still doesn’t know if top transfer wideout Devontez Walker will be eligible after an absurd ruling by the NCAA. There are real concerns at offensive line, too, and we still have little inklings if a defense that was the worst in the ACC in scoring, yards per play, passing defense, sacks and TFLs is all that improved. 

It’s easy (and natural) to fall in love with Maye’s skill set, but even in a watered-down ACC, a one-man band can only do so much. I think he’ll miss offensive coordinator Phil Longo and be let down by a defense that still has Gene Chizik calling the shots with marginal personnel upgrades. 

I’m selling … the Pac-12 crashing the College Football Playoff for the first time since 2016

The league is going to be super entertaining. Probably the most fun conference in the entire sport all fall. But with 5-6 teams — depending on your confidence in UCLA — all capable of beating each other any given weekend, this has all the makings of a group of teams cannibalizing themselves by season’s end. 

November is going to be the Wild, Wild, West in the Pac-12, with USC, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Oregon State and UCLA basically playing a jamboree all month. 

Maybe one team — USC? Oregon? — exits unscathed, or with just a single loss — but considering how closely muddled all these teams are — strengths, flaws and all — it’s hard to see the Pac-12 producing a one-loss (or less) champion capable of making the final four-team field. 

I’m selling … the idea that Texas A&M’s offense can’t make a resurgence just because Jimbo Fisher and Bobby Petrino are an oddball marriage

I’m buying stock in the Aggies’ offensive renaissance this fall versus selling the potential combustible Fisher-Petrino union. It is possible? Absolutely?

But Fisher isn’t sitting on a $75 million buyout because he’s an uncompetitive dunce. The dude wants to win. And score points. And he finally recognized what he was doing needed a rebranding. I get that it’s just the preseason, but from all indications out of College Station, Petrino is going to have a real voice in what Texas A&M’s offense looks like this fall. 

The pieces are there.

Connor Weigman at quarterback. Evan Stewart, Ainias Smith, Moose Muhammad and Noah Thomas at wideout. An improved OL. There’s no reason why Texas A&M can’t — say — won’t be a Top 5 unit in the SEC this fall.