Spring practices turned into spring scrambles around much of college football in recent weeks.
After a delayed and frenzied end to the college coaching cycle, the spring workouts arrived with a distinct degree of suddenness. Coaches hired in January and February, such as Alabama‘s Kalen DeBoer, barely had a chance to pause before they were on the practice field with their teams.
“You can have a 30-, 60-, 90-day plan, but that plan starts at the beginning of December,” DeBoer told me. “If you get hired in the middle of January, you’re already 45 days into it, technically. Man, it gets crunched in a big way. The amount of time before spring practices is on you real fast, and all of a sudden, here we are.”
DeBoer and the Crimson Tide completed the spring session April 13, leaving with some answers but also questions about what will be a highly scrutinized first season following Nick Saban’s retirement. Other notable national teams also went through the spring with significant areas to address, whether it was an individual unit or position group, or the entire squad.
I explored six pressing questions around college football and reached out to some of the key figures as spring practice winds down.
Jump to a team:
Texas | Florida State | USC | Alabama
Kansas | K-State | Notre Dame | Nebraska | Washington
How ready is Texas for the SEC?
When the SEC announced in August 2021 that it would add Texas and Oklahoma, the Longhorns faced a steep ascent to be ready for the nation’s premier conference. They had posted their third 5-7 record in the previous seven seasons, and had only one 10-win season in the previous 12.
Nearly three years later, Texas is a different place in several areas. The Longhorns are coming off of their first College Football Playoff appearance and their first league title since 2009. They also return stars like quarterback Quinn Ewers, a Heisman Trophy candidate.
“We do believe we have a championship-caliber team,” Texas coach Steve Sarkisian told me. “But we also know that championship caliber is predicated off of what we do and not necessarily what our opponents will do or won’t do.”
Sarkisian and his players understand the SEC is looming but aren’t yet…
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