With 100 days to go before the season begins, College Football 24/7 presents 100 things to be excited about for college football in 2017. Here are Nos. 21-40.
Note: Click through the tabs above to see all 100 things.
- The crossroads for Butch Jones. Tennessee fans are tired of watching someone else represent the SEC East in the league title game; this is the elephant in the room for UT's fifth-year coach.
- After eating ACC centers for lunch as a freshman, what kind of a encore does Clemson's 340-pound DT Dexter Lawrence have in store?
- Wyoming QB Josh Allen's opening game at Iowa, one of only two games he'll play against a Power Five team.
- Ole Miss QB Shea Patterson. As a freshman last year, he showed flashes of why he was a five-star recruit. Coach Hugh Freeze was wise to burn his redshirt and get him some exposure; he'll be better off for it this fall.
- Remember Will Grier? After a year and a half off due to a suspension and a transfer, and with a 6-0 record as a starter at Florida, he re-emerges at West Virginia.
- Another chance to see Nick Chubb in the Georgia backfield.
- The older Bill Snyder gets, the more you can't help but cheer for him. He's planning to be back this fall at Kansas State, after battling throat cancer, and he'll be 78 by season's end.
- Enjoy one of the game's most dazzling return specialists, Texas A&M's Christian Kirk. The next punt he takes to the house will be his sixth.
- Auburn fans have all but anointed former Baylor QB Jarrett Stidham as the Tigers' starting quarterback, even if coach Gus Malzahn hasn't. Supplanting Sean White to start the season is one challenge; finishing the year that way is another.
- PSU RB Saquon Barkley's ability to make the first tackler miss makes him worth an afternoon on the couch for college football fans who aren't Nittany Lions fans.
- Clemson's defensive line. Losing Carlos Watkins is a blow, but no DL in the country brings back a trio like Christian Wilkins, Dexter Lawrence and Clelin Ferrell.
- With the likes of Adoree' Jackson and Jabrill Peppers now gone, who emerges as the game's most prolific two-way player?
- Florida vs. Michigan, Sept. 2. You might expect this to be a defensive struggle, but with all the defensive talent both teams lost from last year, the final score here might surprise you.
- Washington QB Jake Browning. No, he doesn't have WR John Ross anymore, but hopefully he won't have to play through a shoulder injury again, either.
- Whether Pittsburgh DB Jordan Whitehead returns to his part-time role on offense or not, it will be good to see the Panthers star back after a gruesome arm injury suffered against Clemson ended his 2016 season.
- The freshman-to-sophomore development of Georgia QB Jacob Eason.
- Drama in Oxford. The heat is on Ole Miss coach Hugh Freezedue to NCAA sanctions, and he faces Alabama, Auburn and LSU over a four-week stretch.
- Will the TCU offense rebound? Just a couple years ago, it scored like a pinball machine. Last year, not so much. One reason: it ranked 95th in the country in red-zone scoring efficiency.
- How does Stanford's offense surive the post-Christian McCaffrey era? We know this much: under David Shaw, it'll start with toughness up front.
- Virginia S Quin Blanding getting the national attention he deserves.
*Follow Chase Goodbread on Twitter **@ChaseGoodbread*.
