Grading the Newbies: ACC and Big 12
Seven schools migrated to the ACC and Big 12 this past season. It's time to grade them on their first impressions.
The 2024 college football season was a unique campaign in many ways. The inaugural 12-team playoff manufactured more excitement throughout the regular season, particularly toward the end. Transfers continued to make massive impacts at their new schools. Nick Saban wasn't Alabama's head coach anymore, ending an era that felt like it would last forever. But the biggest change to the college football landscape was, without question, conference realignment. Every power conference – the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, and ACC – added new members to their respective leagues, most of them being the stragglers from the dying Pac-12.
There are a lot of reasons why conference realignment took place, with greed being chief among them. Regardless, conference realignment undoubtedly changed the makeup of the sport in many ways. Conferences used to be entities that housed universities from certain regions. The Big Ten was the conference of the Midwest, the SEC in the Southeast, and so forth. Now, these leagues have spread their wings wide, going from coast to coast in some instances. The ACC, which I might remind you stands for Atlantic Coast Conference, has teams in Dallas and California. That's just wrong.
The complaining and quibbling about all of this has already been done, and my rehashing it here would change nothing. What's done is done. What I can do is evaluate how each team that joined a new conference did in their first year as a member. Certain schools entered their new conference with high expectations. Some were loud and proud, wanting to barge through the door and show everybody what they were made of (I'm looking at you, Utah). Others simply just wanted to take the bigger check that came with being in a better league. Whatever the situation and expectations, the results on the football field are all that matter to me.
Thirteen schools – California, SMU, Stanford (ACC); Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, Utah (Big 12); Oregon, UCLA, USC, Washington (Big Ten); Oklahoma, Texas (SEC) – changed conferences this season. It's time to grade them on their first impressions.
In this edition, I'll grade the new teams in the ACC and the Big 12. The Big Ten and SEC's new squads will come another day shortly.
California (6-6, 2-6 ACC): C+
If you're a fan of the Golden Bears, the 2024 season is all about the what-ifs. Cal started the season 3-0, beating Auburn and San Diego State in the process. It then lost four consecutive games by a combined nine points. Here are those results:
14-9 loss at Florida State
39-38 loss vs. #8 Miami
17-15 loss at #22 Pittsburgh
24-23 loss vs. NC State
Just brutal.
Cal did manage to bounce back and win three out of its last five games to salvage a 6-6 season. Going to and winning bowl games should be the end goal for the Golden Bears football program, at least in the immediate future. Bowl appearances have been a luxury for Cal in recent years, so getting to six wins is a major achievement. Still, it has to sting knowing that you were just nine points away from possibly competing for an ACC title, not the Art of Sport LA Bowl.
SMU (11-2, 8-0 ACC): A
What a great way to make an entrance, SMU. Except for a non-conference loss to a good BYU team and a narrow defeat to Clemson in the conference championship game, SMU's first season in the ACC couldn't have gone better.
If you had told me at the beginning of the year that SMU would've been a 55-yard field goal away from an overtime game in the ACC championship game against conference powerhouse Clemson, I might've spit in your face. Alas, that's what happened.
Despite a slow start out of the gate, Rhett Lashlee's group dominated their conference opponents, and rival TCU, en route to the program's second consecutive conference title game appearance. Unlike last year, when the team was able to win the American, SMU fell short. But that's not the end of the story. The Ponies will play in the College Football Playoff on Saturday morning against Penn State. Win that game, and this automatically becomes one of the most successful seasons in program history.
Stanford (3-9, 2-6 ACC): D
The expectations were extremely low for Stanford in its first ACC season. In a way, it exceeded those expectations by not finishing dead last in the conference. The Cardinal has Florida State to thank for that.
Grading programs like California and Stanford are difficult. These are schools that have struggled to compete in the new age of NIL and the transfer portal. The academic standards beset upon the student-athletes make it difficult for the universities to compete with the big dogs of the sport. This is not new news; it's just gotten harder in the last several years.
In the end, I grade Stanford on its ability to compete with teams that I deem comparable to them. Those teams, at least on its schedule this past year, were Wake Forest and California. Both contests were close, but Stanford lost both of those games. Again, 2024 was a building year for Stanford. I'm sure that it would've liked to be a bit more competitive than it was.
Arizona (4-8, 2-7 Big 12): D-
Of all the teams that entered new leagues, Arizona arguably had the most disappointing season of them all.
Coming off an amazing final season in the Pac-12, Arizona was picked fifth in the Big 12's preseason poll. Yes, the team lost head coach Jedd Fisch to Washington in the offseason, but the core nucleus of talent remained on the roster. Quarterback Noah Fifita and stud wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan decided to stay with new head coach Brent Brennan instead of jumping ship to Washington. Things were still looking up despite the change at the helm.
And then everything went to crap. Arizona started the season 3-1 with a win against a Utah team that at the time was ranked in the top 10. The Wildcats then preceded to lose eight of their last nine games, with the only victory being against a middling Houston squad.
Based on the last several seasons, Arizona looked poised to get rid of the perception that it was just a basketball school. It appears that the pendulum has begun to swing the other way once again.
Arizona State (11-2, 7-2 Big 12): A+
No matter how Arizona State's College Football Playoff game goes, this was a miraculous season.
The Sun Devils were picked dead last in the Big 12's preseason poll, but they won the Big 12 and secured a bye in the playoffs. Unreal.
Arizona State meandered its way through the chaotic Big 12 beautifully. It only tripped up twice, with one of those losses being without starting quarterback Sam Leavitt. Running back Cam Skattebo is one of the most electric players in the sport. Jordyn Tyson is a legit number-one wide receiver. This team means business, and I wouldn't be surprised if it manages to pull off an upset in the playoff against Texas or Clemson.
What head coach Kenny Dillingham has done for that program is stupendous. When he took the job a couple of years ago, the program was in disarray. Now it's the champion of the Big 12 and is in the College Football Playoff. There's not much more to say. Arizona State is in a great place, and 2024 is its best season in a very, very long time.
Colorado (9-3, 7-2 Big 12): B+
I've completely come around on the whole Deion and Colorado experience. At the beginning of the season, I was not a fan. But as the year progressed and I witnessed just how good the Buffaloes were, I slowly became more of a supporter. That's not to say that I was rooting for them necessarily, but I was certainly not rooting against them.
Much like what Dillingham has done at Arizona State, what Deion Sanders has done to turn around Colorado is amazing. Colorado went 1-11 in the year preceding Deion's arrival and went 4-8 in his first season. It just capped off a 9-3 season where it was so close to making the conference championship game and possibly making the playoff.
Oh, and Travis Hunter won the Heisman Trophy. You can't forget that when grading the Buffaloes.
Overall, Colorado is in a much better place because of what Deion has done there. Can he keep it up without Shadeur Sanders and Hunter? That remains to be seen. Nonetheless, 2024 was a success in my book.
Utah (5-7, 2-7 Big 12): D
Yikes.
Utah barged into the Big 12 claiming to be the top dog, but it was actually just a little ferret. The Utes were picked first in the Big 12's preseason poll and finished near the bottom. A massive amount of injuries definitely played a factor in the team's overall performance, but more is still expected from Utah. Especially after the preseason smack talk from the fanbase.
The Utes desperately need better play from the quarterback position if they want to compete for the conference title this next year. Some better injury fortune would certainly help as well.
I'm fairly confident that 2024 was just a blip on the radar for Utah. It should be fine.