College football’s 2017 offseason is less than two months away from its long-overdue conclusion, but what have we learned thus far about the teams expected to be players on the national landscape?
In some cases, like Clemson’s quarterback battle and Texas’ search for a new running back, well, we haven’t learned much. But for most of the top teams, there has been at least one revelation in the past six months that could have major ramifications on the season ahead.
Admittedly, trying to read the tea leaves from spring-game box scores and summer-opening depth charts can be an exercise in futility, but darn it, something has to hold us over until the fall!
Joshua Dobbs had been a dual-threat staple at QB for the Volunteers since October 2014. Quinten Dormady made a few garbage-time appearances over the past two seasons, but other than that, it was all Dobbs.
And it’s still entirely unclear what Butch Jones plans to do to replace him.
Dormady entered the spring—and will likely enter the fall—as the front-runner for the job. In addition to being the elder statesman of the group, he completed each of his 10 pass attempts in Tennessee’s storm-shortened spring game.
However, spring numbers rarely mean anything, especially when trying to settle a QB battle in which one of the candidates relies more on his feet than the other. It’s tough to gauge the impact of redshirt freshman Jarrett Guarantano from one outing in which the play was blown dead any time a defender got within 10 feet of him.