22 College Football Thoughts for 2022, No. 13: Brent Venables and Dan Lanning are new head coaches expected to win immediately. No pressure.
22 College Football Thoughts For 2022
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– 2022 College Football Schedules: All 131 Teams
22 College Football Thoughts For 2022
22, College football is changing, and it’s okay
21, Texas & Oklahoma, you really want the SEC?
20. SEC is really, really good if you like it or not
19. James Madison, welcome to the show
18. Sun Belt is the cool conference
17. Transfer Portal will only get bigger
16. NFL, keep your hands off our announcers
15. Big 12: Get bigger and stronger, or else
14. Big Ten expansion. NOW what does it do?
13. Oklahoma’s Brent Venables and Oregon’s Dan Lanning. Welcome. Now WIN.
Dan Lanning will turn 36 when he coaches his first game as the head man for the Oregon Ducks. New Oklahoma head coach Brent Venables is 51.
They might be from slightly different eras, but beyond being new first time head coaches at Power Five programs they have one other key thing in common.
They aren’t about to get the slightest bit of a grace period.
There are other first time head coaches at Power Five programs – Joey McGuire at Texas Tech, Tony Elliott at Virginia, Brent Pry at Virginia Tech, and Mike Elko at Duke – but no one’s expecting anything too massive right out of the gate from those four.
No pressure, Coach Lanning and Coach Venables – just have massive seasons and win your respective conference championships.
Oh, and by the way Coach Lanning, as your welcoming present you get to kickoff your career against Georgia in Atlanta on September 3rd.
The opener might be tough, but the rest of the schedule isn’t all that bad in a relatively down Pac-12 North. As long as the Ducks can avoid the flaky loss – like last year against Stanford – they should be able to roll with the pieces still around and QB Bo Nix coming in to help the cause.
The Big 12 should be stronger, but Oklahoma has the parts to rise back up and be better than the 2021 version – with a little tweaking – and getting UTEP to start should help. The Sooners are used to reloading after losing key parts, and now there’s a new vision and a new style.
But can the new guys not only keep the momentum going, but improve things right away?
You never quite know what you’re going to get with new head coaches in big opportunities.
I wrote a big piece a few years ago wondering why and how Oklahoma could hand the keys over to this Lincoln Riley kid when it could’ve brought in almost any head coach it wanted.
I’ll fully admit that I had no clue Sam Pittman was head coaching material when he took over the Arkansas job, and I just assumed that Kirby Smart was going to be yet another great coordinator who’d underwhelm once he got a job like the Georgia gig.
And yeah, when it comes to the veterans, I thought Chip Kelly would turn UCLA into a national powerhouse in a hurry. On a grander scale, I will hang my head in shame for thinking Urban Meyer would do for the Jacksonville Jaguars what Jimmy Johnson did for the Dallas Cowboys – fully wearing that one.
But Venables and Lanning aren’t just supposed to rebuild, or even keep the status quo. Oklahoma and Oregon didn’t win their respective conference championships last year. They didn’t get to the College Football Playoff, and neither one won the national title.
Just start by setting the reasonable goal at winning the conference championship for each of these two.
No pressure.
22 College Football Thoughts For 2022
22. College football is changing, and it’s okay
21, Texas & Oklahoma, you really want the SEC?
20. SEC is really, really good if you like it or not
19. James Madison, welcome to the show
18. Sun Belt is the cool conference
17. Transfer Portal will only get bigger
16. NFL, keep your hands off our announcers
15. Big 12: Get bigger and stronger, or else
14. Big Ten expansion. NOW what does it do?
– 2022 College Football Schedules: All 131 Teams
