Here’s a reason to expect the 2020 college football season to be played on time – there are some powerful and talented players who deserve a chance to redeem themselves. Whether due to injuries, transfers, training changes, or general difficulties, we know that no race is linear; Players have good and bad years. But it is how you recover that makes the most impression.
With that in mind, our team chose their comeback player of the year for the upcoming season. With three quarterbacks, a wide receiver and a defensive stud, there is plenty of room for at least one of these players to return to their former form.
It looks like James Blackman has been in the state of Florida for a decade, however the caller to the Seminoles still has plenty of time for the ship’s right. That will happen this year. Blackman went through an up and down red shirt sophomore campaign last year during a tumultuous season in Tallahassee. But freshman coach Mike Norvell is an offensive wizard who has made the most of his quarterbacks no matter where he is trained. Blackman has a superstar out on Tamorrion Terry, an offensive line that returns three headlines and a system that has proven effective. Bold Prediction: Blackman will go north of 3,000 yards passing in 2020.
The first true All-American freshman consensus in Big Ten history saw his second season be interrupted by injury, preventing all college football from enjoying Moore’s explosiveness after his unprecedented splash in the consciousness of the sport. Obviously, Purdue is even more eager to see the award-winning Paul Hornung return to action, but the look of the most outstanding reel of Moore’s work makes it a gift to fans around the world. Every time Moore gets the ball out in the open, it’s a threat to score. And if he is healthy it is almost a guarantee that he will once again be one of the most exciting players in the whole sport.
There is nothing like a preseason injury to erase your name from our collective memories. Let’s not forget that Moses was considered one of the biggest names in college football before a preseason knee injury cost him the 2019 season. Moses led the Crimson Tide with 86 tackles in 2018, he is a total phenomenon of nature and has the versatility of playing in places of internal and external linebackers. He was a projected first-round pick on some simulated drafts too early as easily one of Alabama’s top players. And while the Marea defense was still good last year, it was not as dominant as it was in the past and Moses’ injury, among other reasons, played a big role. Going back for another year, Moses should reemerge as one of the best linebackers in college football and be a Day 1 player in the NFL 2021 Draft.
Can one recover from a red shirt? That’s up for debate, but you can’t hide the fact that D’Eriq King was not the D’Eriq King that the world of college football had known and loved in his limited action last season. In his first two full-time seasons in Houston, King completed 63.8% of his passes, averaging 8.8 yards per attempt. His goal rate was 78.1% with a touchdown rate of 8.9%. Those numbers fell across the board last year.
In four games in 2019, King completed just 52.7% of his passes with a target rate of 68.2%. His yards per attempt fell to 6.0, and his TD rate fell to 5.5%. While two of his four games were against ranked teams (Oklahoma and Washington state), only Tulane’s pass defense finished the season in the top 40 defensive pass efficiency. He finished 39th (Oklahoma was 83rd, Wazzu 115th). It was a small sample size, but it’s not like there was a game that drew three solid performances. They were all below par for King.
He’s in Miami now, and he should be in a better position to succeed than Houston last season. He’ll be on an offense that is better suited to his overall game this season, which should help his overall numbers. If there is a concern, Houston’s offensive line last season contributed significantly to King’s struggles, and the Miami line has not been an area of strength in recent years. Still, King is too good to play as mediocre as he did last season for a long time, and I hope he recovers in 2020.
Martinez became the first Nebraska freshman in program history to start a season at the quarterback in 2018, and earned accolades for his performance under then-freshman coach Scott Frost. It seemed that the Cornhuskers were forming a solid foundation on which to rebuild the program.
Then 2019 happened. Martinez fought, along with the rest of the offense, and Nebraska finished 5-7 after receiving the No. 24 preseason ranking. Yes, Martinez struggled against injuries, but that alone does not explain why his completion percentage, the number of touchdowns and yards per game fell in his second year. There were multiple factors involved, including poor offensive line play and perhaps a lapse in focus from a young player who received national praise.
Ultimately, the frustrations of 2019 should be behind him now, and with new offensive coordinator Matt Lubick arriving to provide the entire unit with a fresh start, Martinez is poised for a significant resurgence. He is too talented, and there is too much talent in this Nebraska team for the Cornhuskers to languish offensively again.
