College football's biggest storylines for 2018

Who will emerge as the top dawg in the Big XII?

Many of the familiar faces of this conference are gone. Most significantly, reigning Heisman trophy winner Baker Mayfield was the first overall pick, while Oklahoma State saw Mason Rudolph and his top two targets leave for the pros as well. The Sooners still look strong with wonderkid Kyler Murray trying to fill the shoes of Mayfield. He could be the centerpiece of another high-flying offense that includes superstar receiver Marquise “Hollywood” Brown and a beastly running back in Rodney Anderson. However, OU has some serious competition.

In-state rivals Oklahoma State have certainly lost the most talent on offense and I don’t know what to expect from quarterback position, but they could rely more heavily on the running game with the little dynamo that is Justice Hill and they brought in a new defensive coordinator, who has an experienced unit at his disposal and will install much more aggressive schemes.

They could easily start 6-0 with five home games and a trip to Kansas, before facing a brutal second-half schedule. TCU has won at least 11 games in three of the last four years under Gary Patterson and they probably have the most experienced roster in the conference. They return a stingy D and sophomore Shawn Robinson is taking over as the program’s highest-rated QB recruit ever, with some weapons around him.

They get five conference games at home and two of those on the road are against Kansas and Baylor. Will Grier and West Virginia seem to be everybody’s offseason darling and breakout candidate. I’m not quite as high on the Mountaineers because I think the losses of running back Justin Crawford and safety-linebacker hybrid Kyzir White are bigger than they sound like, but I’m intrigued by the connection between Grier and his star receiver David Sills too.

Texas definitely showed some signs in Tom Herman’s first season as the head-man and they bring in the third-best recruiting class in the country. The Longhorn defense is the closest to running any actual NFL schemes, which presented a ton of problems for the top QBs that were used to those soft quarter-coverages, as Texas held Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and USC to an average of 18.7 points through regulation.

I don’t think Iowa State can recapture the magic from 2017, but they have put their name on the national radar and David Montgomery is a serious NFL prospect, with an impressive all-around skill-set. Even the other four teams could potentially improve as well.