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As long as the Cardinal have Christian McCaffrey on the field, their attack should be just fine and another double-digit win season within reach. Stanford has the formula down pat, winning the Pac-12 title in three of the past four years. And in McCaffrey and coach David Shaw, the program boasts one of the country’s premier player-coach tandems. There are holes that need to be filled, particularly at quarterback. However Stanford has been down this road before.... 

The questions entering last season concerned whether Derek Mason was cut out to be the leader of an SEC program. Though the Commodores posted just four wins overall and two in league play, they weren’t the pushover they had been in his first year at the helm. They showed improvement, especially on defense, and proved they could play with the big boys in the conference.... 

The Ole Miss Rebels had their moment in 2015. They went on the road and beat Alabama under the lights in a victory which meant significantly more than any other win in Hugh Freeze's career. Still, you can't just measure success based on wins over Alabama, something which has happened in consecutive seasons. The Rebels have to put it all together for a full season, something they'll hope to do to contend for a spot in the CFP in 2016.... 

No team collapsed under the weight of lofty preseason expectations quite like Auburn last season. The Tigers were picked to win the SEC Championship at conference media days last year and many picked them to get to the College Football Playoff as well. However, it all came crashing down pretty quickly and Auburn only managed to go 7-6 and just barely managed to earn a bowl bid. Expectations aren’t as high in 2016, but if Auburn only wins two SEC games this season, Gus Malzahn will be given his walking papers.... 

No program in America is quite as strong as that of the Alabama Crimson Tide. Nick Saban has turned himself into a legitimate legend after winning another National Championship last season, and he's starting to put himself in that rarified air which is currently on breathed by the great Bear Bryant. Another title this year could legitimately put Saban in the discussion as the best college coach of all-time.... 

Washington is a team on the rise and a trendy pick to break the stranglehold that Stanford and Oregon have on the Pac-12 North. We could say the Huskies are a year ahead of schedule in the Chris Petersen master plan. Prior to last season, U-Dub was just too young to do much in 2015. They were, after all, one of the youngest teams in the country. But they broke through anyway, and now they reach the year in which they were supposed to break through.... 

Navy knew that 2015 would be the final chapter for record-setting quarterback Keenan Reynolds. However, there were some tenuous moments in December regarding the future of head coach Ken Niumatalolo. Coach Ken stayed, resulting in a sigh of relief throughout the Academy. But after almost copping a crown in their inaugural season in the AAC, and cracking the Top 25 for the first time in 11 years, the Middies face a lot of work ahead to match the 2015 results.... 

Mississippi State is probably going to take a step back in 2016. Nobody meant more to their team than Dak Prescott, and replacing him is a monstrous challenge. The SEC West is as good as it has ever been and the Bulldogs have road trips to Alabama, LSU and Ole Miss. You can never count coach Dan Mullen’s team out. That was proven last year. But it can’t be understated how vital Prescott was to the team’s success the past few years.... 

There wasn’t much more you could ask of Tom Herman from his first season as a head coach at Houston. The Cougars ripped through most of their schedule en route to the first AAC Championship Game in conference history and concluded the season by taking down Florida State in a New Year’s Six bowl game. By most Group of Five standards that would be considered a dream season, but the Cougars are looking at the 2015 season as a stepping stone.... 

There’s a new man in charge in Athens. Kirby Smart takes over after Mark Richt and Georgia decided to part ways after 15 years. Smart makes his way to Georgia off a 10-year apprenticeship under Nick Saban. In eight of those years he served as Alabama’s defensive coordinator, making a name for himself as one of the most head coach-ready coordinators in football.... 

Head coach Todd Graham hasn't been shy about touting top-tier potential for Arizona State football. The 2016 campaign will provide the stiffest test of the program's endurance in Graham's tenure. It could easily take one more year before the Sun Devils rebound from a chaotic 2015. ASU has fewer returning starters than any team in the Pac-12, except for Cal.... 

A 3-9 season doesn't sit well at most SEC schools, and Columbia certainly isn't an exception to that. The South Carolina Gamecocks got off to a horrid start last year, one which caused Steve Spurrier to step aside from the program once and for all. Now, with new coach Will Muschamp calling the shots, the Gamecocks are hoping to get back into contention immediately in the relatively open SEC East.... 

The time has come for UCLA to take the next step under coach Jim Mora. The head guy is entering his fifth year, the hotshot quarterback is no longer a rookie and the pool of available talent is deep. Success defined Mora’s first four seasons. The Bruins had never won nine or more games three straight years, and only once before put together back-to-back years of 10 wins. Mora accomplished both in his first three seasons. However, the team regressed to eight wins last season.... 

There will be plenty of pressure on head coach Kevin Sumlin to win big this year. The negative momentum on campus has to come to a stop, and that only happens by winning and showing that the problems of last year and this offseason were a fluke. If Sumlin can get his troops to perform in the second half of the year better than he can run off prized quarterback prospects, the Aggies might be a threat in November.... 

It’s no secret that Tennessee has struggled to be competitive in recent years, but if the last two seasons are any indication, coach Butch Jones definitely has his team headed in the right direction. The Vols have improved each and every season under his guidance, and the upcoming 2016 season appears to be the most promising yet.... 

First and foremost, you do not simply replace a talent like Jared Goff, the eventual No. 1 overall pick in the 2016 NFL Draft, and expect the same results. The quarterback’s departure is likely to set the Golden Bears back a little because talents like him do not grow on trees. Losing as many weapons on offense won’t help them either.... 

The Nebraska Cornhuskers were lucky to even qualify for a bowl game last season, as a dearth of six-win teams allowed the 5-7 program to earn a berth. The Huskies took advantage of it with a 37-29 win over UCLA in the Foster Farms Bowl and now expectations are high heading into the 2016 season. With many talented returners and each side of the ball, Nebraska’s projected win total has shot up to 8.5, as bettors must determine if the team will finish over or under that total in NCAA football gambling.... 

Miami has been in the ACC since 2004 and despite many believing that the Hurricanes would come to dominate the conference, that has failed to happen. The Hurricanes have yet to crack 10 wins since joining the ACC and also have been unable to even make the conference title game. The Canes dumped Al Golden and brought in Mark Richt this offseason to try to finally remedy that.... 

The Orange have struggled since entering the ACC three seasons ago. Syracuse has managed just seven wins in that timeframe and that poor performance led to the dismissal of Scott Shafer after three years. Now, Dino Babers is the coach calling the shots from the sideline and Syracuse hopes that he can lead them back to respectability.... 

It’s been a magical time at Duke with David Cutcliffe at the helm. Cutcliffe turned the most maligned Power Five football program in the country and brought it some respectability. Duke has now made bowls in four straight seasons after having not made a bowl since 1995 prior to that and Cutcliffe got his first bowl victory at Duke last season against Indiana. The Blue Devils have a lot of work to do if they want to get to a bowl this season however.... 

Last season there was a lot of talk that Louisville was the dark horse to win the ACC. The rationale was easy to understand, Florida State had lost Jameis Winston to the draft and Clemson had questions as well with Deshaun Watson returning from a torn ACL. However, things quickly fell apart after the Cardinals lost three games in a row to start the season and after they fell to Florida State and Clemson, all hopes of a conference title went out the window. The optimism is much more guarded this year following the results of 2015.... 

The Cavaliers scored a coup in the offseason with the hiring of Bronco Mendenhall from BYU. Mendenhall is widely respected and was very successful during his time in Provo and landing a coach of his caliber was much better than many suspected. He has a lot of work ahead of him, but Mendenhall is confident he can take the Cavaliers to their first 10 win season since the 1980s.... 

The Iowa Hawkeyes exceeded expectations a season ago, winning the Big Ten West and coming close to capturing a spot in the College Football Playoff. After a 12-win regular season last year, the projected win total has dropped to 8.5 in 2016. The Hawkeyes will aim to surpass that number once again in NCAA football gambling.... 

The Northwestern football team had a tremendous year in 2015, winning 10 games and easily surpassing expectations. That hasn’t done much to convince the oddsmakers of their ability to keep it up, as the Wildcats’ projected over-under win total for this season is set at 6.5 in NCAA football wagering.... 

The Wisconsin Badgers had the top-ranked defense in college in 2015, giving up only 13.7 points per contest. The unit has suffered some key losses and the offense has some question marks, too. Add in one of the country’s hardest schedules, and the Badgers will have a lot to prove this season. This is still one of the more consistent programs in the country, and it will aim to surpass the projected win total of seven victories in 2016 in NCAA football odds....