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Clemson was one win away from winning it all last season behind the exquisite play of Deshaun Watson. Unfortunately, the Tigers ran into Alabama in the national title game and couldn’t pull it out, but it was still the best season at Clemson in years. Watson is back and there is hope that this could be the season that Clemson puts it all together and wins its second national title.... 

College Football Betting Online: No team bottomed out like Georgia Tech in 2015. After heading to a New Year’s Six bowl and an 11-3 record in 2014, the Yellow Jackets brought a Top 15 preseason ranking into last season. However, things unraveled quickly and Georgia Tech managed just three wins last season in what was by far Paul Johnson’s worst season.... 

College Football Betting Online: For the first time in five seasons, the Panthers got to eight wins in 2015 and there is a cautious optimism in Pittsburgh. Panthers’ fans have been burned before though, having seen six different coaches since that last eight win season. Pat Narduzzi is back for his second season though and has a shot to take this team to an ACC Coastal Division title.... 

College Football Betting Online: North Carolina State has consistently been a bowl team over the last decade, but that’s not why Dave Doeren was brought to Raleigh. Doeren was brought in to make the Wolfpack an eight or nine win team each season, but that has yet to be a consistent reality as NC State has failed to break the .500 mark in conference in any of the past three years.... 

The TCU Horned Frogs have been so darn close in recent years. They haven't quite gotten over the hump, and it feels as if Gary Patterson and company are going to end up coming up on the short end of the stick in the race for the College Football Playoff again in 2016.... 

Charlie Strong is already under a heck of a lot of pressure to start performing at a high level. The Texas Longhorns have largely underachieved over the course of the last several seasons, and this is the year where things really have to change before the demanding boosters start to get grumpy in search of change.... 

Kliff Kingsbury is known as one of the more player-friendly coaches in America. It's only a matter of time until he makes the Texas Tech Red Raiders a legitimate force in the Big XII, and with an NFL-ready quarterback under center, you never know if this is going to be the year that happens.... 

Dana Holgorsen has gone just 36-28 in his first five years on the job with the West Virginia Mountaineers. Now, he's officially on the hot seat. What's the definition of success in 2016? Certainly, the Mountaineers need to make a bowl game, and we'd bet they have to win at least eight, if not nine games. Just based on the way this roster looks though, that might end up being a bit of a stretch.... 

The Oklahoma Sooners made a little bit of history and qualified for the College Football Playoff last season, becoming the first team from the Big XII to pull off the feat. The Sooners are handicapped by the fact that they don't have a conference title game to play, but they made up for that this year by scheduling two non-conference games against teams which are sure to be in at least the New Year's Six.... 

The time is going to come when Mark Dantonio gets the Michigan State Spartans truly over the hump. Sparty won the Big Ten last season and was in the College Football Playoff for the first time, but it was shutout by Alabama in an embarrassing game. Now that Connor Cook has graduated, the common thought is that this team is set to take a turn for the worse in the coming years.... 

The collection of talent the Ohio State Buckeyes lost to the NFL this past season was unprecedented. They sent a total of 12 players to the senior circuit, all of which were selected in the first 139 picks, including five in the Top 20. That's a heck of a lot of talent which needs to be replaced for sure, but Urban Meyer has always had a history of reloading his programs, not rebuilding them.... 

The offseason was a really tough one for the Baylor Bears. They were rocked with scandals off the field, and that caused the abrupt resignation of Art Briles, the most accomplished coach in the history of the program. Now with Jim Grobe in charge, he'll hope to keep up the tradition of what has become one of the prouder programs in the Big XII in recent years.... 

Of all of the men to take over the Illinois Fighting Illini… Lovie Smith? The excommunicated coach of the NFL's Buccaneers decided to try his hand at the collegiate level at Illinois, and this could end up being a real disaster or a real success. One thing is for sure. At least the Illini are going to be a lot more interesting now than they have been in recent years.... 

There probably isn't a worse football program in major college football than that of the Kansas Jayhawks. They went 0-12 last year in a season which included a loss to South Dakota State, and even though this is only the second year of the David Beaty era, one has to think that he has to show some marked improvement or be shown the door.... 

Bill Snyder is one of these coaches who simply won't step away from the game. And why should he? He's had a tremendous degree of success with the Kansas State Wildcats over the years, and he's got a team which could end up being sneaky in the Big XII in 2016.... 

Most teams who take over underachieving programs end up with a relatively bare cupboard to take over in terms of talent. D.J. Durkin though, is a bit of an exception to that. The Maryland Terrapins have a lot of potential at this point, and they could end up taking some big strides forward in 2016.... 

The team with the most money bet on it to win the National Championship this year is the Michigan Wolverines. Jim Harbaugh did fantastic things in 2015 with Big Blue, and he's expected to legitimately challenge for the National Championship in just his second year on the job. It's a tall task for sure, but it isn't out of the question either.... 

Mike Gundy continues to be one of the most underappreciated coaches in America. He's got a great amount of resources with the Oklahoma State Cowboys, but no matter how hard Boone Pickens tries, he's never going to be able to fund his alma mater the way that Oklahoma or Texas boosters are able to do so for those schools.... 

College Football Betting Online: Things are going to be different in Blacksburg. After 29 years of Frank Beamer being the head coach at Virginia Tech, he was pushed out in the middle of the season following another difficult start. The Hokies brought in Justin Fuente from Memphis in the offseason in what was universally regarded as a great hire and fans are optimistic that he can make Virginia Tech great again.... 

College Football Betting Online: For the first time in over a decade, North Carolina finally exceeded expectations and looked like the sleeping giant it had constantly been billed to be. It was the first time in almost two decades that the Tar Heels had won at least 10 games and if it wasn’t for an excruciating loss against South Carolina in the season opener, UNC would have went to a New Year’s Six bowl. Now the hope in Chapel Hill is that Larry Fedora can seize this momentum and start building something special.... 

The Penn State Nittany Lions still feel like they're a step or two off of the rest of the Big Ten at this point. They're not quite Michigan or Ohio State, but they can use the rebuilding of the Wolverines as motivation that they can become title contenders within a year or two. This season sure feels like another part of the rebuild from the fallout of the Joe Paterno era, but that's not to say that PSU won't be a really good team.... 

Darrell Hazell managed to keep his job last year, and we're not sure how. The Purdue Boilermakers won just two games on the season, and they were abysmal for the most part in Big Ten play.To say that the prospects are grim for this season is an understatement.... 

College Football Betting Online: After consecutive 7-6 seasons to start Steve Addazio’s time in Chestnut Hill, injuries and bad luck combined to make a nightmare 2015 season. The Eagles went just 3-9 last season and only managed one FBS win, against Northern Illinois, while going 0-8 in conference play. Now Addazio and Boston College will look to right the ship and hopefully, get his first ever bowl victory.... 

Florida State made the College Football Playoff in its first year of existence, but failed to repeat that feat last season thanks to losses against Georgia Tech and Clemson. Instead, the Seminoles ended up with a trip to a New Year’s Six bowl, but ended up falling to Houston by two touchdowns after a poor performance from Sean Maguire.... 

The Iowa State Cyclones are stuck in this perpetual state of not being able to contend in the Big XII. Things aren't quite as bad in Ames as they are in Lawrence with Kansas, but the comparison between the two isn't all that far off. This should end up being another frustrating year for the Cyclones....