By Joe Joe Wright

joejoe.wright@cordeledispatch.com

Miss Coach says there will not be a repeat. Even though Alabama doesn’t ever rebuild they just reload. For them to win a National Title in 2016 would be a monumental task with only 11 starters returning.

Also when you look at the fact that LSU has 17 returning and Tennessee has 18 then winning the SEC gets harder this year. Also Bama has a difficult schedule only 2 cupcakes on the agenda, the rest are often contenders.Then look inside the ACC and Florida State has 18 returning and 11 on offense. Miss Coach however, says that the surprise team of the whole country will becoming out of Louisville. Bobby Petrino is one the more brilliant coaches in football and he has 10 starters on offense and 9 on defense coming back in the fall of 2016. Louisville was 8-5 in 2015 with an early loss to Auburn and a couple of close losses to Clemson and Houston. There really are only two teams on Louisville schedule this year that could or should beat them, Clemson and Florida State. The Cardinals get to host FSU but travel to Death Valley. The best guess is that Louisville wins 11  regular season games, 10 for certain.

Now Miss Coach thinks that FSU is a really

good team but they play a lot of good teams in 2016. At least 6 of FSU’s 2016 opponents are consensus pre-season top 25 teams.

Next up let’s look at Oklahoma, now the Sooners have 14 returning starters and by all accounts an easy schedule. First of all they play Ohio State but they return only six players and will not be in the hunt this year. Houston is a good team but not as good as last year. Neither will be TCU or Baylor who is ripe with scandal. Texas will be much improved and Oklahoma State is usually always a challenge for Oklahoma.

The Sooners may run the table and go 12-0 but miss the play-offs this year because of the no conference championship debacle. USC opens up with Alabama a win for them here would be HUGE!!!! It would pole vault them into the top 10 easily.

We are getting ahead of ourselves that ain’t going to happen. The Trojans will be marred in mediocrity 8-4 maybe 9-3. I asked Miss Coach if this was the year of the Wolverine and she looked deep into the crystal ball and said no but close. Michigan has an easy schedule with only 3 quality teams to play Michigan State, Wisconsin and Ohio State. She can see them winning the Big 10 but just missing the playoffs. Miss. Coach will be discussing more football in the days and weeks ahead.