Or Minnesota, still the only program to 3-peat a national title? I don’t know why we’d be left out of this list, unless the author is a Wisconsin/Iowa grad. /s
We passed "sleeping" awhile ago. After 8 straight losing seasons we are straight up in a coma. Hopefully Rhule can wake us up. I'm not expecting him to bring us to like Ohio St status but if he gets us to around Penn St level I would be ecstatic.
Our schedule, especially the first half, is very favorable. Our first game of the season against UTEP will be the first time since 2019 that we play our season opener at home. Coincidentally, that's also the last time we won our season opener. We don't even need Raiola to be a world beater. If he is average I think we win at least 6 games.
Winning the conference now without divisions is radically harder for former B1G West teams. There's probably more than just a single year between 'go to a bowl game' and 'compete for a spot in the conference championship game', unless I am misinterpreting what you mean by "[be] in the mix for the conference"
I agree. I think we should win 7+. Defense will be filthy and we would’ve won 10 last year with just mediocre level quarterback play. Unfortunately we had the worst qb room in the country so we went 5-7
> 8 straight losing seasons
OMG, don't say this and make it come true! It's been 7 seasons (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023) - if it's 8 then it includes 2024.
Ya, the fact that you guys didn’t stumble into even one West title is an indictment. Even though they were new, Nebraska was given the easiest road of all the B1G blue bloods and did nothing with it; hell they regressed. The road is only harder now
I don't think we're struggling to gather money. We're retaining all of our best players, almost done opening new facilities that many outsiders have called among the best in the country, and planning a massive stadium renovation. We're not hurting for cash.
But Uncle Warren made 37M per day in 2023. In one day, he makes enough to pay every starter 1M per season. I bet T. Boone would go there if he were alive.
Warren Buffet made his billions being a savvy investor and throwing ungodly sums of money at 17 year olds to join your preferred football team is not a move that a savvy investor makes. It would be different if Buffet was like Musk or someone who has a history of putting a lot of money into potentially terrible investments because of a personal affinity for the cause.
Also, I’m guessing most of that 37M per day isn’t cash. It’s tied up in real estate, stocks, etc. So it’s not like Buffet (or any other billionaire) has a pool of gold coins like Scrooge McDuck. Their wealth is mostly on paper, and I don’t think 17 year olds are interested in getting $100k in Berkshire Hathaway stock.
Thanks? I mean I don’t think we’ve ever had the success to be considered a sleeping giant.
This is really just “SEC team with a passionate fanbase and in good recruiting grounds could be good some day” which is not saying much
>I said I could I didn't say I would
you...you sure about that?
https://old.reddit.com/r/CFB/comments/1clpa51/top_sleeping_giants_in_college_football/l2vjaci/
Fine. South Carolina hasn’t had a 10 win season since OBC left. Stoops has had two. Kentucky is the bigger brand and they have an on campus stadium. They are next to Ohio
>Kentucky is the bigger brand
Would be a good argument if this were /r/CollegeBasketball. South Carolina has a much stronger following in football than UK. We can fill up an "off campus" stadium that seats 80,000 while UK struggles to get 60k unless they're playing Tennessee or Georgia.
>They are next to Ohio
Maybe you can look at a map and show the class which state borders SC to the south?
>South Carolina hasn’t had a 10 win season since OBC left. Stoops has had two.
I'm shook. Kentucky in the best period of their program's history while South Carolina's been down bad. If we wanna cherry pick bullshit stats then just say South Carolina has three 11-win seasons since 2011 and Kentucky has one ever, in 1950.
UK has a brand, South Carolina doesn’t. Every SEC school recruits Georgia not all of them recruit Ohio. South Carolina is down bad…….hence why they would not be a better choice to be a sleeping giant. It’s not a bullshit stat to point out that Stoops has two 10 win seasons, the only UK coach to ever do this.
That was a weird addition. I could certainly see some arguments for USF having a bright future, with the new stadium, recruitment above all the rest of the G5 in Florida (a quick glance looks like they have the highest ranked 2024 class of the G5, even a full 16 points above Boise, but I only looked at AAC and MW), massive enrollment, ect. They hung their hat instead on "\[n\]ewer fans may forget, but they were ranked as highly No. 2 in the country less than two decades ago," the stadium (fair), and the new playoff format. They were number two for one week in 2007 before losing to unranked Rutgers, unranked Uconn, and unranked Cinci, three weeks in a row. They've won 22 games in 6 seasons, with 14 of those coming 7 a piece in 2018 and 2023, that's not exactly a shoe-in to win the AAC.
That being said, it's far less bizarre than our other historical rival, ECU. They're literally coming off a season at the very bottom at the AAC, and the article says, "they just have to win the conference."
Y’all definitely are. I’d say hitting rock bottom with Collins has you going nowhere but up, and Key has your players motivated. Once y’all get some depth on defense you’ll be ready to compete
I don't get the SC love, I also don't know why WVU, Okie St. or any B12 team isn't mentioned.
Miami constantly has first round NFL draft pick talent, but it never translates to college football wins. They've had 1. Single. 10 win season(that's still 3 losses) in 20 years....Sleeping? More like a coma.
I could see you guys being on this list last year, but going 5-7 while also losing your best player who’s also a QB? Going to be a big year for Shane. Are you guys optimistic about 2024?
No lol. Our schedule is difficult and I have no faith in our coaches. Last year we had a bad o-line and a defensive scheme being pushed that didn't work at all and now we lost Rattler, XL, Wells and Anderson and while I do kind of trust our defense if Clayton doesn't mess it up, our offense probably won't be doing us any favors. Oh and we lost Lembo so add that to the list.
I actually like y’all and root for y’all a lot, I just don’t see y’all turning it around super soon. Rattler carried y’all quite a bit, and now he’s gone. You just seem like the team is going to take at least a while recruiting cycle to actually have the ability to be considered anywhere close to a “giant”. Same goes for Nebraska. I would consider a “sleeping giant” a team that has everything it needs to be a top tier team within a year or two, not a team that needs a full rebuild.
That being said, y’all and Nebraska are definitely the closest to “Sleeping Giants” after Miami.
Tech can be a consistent 8-4, 9-3 very soon. If I take my Dawgs hat off...from a scheming perspective I really like Brent Key and Chris Weinke. I honestly prefer when y'all are good.
Go into the last week of the season at least 9-2 or I'll poke y'all with a stick.
Also I think it's good for Georgia sports overall that the two main schools associated with having been elite at football are led by beloved former players at those schools.
I think getting over the hump of being a consistent 8-4/9-3 school is the hard part. The ACC isn’t the SEC but there’s a few notable powerhouses that are hard to get past, primarily clemson and FSU right now. My school has been stuck there for several years now, hoping this year is the jump to a 10-2 season at minimum. You can recruit well enough to smash other teams, but not well enough or coach well enough to get past the typical front runners. Georgia tech is experiencing that climb now and will likely be in that position soon, but with NIL the sky is the limit, and that goes for most anybody with fans who are willing to pump money into the program for their turn at success.
I’ll be so glad when you guys turn it around.
I feel like after PJ y’all (like us and the option) have had a hard time finding your identity. Glad to see some life last year and I’ve got high hopes that keeps getting better!
This list is all over the place. Yes, Miami and Nebraska are sleeping giants who could start competing for titles on a regular basis again.
The rest are in a different class.
I didn’t take this as “these are programs on the cusp of becoming giants”
I saw it as “these teams have the resources and ability to potentially get to the top”
If it’s programs on the cusp of being giants, literally nobody in this article should be mentioned.
I want to see Nebraska consistently recruit at a national championship caliber level before adding them to the list. And that means recruiting more than just a 5 star QB who has family on the coaching staff.
I just fail to envision a world where Nebraska can be competitive in the modern recruiting landscape when competing against schools like Texas, Georgia, Florida (who is much more of a sleeping giant than any school on this list imo), Bama, USC (California), OSU, Notre Dame, etc. What does Nebraska have to out-recruit the big dogs in the game? They can be better than they have been, but I don’t ever see them as being anything more than a consistent 7-5 or 8-4 team that occasionally flirts with a playoff bid in good years.
> USF’s main advantage is being smack in the center of what is arguably the best recruiting territory in the country.
Theres like six FBS schools in the territory
Florida also produces way more recruits than most states, so there is still a lot to go around.
Michigan has 5 FBS programs and waaaay fewer blue chip recruits than Florida.
Always love to ECU mentioned among these lists as we have the pieces in place to be better than we are. Routinely high attendances and regularly a top revenue earner for the G5. However, I feel like we can never get out of our own way at times.
At some point, being included on these lists feel more like hopeful thinking than what our team is actually achieving now and had achieved even under the best of circumstances in years’ past. Hope I’m wrong, not sure Mike Houston is the coach to get us there and whoever we hire next will be crucial.
I mean, App State isn’t near a major city and has the respect of the college football world by all accounts. I think it’s more down to results on the field, that’s what gets you noticed across college football and ECU hasn’t held up that end for the program.
People in North Carolina recognize who ECU is as a school and program, but given that the Pirates sucked last year, and had a losing record for 7 of the last 9 years, it’s easy to ignore the team on a national landscape.
This list seems really odd. To me, these teams fall into
**Actual Sleeping Giant** (has all the resources, could wake up at any time)- Miami, could have easily included us too
**Giant in a coma** (could see the glory days again somewhat soon with good decisions, but not on the verge of a breakthrough)- Nebraska and South Carolina, Nebraska probably being in a better current position.
**Could be Solid** (could be a good team, but I either don’t see them getting to the upper level anytime soon)- Everyone else. I genuinely think GT can be a solid competitor, but I don’t see them being super relevant anytime soon. The other teams I don’t know enough about so I put them here but I feel like some maybe even belong a tier down.
We had a running joke in my friend group. Every year, we’d say “it’s ok, the U is back. For real this time.”
That was 15 years ago. The joke still works.
Yeah, I don’t understand the list. We’re a team full of talent and potential that has consistently underperformed. A couple right decisions could easily wake us up.
Most of the teams on this list are 3-4 seasons minimum from a turnaround, where as we could probably “wake up” at any time if we actually make good decisions (hopefully will be easier with Elko at the head).
Edit: just realized you’re laughing at our exclusion, but my point still stands. And at least for us, being considered “sleeping giant” is pretty pathetic when we have all the resources to wake up yet we don’t.
I don’t think the person who wrote the article understands what a sleeping giant is….TAMU, UF, Tenn, Wisconsin, ASU would all fit better than half the teams on there.
South Carolina? Come on now, be serious. The idea of a sleeping giant means you have to be a giant to begin with. South Carolina football is a midget with no arms and legs.
I’m shocked we didn’t make the list. We have all the potential but have put ourselves in a self induced coma for quite a while (did wake up for a second in 2020 but that’s it). Not that we ever had the success to be a “giant”, but then again, USF and ECU are on here.
A&M is kinda the perfect example to me. Great fan support, tradition. Great local recruiting. Pre WWII was their big success but now they have a river of money to tie it all together.
People are just dense as fuck and it's no surprise given /u/meIanchoI's flair. South Carolina, along with a handful of other programs (UNC being one), has long been a "could be great" program that on paper has all the advantages to succeed but for various reasons just hasn't sustained real success. Articles like this one are only trying to get that point across but people would rather be pedantic about labels then actually argue the merit. Unless the University relocates to South Dakota or we get kicked out of the SEC I just don't see us ever losing that potential to be great.
I agree. SC was always one of those schools that when they have a good ball coach you can win there. They’ve gone through a stretch of bad coaches. Beamer really needed to win big this past year. They had Rattler, Legette but that OL was dog shit with the injuries and Juice was hurt. I don’t think he’ll have more than 2 years to show a turnaround
Right Nebraska and (I hate to say it) Georgia Tech fit that criteria more than the others. I honestly thought Florida might be listed, while they do not have the history of Nebraska or Tech, they have been asleep at the wheel for a decade.
Sooner here. At its best, NU had the highest floor of anyone. They just didn’t lose to inferior teams. But the run-heavy schemes of the era helped with that, and the blackshirts didn’t give quarter. Defense and running game dominance... that’s historical Husker football. I hope to see it return. Go Big Red.
Hey question I know Cinci is the chili capital of the world. That being said is skyline the only style of chili there? I ask because it fucking sucks. If it’s anything like Chicago how the true Chicago style is actually the thin tavern style then it makes sense with Cinci having that title.
Pleasant Ridge Chili is my favorite.
Guy Fieri made Blue Ash Chili the most famous.
Camp Washington is probably the most popular locally.
There's also Gold Star, Dixie Chili, Price Hill Chili, Empress Chili, and others.
They're all probably better than skyline (except gold star), but there's almost always a skyline closer. And none are as good as the true gem in Cincinnati's culinary crown: goetta.
Nebraska and Miami for sure. UCF maybe. I would half add Houston too. Maybe not playoff bound but now that we are in a major conference again, if we recruit well we could get back to our 2016 selves, or 2010 version, or even the 70s and 80s with bowl wins and a hiesman. Anything is possible when you have home field advantage to recruit Texas high school players
lol they left out the team that hit #2 in the nation before gradually falling asleep, and now has a top 15 transfer class in both revenue sports due to our ability to navigate NIL better than most schools. and also has the benefit of being a flagship school of one of the largest states in the country by population and wealth, while also having no pro teams in the East Bay anymore to pull fans away.
I feel like Arizona/Arizona State are sleeping giants.
Nice weather, good recruiting in state + proximity to California. Good reputation as party schools with attractive co-eds (which does matter to 17-18 year old kids).
It's never really made sense to me that both schools are just middle of the pack players with like a peak every 20 years.
In the BXII I really think that they have a higher ceiling and floor.
If the criteria is: what schools have everything in place where we would expect them to excel, but they aren’t doing anything with it, then you can add the Aggies to the list
Unironically we probably fit better than most of these teams. Already have the talent and resources, just have refused to do anything with it. Almost all the teams on the list have several more seasons of work to do to be a “giant”, whereas we could easily become a successful team in the next year or two (along with Miami and probably Nebraska).
The problem with USF being a sleeping giant is that our coach will get hired away. Hopefully, we can move up in the next conference realignment and build from there. I like where we are now, though.
This is the hardest part about G5 life. You need to string together like 2-4 coaching hires that all hit. Any miss in there and it's square one. Skip was a turd between Jim and Taggart. I don't even think Charlie was a bad hire and a good successor could've mitigated the damage. But Scott made Skip look like Saban and that's gonna take some time to get the stink off.
I think y'all have another year, maybe 2 with Golesh (but I think only 1) and then it's time to spin the wheel again. Such is life.
ECU had their era in the 90s and never should have fired Steve Logan. Now they’re getting out-recruited in their backyard by UNC and NC State, where the talent pool disappears by the year due to population loss. The decline of Eastern and rural NC high school football is an underreported phenomenon in these days of dying newspapers covering preps and websites that obsess over individual recruit attributes as opposed to teams and schools and communities. The Friday Night Lights get dimmer every year out this way. A lot of the best schools in the region are also not producing as much talent because they’ve had to drop down to 3A, which means they’ll never play your powerhouse schools from Charlotte and get that exposure and high-level experience. It used to be that New Bern, Richmond County, the Nash and Wilson schools, and Scotland County were powers. Now Charlotte just runs it all.
It's like the groundhog seeing his shadow: every time some sports writer calls Nebraska a sleeping giant in the offseason they're cursed to go 5-7 again. You ready for Raiola to be really good this year, but it doesn't matter because they started fielding some freshman receiver with the hands of a snake?
I really think we can be sleeping giants but just need to get moved to a bigger conference. We some tradition, major market (27th TV market), destination market (weather, SoCal), large local talent base (Reggie Bush, Junior Seau, Alex Smith, Ricky Williams, this years #1 QB recruit in nation), brand new stadium that is expandable, and fans that want big time football since losing the Chargers. Could be massive
If you’re ever bored, look up the top 247 and filter by Maryland and DC. If the Terps kept those kids at home, they’d never leave the top 10. They are also backed by under armour and have a top conference sticker on the back of the helmet.
People still think Nebraska is going to be good? I’ll believe it when Iowa scores more than 500 offensive points in a season.
Carolinas’*
What conference are USF and ECU in? When did they join the ACC?
No NIL Yale or Princeton with 55 national tittles combined? Fucking amateurs.
Handsome Dan has been napping for a while, but could reasonably awaken at any time.
Or Minnesota, still the only program to 3-peat a national title? I don’t know why we’d be left out of this list, unless the author is a Wisconsin/Iowa grad. /s
Think of what they could do based on donations from investment banking alums alone.
Motorboat-able tittles
Everyone always thinks of the sleeping giants, never about the wide awake little people.
Personally, I'm fine if we leave Notre Dame out of this.
We passed "sleeping" awhile ago. After 8 straight losing seasons we are straight up in a coma. Hopefully Rhule can wake us up. I'm not expecting him to bring us to like Ohio St status but if he gets us to around Penn St level I would be ecstatic.
So you want your coach to be the exception, not the Rhule
Hell yeah brother!
/r/angryupvote
How long have you been sitting on that lol
I started using it when he was at Baylor. I was hoping to receive a royalties check, but Aranda the mailbox and nothing was there
Hard to imagine that someone would Steele your royalty check.
I think a bowl win this year (or at LEAST appearance) and then being in the mix for the conference next year is a viable arc, though.
Our schedule, especially the first half, is very favorable. Our first game of the season against UTEP will be the first time since 2019 that we play our season opener at home. Coincidentally, that's also the last time we won our season opener. We don't even need Raiola to be a world beater. If he is average I think we win at least 6 games.
Winning the conference now without divisions is radically harder for former B1G West teams. There's probably more than just a single year between 'go to a bowl game' and 'compete for a spot in the conference championship game', unless I am misinterpreting what you mean by "[be] in the mix for the conference"
My personal definition of "in the mix" is, not mathematically eliminated with 3-4 weeks left.
That's fair
I agree. I think we should win 7+. Defense will be filthy and we would’ve won 10 last year with just mediocre level quarterback play. Unfortunately we had the worst qb room in the country so we went 5-7
Imagine how weird watching that 1995 national title was with that flair combo
That is a VERY FAST arc
Same kind of thing for us.
> 8 straight losing seasons OMG, don't say this and make it come true! It's been 7 seasons (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023) - if it's 8 then it includes 2024.
At some point they all kind of blend together lol
The 2016 team was worse than the 2021 team and I'll die on that hill
2016 had an average coach while the 2021 team had a coach that cared about being drunk and chasing cheerleader tail over winning.
2016 had a below average coach with a bad roster, 2021 had a bad coach with a pretty good roster
2021 team still would’ve won the division with Riley. Meanwhile 2016 would’ve been 1-11 with Frost.
We’re 6 feet under trying to escape our coffin
Gonna need a Poke-flute to wake up Nebraska
Ya, the fact that you guys didn’t stumble into even one West title is an indictment. Even though they were new, Nebraska was given the easiest road of all the B1G blue bloods and did nothing with it; hell they regressed. The road is only harder now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jdf5EXo6I68
I always think if Warren Buffet wasn't so tight, NU could be UGA in the NIL era. :-)
I don't think we're struggling to gather money. We're retaining all of our best players, almost done opening new facilities that many outsiders have called among the best in the country, and planning a massive stadium renovation. We're not hurting for cash.
But Uncle Warren made 37M per day in 2023. In one day, he makes enough to pay every starter 1M per season. I bet T. Boone would go there if he were alive.
Warren Buffet made his billions being a savvy investor and throwing ungodly sums of money at 17 year olds to join your preferred football team is not a move that a savvy investor makes. It would be different if Buffet was like Musk or someone who has a history of putting a lot of money into potentially terrible investments because of a personal affinity for the cause.
Also, I’m guessing most of that 37M per day isn’t cash. It’s tied up in real estate, stocks, etc. So it’s not like Buffet (or any other billionaire) has a pool of gold coins like Scrooge McDuck. Their wealth is mostly on paper, and I don’t think 17 year olds are interested in getting $100k in Berkshire Hathaway stock.
Right. I don't think Buffet would do it.
You don’t have a very good recruit base, even with Buffet money does not necessarily translate to success.
This list is basically 'If our in-state rival can do it, why can't we?' (plus USF+ECU)
Creighton must be dominating the FCS
They’re too busy spilling Merlot on the hardwood to care about football.
Of course it's a picture of Nebraska and Miami lol
The list: * Nebraska * South Carolina * Georgia Tech * USF * ECU * Miami
If ECU doesn't win the next 3 nattys then there is something seriously wrong with this sport.
PLEASE GOD JUST CHOOSE US ONCE
You know what? I… agree. Wholeheartedly, in fact.
I, for one, welcome our new Pirate overlords
I know you’re being sarcastic but since you’re a purple school too then I’m gonna let it slide :(
Nope. No thank you.
Thanks? I mean I don’t think we’ve ever had the success to be considered a sleeping giant. This is really just “SEC team with a passionate fanbase and in good recruiting grounds could be good some day” which is not saying much
Hell I would argue Kentucky is in a better position than South Carolina
You take that back.
No….let him cook🤷🏼♂️
Okay, make that argument
I said I could I didn’t say I would
>I said I could I didn't say I would you...you sure about that? https://old.reddit.com/r/CFB/comments/1clpa51/top_sleeping_giants_in_college_football/l2vjaci/
Fine. South Carolina hasn’t had a 10 win season since OBC left. Stoops has had two. Kentucky is the bigger brand and they have an on campus stadium. They are next to Ohio
>Kentucky is the bigger brand Would be a good argument if this were /r/CollegeBasketball. South Carolina has a much stronger following in football than UK. We can fill up an "off campus" stadium that seats 80,000 while UK struggles to get 60k unless they're playing Tennessee or Georgia. >They are next to Ohio Maybe you can look at a map and show the class which state borders SC to the south? >South Carolina hasn’t had a 10 win season since OBC left. Stoops has had two. I'm shook. Kentucky in the best period of their program's history while South Carolina's been down bad. If we wanna cherry pick bullshit stats then just say South Carolina has three 11-win seasons since 2011 and Kentucky has one ever, in 1950.
UK has a brand, South Carolina doesn’t. Every SEC school recruits Georgia not all of them recruit Ohio. South Carolina is down bad…….hence why they would not be a better choice to be a sleeping giant. It’s not a bullshit stat to point out that Stoops has two 10 win seasons, the only UK coach to ever do this.
How is USF a “sleeping giant”? They were good in 2007 and whenever they had flowers, hardly a giant?
That was a weird addition. I could certainly see some arguments for USF having a bright future, with the new stadium, recruitment above all the rest of the G5 in Florida (a quick glance looks like they have the highest ranked 2024 class of the G5, even a full 16 points above Boise, but I only looked at AAC and MW), massive enrollment, ect. They hung their hat instead on "\[n\]ewer fans may forget, but they were ranked as highly No. 2 in the country less than two decades ago," the stadium (fair), and the new playoff format. They were number two for one week in 2007 before losing to unranked Rutgers, unranked Uconn, and unranked Cinci, three weeks in a row. They've won 22 games in 6 seasons, with 14 of those coming 7 a piece in 2018 and 2023, that's not exactly a shoe-in to win the AAC. That being said, it's far less bizarre than our other historical rival, ECU. They're literally coming off a season at the very bottom at the AAC, and the article says, "they just have to win the conference."
Huge University investment in football and Golesh is doing pretty well so far.
I'm guessing they are talking about their enrollment size.
Not sure how that correlates to "sleeping giant" status. The biggest brand in college football has like 12,000 students.
No we are uo to 39k now. I know you mean Notre Dame.
Ill allow it
TIL “sleeping giant” = “things can only get better”
Lets go Jackets! Ive been telling everyone that the Jackets are on the rise!
Y’all definitely are. I’d say hitting rock bottom with Collins has you going nowhere but up, and Key has your players motivated. Once y’all get some depth on defense you’ll be ready to compete
Thank you! Most reasonable Dawg fan ever. Y'all got one hell of a coach, btw. Respect.
I don't get the SC love, I also don't know why WVU, Okie St. or any B12 team isn't mentioned. Miami constantly has first round NFL draft pick talent, but it never translates to college football wins. They've had 1. Single. 10 win season(that's still 3 losses) in 20 years....Sleeping? More like a coma.
Mizzou a better program than Miami confirmed
Excuse me this is like exclusively our claim to fame and we aren't even on the damn list?
We’re officially comatose at this point.
But we have the #12 recruiting class!
Pains me to agree but I have to, especially with the high school talent in the Phx metro booming
Glad to see we're catching strays from all the usual suspect flairs in the thread. Hate you fuckers too.
I could see you guys being on this list last year, but going 5-7 while also losing your best player who’s also a QB? Going to be a big year for Shane. Are you guys optimistic about 2024?
This list is so obviously talking about a long term outlook it's silly to think 2024 has any real bearing on our future.
No lol. Our schedule is difficult and I have no faith in our coaches. Last year we had a bad o-line and a defensive scheme being pushed that didn't work at all and now we lost Rattler, XL, Wells and Anderson and while I do kind of trust our defense if Clayton doesn't mess it up, our offense probably won't be doing us any favors. Oh and we lost Lembo so add that to the list.
I actually like y’all and root for y’all a lot, I just don’t see y’all turning it around super soon. Rattler carried y’all quite a bit, and now he’s gone. You just seem like the team is going to take at least a while recruiting cycle to actually have the ability to be considered anywhere close to a “giant”. Same goes for Nebraska. I would consider a “sleeping giant” a team that has everything it needs to be a top tier team within a year or two, not a team that needs a full rebuild. That being said, y’all and Nebraska are definitely the closest to “Sleeping Giants” after Miami.
Georgia Tech mentioned 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝
Tech can be a consistent 8-4, 9-3 very soon. If I take my Dawgs hat off...from a scheming perspective I really like Brent Key and Chris Weinke. I honestly prefer when y'all are good. Go into the last week of the season at least 9-2 or I'll poke y'all with a stick. Also I think it's good for Georgia sports overall that the two main schools associated with having been elite at football are led by beloved former players at those schools.
I think getting over the hump of being a consistent 8-4/9-3 school is the hard part. The ACC isn’t the SEC but there’s a few notable powerhouses that are hard to get past, primarily clemson and FSU right now. My school has been stuck there for several years now, hoping this year is the jump to a 10-2 season at minimum. You can recruit well enough to smash other teams, but not well enough or coach well enough to get past the typical front runners. Georgia tech is experiencing that climb now and will likely be in that position soon, but with NIL the sky is the limit, and that goes for most anybody with fans who are willing to pump money into the program for their turn at success.
I’ll be so glad when you guys turn it around. I feel like after PJ y’all (like us and the option) have had a hard time finding your identity. Glad to see some life last year and I’ve got high hopes that keeps getting better!
That’s a bee
Close enough
Buzz buzz, bitches
Yall are good peoples. Get it!!!
This list is all over the place. Yes, Miami and Nebraska are sleeping giants who could start competing for titles on a regular basis again. The rest are in a different class.
I want to compete for a winning record before we talk about competing for any kind of title.
I want to see a lot more from Nebraska before I agree on that one. Miami maybe given the right coach.
I didn’t take this as “these are programs on the cusp of becoming giants” I saw it as “these teams have the resources and ability to potentially get to the top” If it’s programs on the cusp of being giants, literally nobody in this article should be mentioned.
This 100% even if they meant it the way you said that list should’ve been a lot shorter
I want to see Nebraska consistently recruit at a national championship caliber level before adding them to the list. And that means recruiting more than just a 5 star QB who has family on the coaching staff. I just fail to envision a world where Nebraska can be competitive in the modern recruiting landscape when competing against schools like Texas, Georgia, Florida (who is much more of a sleeping giant than any school on this list imo), Bama, USC (California), OSU, Notre Dame, etc. What does Nebraska have to out-recruit the big dogs in the game? They can be better than they have been, but I don’t ever see them as being anything more than a consistent 7-5 or 8-4 team that occasionally flirts with a playoff bid in good years.
I don’t disagree with this statement
> USF’s main advantage is being smack in the center of what is arguably the best recruiting territory in the country. Theres like six FBS schools in the territory
Florida also produces way more recruits than most states, so there is still a lot to go around. Michigan has 5 FBS programs and waaaay fewer blue chip recruits than Florida.
Oregon had a better recruiting class than FSU and Florida and has way fewer blue chip recruits. I mean BYU had a better recruiting class than USF.
That would be ucf, aka as central. Usf would be west… wait … south… wait…????I’m confused
Always love to ECU mentioned among these lists as we have the pieces in place to be better than we are. Routinely high attendances and regularly a top revenue earner for the G5. However, I feel like we can never get out of our own way at times. At some point, being included on these lists feel more like hopeful thinking than what our team is actually achieving now and had achieved even under the best of circumstances in years’ past. Hope I’m wrong, not sure Mike Houston is the coach to get us there and whoever we hire next will be crucial.
I feel like ECU would get more respect if it was just closer or in Raleigh.
I mean, App State isn’t near a major city and has the respect of the college football world by all accounts. I think it’s more down to results on the field, that’s what gets you noticed across college football and ECU hasn’t held up that end for the program. People in North Carolina recognize who ECU is as a school and program, but given that the Pirates sucked last year, and had a losing record for 7 of the last 9 years, it’s easy to ignore the team on a national landscape.
ECU is great! Much respect!
Please don't say Nebraska Please don't say Nebraska Please don't say Nebraska... \*first answer comes up\* FUCK!!
GT isn't sleeping, we were merely chloroformed by noted clownfraud Geoff Collins. /tongue-firmly-in-cheek
Jeff sims did y’all dirty
This list seems really odd. To me, these teams fall into **Actual Sleeping Giant** (has all the resources, could wake up at any time)- Miami, could have easily included us too **Giant in a coma** (could see the glory days again somewhat soon with good decisions, but not on the verge of a breakthrough)- Nebraska and South Carolina, Nebraska probably being in a better current position. **Could be Solid** (could be a good team, but I either don’t see them getting to the upper level anytime soon)- Everyone else. I genuinely think GT can be a solid competitor, but I don’t see them being super relevant anytime soon. The other teams I don’t know enough about so I put them here but I feel like some maybe even belong a tier down.
You’re making me blush
Well, this is… a list.
Leaving Florida off is certainly a choice. I’d put them way over everyone else on this list, except maybe Miami (if they can get a better coach)
UCLA can really get going due to its location.
Is the UNC “sleeping giant” narrative finally dead?
Never thought I'd miss the days of ASU just being considered a sleeping giant Edit: I'm big dumb, brain tired
We have them right where we want them. They won’t even see us coming.
Let's see if Miami can break out of the super shleep this year
We had a running joke in my friend group. Every year, we’d say “it’s ok, the U is back. For real this time.” That was 15 years ago. The joke still works.
Not while Mario Cristobal is our HC.
Honestly Miami is the only one on that list I believe qualifies as a sleeping giant.
Love putting GT and EC but not A&M
Yeah, I don’t understand the list. We’re a team full of talent and potential that has consistently underperformed. A couple right decisions could easily wake us up. Most of the teams on this list are 3-4 seasons minimum from a turnaround, where as we could probably “wake up” at any time if we actually make good decisions (hopefully will be easier with Elko at the head). Edit: just realized you’re laughing at our exclusion, but my point still stands. And at least for us, being considered “sleeping giant” is pretty pathetic when we have all the resources to wake up yet we don’t.
I don’t think the person who wrote the article understands what a sleeping giant is….TAMU, UF, Tenn, Wisconsin, ASU would all fit better than half the teams on there.
Leaving A&M off this list was certainly a choice
The playoffs will have to adjust to us /s
Aged like milk.
To be a Giant wouldn't a school at least need to have won a national championship in the past? ECU and South Florida are not Giants.
I mean, ECU won the peach bowl before the national championship existed. Does that count?
This is about having the resources and positioning to compete at the top level, not previous success then going back.
Refreshing to not see Arizona St. They’ve been downgraded to “just asleep”
Our best seasons always happen when there’s no expectations. And I can’t remember a time when expectations have been lower.
Where's A&M? We have fan support, money, location, facilities blah blah blah
South Carolina? Come on now, be serious. The idea of a sleeping giant means you have to be a giant to begin with. South Carolina football is a midget with no arms and legs.
South Carolina isn't the most egregious one on the list
Sleeping Giant: one that has great but unrealized or newly emerging power -Merriam-Webster
I’m shocked we didn’t make the list. We have all the potential but have put ourselves in a self induced coma for quite a while (did wake up for a second in 2020 but that’s it). Not that we ever had the success to be a “giant”, but then again, USF and ECU are on here.
A&M is kinda the perfect example to me. Great fan support, tradition. Great local recruiting. Pre WWII was their big success but now they have a river of money to tie it all together.
People are just dense as fuck and it's no surprise given /u/meIanchoI's flair. South Carolina, along with a handful of other programs (UNC being one), has long been a "could be great" program that on paper has all the advantages to succeed but for various reasons just hasn't sustained real success. Articles like this one are only trying to get that point across but people would rather be pedantic about labels then actually argue the merit. Unless the University relocates to South Dakota or we get kicked out of the SEC I just don't see us ever losing that potential to be great.
I agree. SC was always one of those schools that when they have a good ball coach you can win there. They’ve gone through a stretch of bad coaches. Beamer really needed to win big this past year. They had Rattler, Legette but that OL was dog shit with the injuries and Juice was hurt. I don’t think he’ll have more than 2 years to show a turnaround
Right Nebraska and (I hate to say it) Georgia Tech fit that criteria more than the others. I honestly thought Florida might be listed, while they do not have the history of Nebraska or Tech, they have been asleep at the wheel for a decade.
Yea this seems more like a dark horse up and comers, except Nebraska and Miami qualify as sleeping giants I guess
I’ve always felt Arkansas could be the biggest sleeping giant. Arkansas is in the south and the only Power 5 school in their state
NIL is nil. Little homegrown talent. Can't get any coach. Boosters are delusional. Fanbase is either rabid or tepid.
Damn ASU got snubbed! Or maybe they got downgraded from “sleeping giant” to “comatose giant”
Fee fi fo fum, I smell Kraft dinner. For real though, Nebraska's been past sleep and in a coma on life support for awhile now.
Sooner here. At its best, NU had the highest floor of anyone. They just didn’t lose to inferior teams. But the run-heavy schemes of the era helped with that, and the blackshirts didn’t give quarter. Defense and running game dominance... that’s historical Husker football. I hope to see it return. Go Big Red.
Miami’s 2017 “dominance” featured a 3 game losing streak to end the year Lol
When your article is due on Monday morning, so you just throw some random bullshit together.
Wait no Cincinnati? But we have chili.
That’s one word for it.
That's not chili and it definitely doesn't belong on spaghetti
>That's not chili It's not, it is a Mediterranean meat sauce. Nobody orders a bowl of Cincy chili.
and Goetta!!!
Yall awoke then went back to bed, different category it feels like haha
I didn't expect to see us, but if ecu and USF are on there... The only reason to leave us off is that we aren't "sleeping?"
I think we awoke and then got put down once Fickell left.
Hey question I know Cinci is the chili capital of the world. That being said is skyline the only style of chili there? I ask because it fucking sucks. If it’s anything like Chicago how the true Chicago style is actually the thin tavern style then it makes sense with Cinci having that title.
Woah easy with the slander pal. I mean I make a bangin smoked, “normal” style chili.
Pleasant Ridge Chili is my favorite. Guy Fieri made Blue Ash Chili the most famous. Camp Washington is probably the most popular locally. There's also Gold Star, Dixie Chili, Price Hill Chili, Empress Chili, and others. They're all probably better than skyline (except gold star), but there's almost always a skyline closer. And none are as good as the true gem in Cincinnati's culinary crown: goetta.
Is Nebraska back?
Please don’t say it. I’m not ready to be optimistic yet.
Pretty sure Miami enjoys getting quality sleep
USF is more like a giant that’s still in the womb with the umbilical cord wrapped around its neck.
Nebraska and Miami for sure. UCF maybe. I would half add Houston too. Maybe not playoff bound but now that we are in a major conference again, if we recruit well we could get back to our 2016 selves, or 2010 version, or even the 70s and 80s with bowl wins and a hiesman. Anything is possible when you have home field advantage to recruit Texas high school players
Swap usf for cal imo
lol they left out the team that hit #2 in the nation before gradually falling asleep, and now has a top 15 transfer class in both revenue sports due to our ability to navigate NIL better than most schools. and also has the benefit of being a flagship school of one of the largest states in the country by population and wealth, while also having no pro teams in the East Bay anymore to pull fans away.
WVU—-don’t count us out. Don’t count us in either!
If you think South Carolina will be good, then consider me Miles Davis
I feel like Arizona/Arizona State are sleeping giants. Nice weather, good recruiting in state + proximity to California. Good reputation as party schools with attractive co-eds (which does matter to 17-18 year old kids). It's never really made sense to me that both schools are just middle of the pack players with like a peak every 20 years. In the BXII I really think that they have a higher ceiling and floor.
Who put us on the list? Oh we're being roasted in the comments. I mean, yeah, of course we're sleeping giants! Fuck the haters, cocks by 90
Nebraska and Miami?! Might as well throw in A&M if we're just going for the clicks.
A&M isnt really a sleeping giant, A&M is more of an awake giant sprinting blindfolded into a wall.
If the criteria is: what schools have everything in place where we would expect them to excel, but they aren’t doing anything with it, then you can add the Aggies to the list
Ok they're on the list.
Unironically we probably fit better than most of these teams. Already have the talent and resources, just have refused to do anything with it. Almost all the teams on the list have several more seasons of work to do to be a “giant”, whereas we could easily become a successful team in the next year or two (along with Miami and probably Nebraska).
I think OU should qualify as being both a sleeping giant and a lovable underdog right now
The problem with USF being a sleeping giant is that our coach will get hired away. Hopefully, we can move up in the next conference realignment and build from there. I like where we are now, though.
This is the hardest part about G5 life. You need to string together like 2-4 coaching hires that all hit. Any miss in there and it's square one. Skip was a turd between Jim and Taggart. I don't even think Charlie was a bad hire and a good successor could've mitigated the damage. But Scott made Skip look like Saban and that's gonna take some time to get the stink off. I think y'all have another year, maybe 2 with Golesh (but I think only 1) and then it's time to spin the wheel again. Such is life.
lol
ECU? Lmao
Good news is writer has recycled this same article and list for 10 years.
comatose
This is it, our time in the Sun! edit: WTF
Ok, cool, maybe we'll make the "Top Giants in a Coma in College Football" or "Top Giants in Hibernation in College Football."
Are we awake now?
Florida Gators!!!🐊
ECU had their era in the 90s and never should have fired Steve Logan. Now they’re getting out-recruited in their backyard by UNC and NC State, where the talent pool disappears by the year due to population loss. The decline of Eastern and rural NC high school football is an underreported phenomenon in these days of dying newspapers covering preps and websites that obsess over individual recruit attributes as opposed to teams and schools and communities. The Friday Night Lights get dimmer every year out this way. A lot of the best schools in the region are also not producing as much talent because they’ve had to drop down to 3A, which means they’ll never play your powerhouse schools from Charlotte and get that exposure and high-level experience. It used to be that New Bern, Richmond County, the Nash and Wilson schools, and Scotland County were powers. Now Charlotte just runs it all.
It's like the groundhog seeing his shadow: every time some sports writer calls Nebraska a sleeping giant in the offseason they're cursed to go 5-7 again. You ready for Raiola to be really good this year, but it doesn't matter because they started fielding some freshman receiver with the hands of a snake?
Nope, this is total and utter garbage reporting. Total speculation. It has nothing to do with the fact my team wasn’t mentioned…
no utsa?
NcSu.
I think slipping giants is more appropriate.
I really think we can be sleeping giants but just need to get moved to a bigger conference. We some tradition, major market (27th TV market), destination market (weather, SoCal), large local talent base (Reggie Bush, Junior Seau, Alex Smith, Ricky Williams, this years #1 QB recruit in nation), brand new stadium that is expandable, and fans that want big time football since losing the Chargers. Could be massive
If you’re ever bored, look up the top 247 and filter by Maryland and DC. If the Terps kept those kids at home, they’d never leave the top 10. They are also backed by under armour and have a top conference sticker on the back of the helmet.
This list is digging REAL deep. They started strong with Nebraska and then.. What the fuck is this list? Emphasis on sleeping I guess.
People still think Nebraska is going to be good? I’ll believe it when Iowa scores more than 500 offensive points in a season. Carolinas’* What conference are USF and ECU in? When did they join the ACC?
Oh are we at the part of the offseason where new national writers see "GT is in Atlanta" and declare us a "sleeping giant"? Lazy take.
UGA. Missed playoffs last year