I don’t believe a returning quarterback deserves an automatic upgrade just because he played last season. The biggest preseason trap is treating continuity as proof that the same player will be better, even when the system, supporting cast, or circumstances around him have changed.

Returning doesn’t mean improved

I keep coming back to this because the expectation market rarely gives us the other side. A quarterback returns, and the assumption is that he’ll be at least as good as he was last year, if not better. The number in people’s heads might as well be 15 percent. That’s not analysis. That’s a default setting.

“Don’t fall into the trap of overrating returning quarterbacks.”— Josh Pate

Don’t fall into the trap of overrating returning quarterbacks.[/PULLQUOTE]

A quarterback can have the same talent and still play worse. His head may not be screwed on straight. Distractions may enter the equation. Those are not dramatic explanations. They’re football explanations. The job is still being played by a person, not a returning-starter sticker.

“Don’t fall into the trap of overrating returning quarterbacks.”

The task changes around him

The quarterback also may be changing systems. Some of the players who supported his production may have moved on. That means the question isn’t whether he remembers last year’s offense. It’s whether this year’s offense asks him to make the same decisions with the same answers available.

If the system changes, the trigger changes. If the supporting cast changes, the open throw may disappear. A returning quarterback can know the playbook and still face a different game. That’s where the preseason shortcut fails.

I’m not saying every returning quarterback gets worse. Some will be better. Some will be the same. But if the expectation market treats every one of them as improved, the misses are already built in. With this many returning starters, some quarterbacks are going to fall off. That won’t mean they lost all their ability. It means the forecast was too comfortable.

The same shortcut shows up everywhere

I see the same mistake when people buy a team because of an easy schedule or dismiss one because its schedule is hard. The schedule isn’t the team. Penn State still has to be good, even if its record looks better because of the games it plays. Oklahoma was left for dead in the preseason last year because of its schedule and still hosted a playoff game.

I see it with early upsets, too. Clemson beating LSU would be an upset with LSU favored by nine, but that result alone wouldn’t prove Clemson is great. It would force me to rethink Clemson, LSU, or both. The result opens options. It doesn’t close the case.

That’s the preseason discipline I’m after. Don’t turn one piece of familiar information into a full projection. A returning quarterback is evidence. An easy schedule is evidence. An early upset is evidence. None of them gets to make the entire argument by itself.

The returning-quarterback trap is severe right now because so much of the forecast assumes improvement before the first snap. I’m not giving that 15 percent away for free. Before you make a pick, check the system, the supporting cast, and the quarterback’s situation. If those answers changed, last year’s production doesn’t get to carry this year’s projection.

Articles are drafted from Josh Pate's College Football Show under the site's editorial standards and monitored by the editorial team — corrections are timestamped, never silent.

The biggest chaos scenario this season isn't a random upset. It's one of Georgia, Alabama, Oregon or Ohio State finishing 8–4. Those teams still look too big to fail, but the floor everybody assumes they have isn't sitting above eight wins anymore.

I understand the usual read. These are four teams that have been really good for a long time, and their recent regular-season records explain why people treat an 8–4 season like a structural impossibility. Georgia last lost four regular-season games in 2016. Alabama hasn't done it since 2007. Oregon hasn't since 2017. Ohio State hasn't since 2011.

That history matters. It just doesn't protect the next injury, the next bad bounce or the next one-possession loss.

The floor moved because the depth margin moved

The modern roster changes the task before the game even starts. A team can still be good and lose the player who holds a position together. It can still play well and lose several close games. I don't need one of these programs to become a disaster. I need injury misfortune and the wrong side of a few one-possession games.

“This is a new world. The depth situation has radically changed.”— Josh Pate

This is a new world. The depth situation has radically changed.[/PULLQUOTE]

That isn't a prediction that Georgia, Alabama, Oregon or Ohio State will go 8–4. It means the old assumption that the floor is safely above eight wins has stopped matching the conditions around the sport. Georgia can go 8–4 in this day and age. Oregon can go 8–4, or even 7–5, without being a bad team.

The schedule can turn a good team into a wounded one

Texas gives me the cleanest example of how fast this can happen. I agree Texas is a favorite to win the SEC and make the playoff. But if Texas loses to Ohio State in week two, then loses at Tennessee a couple of weeks later, it reaches the Oklahoma game with two losses and its back against the wall.

That isn't the same team entering Red River. The opponent gets a different task. Oklahoma isn't facing a favorite with room to recover. It's facing a wounded team that knows one more loss could end its playoff path with three weeks still left until Halloween. A pretty good team probably loses to Ohio State. A pretty good team can get rattled on the road at Neyland Stadium.

Chaos spreads when the favorites stop separating

The same pressure applies to the Big Ten. I agree with the working theory that Ohio State sits in a clear top tier while the SEC is muddier. But Ohio State plays Oregon, Indiana, USC and Michigan. The top teams keep running into each other, and each result can take a clean 10–2 picture and turn it into three-loss carnage.

The condition is simple: the top tier has to beat itself up and then fail to handle the teams below it. If that happens, the Big Ten looks less like the orderly league people expect and more like the SEC they think will cannibalize itself.

Houston at Texas Tech in week three is another test of that separation. Texas Tech is the clear favorite to win the Big 12, while Houston sits behind the teams from Utah in the odds market. If Houston wins in Lubbock without a minus-four turnover fluke and looks every bit as good as Texas Tech, the conference opens wide. BYU, Utah, Houston, Kansas State, Texas Tech, Arizona and Arizona State can all enter the picture.

That is the mechanism. A result that changes the quality read on one team changes the whole race around it.

I don't expect all of this to happen. I don't expect any of those four giants to go 8–4. But that outcome is possible because the sport now punishes thin depth and close-game mistakes much faster than the old reputations can cover. The floor isn't above eight wins anymore, and one injury plus a few bad fourth quarters can prove it.

Returning quarterbacks: the 15% bump isn’t automatic, systems change, and production can dip

Watch the Full Episode

Georgia, Alabama, Oregon and Ohio State: Why 8–4 Is Possible, Injuries Can Flip the Floor, and Close Games Can Break the Giants