College football spring games 2022 — USC, Notre Dame, LSU highlight weekend schedule
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The last big batch of college football spring games for 2022 will give us our first look at the seismic shifts wrought by the coaching carousel this offseason.
Lincoln Riley at USC, Brian Kelly at LSU, Marcus Freeman at Notre Dame — not to mention Dan Lanning at Oregon and Brent Venables at Oklahoma — all make their on-field debuts at their new places of employment this weekend.
In addition, we’ll get a look at some prominent quarterbacks at new schools — Caleb Williams at USC, Dillon Gabriel at Oklahoma and Cameron Ward at Washington State among them.
Here are the top storylines we’ll be watching at this weekend’s games.
Baylor
1 p.m. ET, ESPN+
What can we expect from Year 3 of Dave Aranda?
What was the difference between 2020, when Baylor went 2-7, and 2021, when the Bears won the Big 12 with a 12-2 season? Aranda shook up his offensive staff, and along with new offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes, moved Abram Smith back to running back after a switch to linebacker, and Smith reeled off nine 100-yard games and set the single-season school rushing record with 1,621 yards. But Smith and another key back, Tristan Ebner (859 yards rushing, 284 receiving) are gone. The Bears have two capable quarterbacks fighting for the job: Gerry Bohanon (12 starts last year, 2,200 yards, 18 TDs passing, nine rushing) and Blake Shapen (two starts, 17 straight completions in the Big 12 title game against Oklahoma State’s stingy defense), so it remains to be seen how that race will shake out. — Dave Wilson
Colorado
3 p.m. ET
Will the Colorado offense show signs of life?
Only one of the 130 teams in FBS last season had a worse offense than the Buffs. Averaging only 18.8 points and 257.4 yards per game, it is a minor miracle that they won four games. Head coach Karl Dorrell cleaned house and hired a new offensive coordinator in Mike Sanford, as well as a new offensive line coach (Kyle DeVan), new wide receivers coach (Phil McGeoghan) and new tight ends coach (Clay…
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Source : espn
