College football catchup: Here's how the sport has changed in the offseason

There's always a lot of change ahead of an approaching college football season and 2022 is no different.

Here's an overview of what's new ahead of this season as Week 1 quickly approaches.

Lincoln Riley and Brian Kelly aren't the only coaches at new schools

Nearly 30 schools hired a new coach ahead of the 2022 season and 12 of those schools are in a Power Five conference. By now, you know the biggest coaching changes. Former Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley is at USC and former Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly is at LSU while their old employers hired defensive coordinators to replace them.

Former Oregon coach Mario Cristobal is now at Miami and the Ducks hired Georgia defensive coordinator Dan Lanning to take his place. The first game of Lanning’s Oregon career will be against Georgia in Week 1. Florida, meanwhile, hired Louisiana coach Billy Napier to take over for Dan Mullen. Napier is a former assistant to Nick Saban at Alabama.

Outside of the Power Five, a number of former Power Five head coaches took coaching jobs at smaller schools. Former Mississippi State coach Joe Moorhead is the new coach at Akron. Former Colorado coach Mike MacIntyre succeeds Butch Davis at Florida Atlantic. Former USC coach Clay Helton is at Georgia Southern. Ex-UCLA coach Jim Mora is at UConn. And former Minnesota coach Jerry Kill is the new coach at New Mexico State. All five of those coaches are taking over programs in various stages of a rebuild.

Numerous transfers among 2022 Heisman favorites

You don’t have to look much further than the 2022 Heisman odds to see how normal frequent player transfers have become in college football. Five of the top 12 favorites at BetMGM are at their second schools and all five of those players are quarterbacks. USC QB Caleb Williams is the No. 3 favorite behind Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud and Alabama’s Bryce Young. Texas QB Quinn Ewers is the No. 5 favorite, Oklahoma’s Dillon Gabriel is the No. 9 favorite and former USC QBs Kedon Slovis (Pitt) and Jaxson Dart (Ole Miss) round out the top 12.

Here’s a list of all the important quarterback transfers in college football and all of the non-QB transfers you need to know ahead of the season.

A swan song for the ACC's divisions

Enjoy the final seasons of the Atlantic and Coastal divisions in the ACC. The conference announced earlier in 2022 that it would eliminate divisions in 2023. It’s a move that was perhaps accelerated by the pandemic-impacted 2020 season that saw the temporary addition of Notre Dame and the absence of divisions.

Starting next season, the top two teams in the conference will play each other in the ACC title game, similar to how the Big 12 determines its champion. While the ACC's change is a year away, the Pac-12 quickly made the move. Teams will still play their affiliated North and South division schedules, but the top two teams in the conference will meet for the Pac-12 title, not the two division winners.

Other conferences could follow suit in the coming years and also eliminate divisions. The SEC hasn’t officially announced how it will schedule football games when Texas and Oklahoma push the conference to 16 teams in 2024 and the Big Ten is already on its second set of divisions in its current form.

Big 12 in transition as Brett Yormark takes over

New Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark enters the college sports world with his conference in transition. OU and Texas are in their final seasons in the league while BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF are set to join the Big 12 next season. The 2023 football season could be an awkward one with the four new teams still in the conference and OU and UT still tied to the Big 12 for another season before heading to the SEC.

There’s also the possibility of more expansion. After years of seeming like the Power Five conference most ripe to be picked apart by others, the Big 12 is suddenly in a more advantageous position after UCLA and USC bolted to the Big Ten. Will the Big 12 attempt to add teams from the Pac-12? Or will it be content to stay at 12 teams for the near future after OU and Texas leave? We’ll likely get an idea of that answer over the course of the 2022 season.

Hello, James Madison

James Madison becomes the newest member of college football’s top level in 2022 as it moves up from the FCS ranks and joins the Sun Belt. And the Dukes aren’t going to be overwhelmed by the jump. JMU has won at least 12 games in four of the last six seasons and has made the semifinals of the FCS playoffs in five of the last six seasons.

JMU’s first big test of its FBS run comes in Week 4 when it visits Sun Belt favorite Appalachian State. While a bowl game may be too much of an ask of the Dukes in their first FBS campaign, don’t be surprised if they pull off an upset or two this season.

Conference USA loses 3 in 2022, others in 2023

James Madison isn’t the only new team in the Sun Belt in 2022. Marshall, Southern Miss and Old Dominion also joined the conference from Conference USA as the Sun Belt solidifies itself as a solid Group of Five football conference.

Conference USA, meanwhile, is quickly losing its status. The conference is down to 11 teams for 2022 with Marshall’s departure and will look radically different in the near future. UAB, UTSA, FAU, Charlotte, North Texas and Rice are heading to the AAC next summer. Conference USA, meanwhile, is adding Jacksonville State, Liberty, New Mexico State and Sam Houston State. Both Jacksonville State and Sam Houston State will be making the same FCS to FBS jump James Madison is making this year while Liberty and New Mexico State are currently independents at college football’s top level.

The CFP heads to LA

Los Angeles is set to host a national title game at a site other than the Rose Bowl. The Rams’ SoFi Stadium is the site of the 2023 College Football Playoff national championship as it will host the Super Bowl and CFP title game within 11 months of each other. The site will likely be a long trip for the fanbases of the participating teams unless a Pac-12 South team has a much better season than anyone anticipates.

Unfortunately for college football fans, the timing of the semifinal games is not new. The playoff is set to once again host its semifinal games on New Year’s Eve. The Fiesta Bowl and the Peach Bowl are the two semifinal games this year and they’ll be on Saturday, Dec. 31.

The widespread acceptance of NIL deals

This is officially the second season where players are able to capitalize on their own image rights and make money from sponsorship and endorsement deals. But 2022 sure feels set to be the first season where NIL deals are widely accepted and no longer a novelty in the world of college sports. And thanks to the ability of players to get endorsements, we’re treated to local commercials like the one in Lincoln, Nebraska, for an HVAC company featuring the Huskers’ Decoldest Crawford.

Players’ ability to make money within the confines of NCAA rules has largely been met with a collective shrug by football fans and complaining by coaches who feel that endorsement deals have an outsized effect on players' commitment decisions. But players have long been without leverage in college football and NIL deals are a way for them to gain it back.

Another change to targeting rules

The targeting rule is getting another tweak for the 2022 season. Targeting is still a 15-yard penalty and a foul worthy of ejection. But players and teams will now be able to appeal the carryover of the ejections if the penalty happens in the second half of a game.

Players called for targeting in the first half of a game are simply tossed for the rest of the game while players ejected for targeting in the second half also have to sit out the first half of their next game. And a new appeals process implemented for 2022 allows teams to appeal any second-half targeting penalty if they feel the penalty was called in error.

If the appeal is successful and the NCAA rules the call was incorrect, the offending player will be able to return for the next game. Given the uneven nature of the targeting rule’s application, we’re guessing it won’t take long for the first successful appeal of the 2022 season.

Other rules changes

The targeting rule isn’t the only rule getting adjusted for the 2022 season. Blocking below the waist is no longer allowed by anyone other than a lineman or a stationary running back and a block below the waist must now happen within the tackle box. The NCAA said the change to the rule comes as “data indicates a decreasing knee injury trend” regarding stricter rules for low blocks.

Players are also no longer allowed to fake a feet-first slide. Blame Kenny Pickett for that. The former Pitt QB faked a slide during the ACC title game against Wake Forest on a long run. That move is now prohibited. If a player fakes a baseball slide, he is now supposed to be marked down at the spot of the fake.

Players will also be monitored for faking injuries. Teams that run high-tempo offenses have long accused defensive players of going down to get medical attention and slow the game. We'll see if the NCAA's decision to let teams file a postgame appeal about potential fake injuries will deter anything or lead to any findings.