Introduction you know coming into our first off season here at Darren talks ball our first off season as a college football channel I honestly came into it kind of scratching my head wondering what we were going to talk about for the next what is it five six months it seems like until the 2024 season begins wondering if I was going to have much to cover and make content about but then I realized we college football fans can never get enough of our favorite sport and we're always always looking ahead to the next season the second this past season ended the second that Michigan closed out their National Championship Victory against Washington I found myself thinking about all of the exciting prospects for this next season and there are a lot of them more so than any other college football season I feel like 24 is going to be a game Cher we have super conferences we have a 12 team playoff and like we'll talk about in this video we have some very very exciting potentially All-American upand cominging players that should be ready to break out in 2024 welcome of course to Darren talks I am your humble host Darren Graham and I'm very excited to be here talking college football with you guys yet again this is our second video of the week and I am so so also very excited to announce that we're now up over a thousand subscribers thank you guys so much we have relatively kind of blown up over the past couple of weeks I really really appreciate all of you guys' support we've already hit our goal for the 2024 college football season which was a th000 subscribers so I have to come up with a new goal I have to come up with new things to try to achieve because we're always looking to grow on this channel looking to become one of the bigger college football channels on YouTube I know that's a lofty goal but I think we can get there if you guys keep subscribing hit that like button at the very least and help get this video up into the algorithm get more eyes on this channel which will help the channel continue to grow there is also a link where you can donate to the channel if you do so please uh if if you really wish to uh to support the channel even more that would be greatly appreciated leave a comment with your donation and I will read it on air in a future episode and in this video I'm going to give you guys three players that have not been starters on their respective teams three players that should be starters this next season or at least play much bigger roles on their respective teams that I think will break out this season and we will all be talking about down the stretch in 2024 and the third one may be a bit of a surprise to some of you guys but I also feel like some of you college football fiends out there may already know who he Kalel Mullings- Michigan RB is and the first player on my list and many Michigan fans may already be familiar with him is khil mullings khil mullings is not exactly a highly rated player he was not exactly highly rated coming out of high school he was only a three star I believe came in as a linebacker to the university univ of Michigan spent his first couple of years as a linebacker at the University of Michigan but lo and behold a couple of seasons ago also when Blake korm was out with his ankle injury or his knee injury excuse me and Donovan Edwards was also a bit banged up khil moling having played some running back in high school I believe switched over and changed roles and if you don't remember was the guy that made that now Infamous halfback pass in the Ohio State game in Ohio stadium that really broke that game open a couple of seasons ago and since then we've seen Kil mullings in a rotational role as like the third or fourth running back in Michigan's running back rotation and with Blake corm leaving and Donovan Edwards taking on a bigger role as the starter the main starter khil mullings looks to serve a much bigger role himself in Michigan's offense and what makes me really excited about khil mulling is the fact that he has averaged 6.2 yards per carry throughout his career khil mullings could really easily be Hassan H Haskins 2.0 he's got great contact balance but he also runs with vision he runs with toughness he plows people over but like I said he also runs with vision he's able to find the holes he's able to read out the gaps on things like Duo which is Michigan's base Run play and this past season he only had 36 carries but carried the ball for 222 yards and a touchdown but yet again had an average of 6.2 yards per carry and that didn't just come on the volume of like one really long carry that he had in season his longest carry of the year was only 23 yards and any time you see K mulling touch the football he's one of those ground and pound between the tackles running backs that rarely if ever takes a loss when khil Mullen touches the football it's at least a two to three yard gain he is what you call a net positive Runner whatever the offensive line gives him on any potent particular play he will get an extra yard or two he always falls forward he's a powerful Runner and he fits Michigan's system like a glove but it's not just the fact that he's a powerful between the tackles Runner that's his main thing that's his key thing that's what his go-to thing is if you will it's not just that that makes me excited about the potential that khil Mullin has he's also flashed some other abilities too in the big uh in the game against Alabama and the Rose Bowl of course he had a huge catch along the sideline to set up Michigan's first touchdown of that game and he's shown some other abilities again he's a much faster runner who can kind of feel out gaps who has great vision and in his biggest game this past season for instance he had eight carries for 47 yards against Minnesota and had a 5.9 yards per carry average you don't get that high of a yards per carry average by just merely being a a a hammer or a wrecking ball if you will he's capable of that of course as a former linebacker he is one of the more physical running backs will be one of the more physical running backs in the Big 10 but don't pigeon hole him as that just that either and that's what that upside of being showing the capability of doing other things that running backs need to do to be great in this modern era of college football really is really what gets me excited about khil mullings as a potential breakout player for this next season and speaking of running backs speaking of kind of Swiss army knife running backs who are capable of doing Jordan James- Oregon RB everything and speaking of filling some big shoes the other guy on my list and I know I mentioned him in a video last week that I did but I wanted to talk about him some more because I can't I can't wax poetically enough about how much I think that this guy is going to break out this next season of course he's filling some pretty lofty shoes some pretty big shoes in terms of Bucky Irving having left Oregon but Jordan James a former four-star running back out of the 2022 class was the number 13 running back in his class had committed to Georgia at one point and then in typical Dan Lanning Oregon Style baby they flipped another recruit and they got the fourstar who had a 93 rating in the composite on 247 out of Tennessee to travel all the way out to Eugene to play football for them he has great instincts as a runner he's willing to run inside and out he's not the khil mullings smash it up uh bowling ball Wrecking Ball what what what have you style a running back but he is very capable of running between the tackles as well I believe he's 5' 10 and a little over 200 lb or at least that's what he was at at the time he signed he's probably bigger now but he's also a very patient Runner he likes to allow his blocks to develop and again he's a Swiss army knife he's capable of catching the ball out of the back field he's capable more than capable of lining up in pass Pro on throwing Downs running inside and outside of the tackles and his 2023 stats were bigger and loftier than khil mullings he had 107 carries for 759 yards and I highlighted it as a upside for khil Mullin having 6.2 yards per carry this past season don't look now but Jordan James averaged 7.1 yards per carry as Oregon's backup running back when he comes in this season and I believe it will be his junior year if I'm counting it right I think he will be the starter replacing Bucky Irving though I know that Oregon like many teams and college football will have a bit of a rotation going but look for him to get the bulk of the carries and the touches and for good reason Jordan James has an extremely high upside of course once again he had a 93 composite rating coming out of high school and a lot of people it's a bit of a misnomer a lot of people think that Oregon is a pass first team and they are to a certain extent but they only passed on about 54% of their plays if I remember it right they still ran the ball around 45 46% of the time this past season and the running game is a big factor in Oregon's offense and not just the running game but of course getting running backs out on screens and finding ways to get them in the open field you can see the image above of Jordan James juking out a Defender I believe that's from their game against BYU this past season so Jordan James is going to be a fixture in this offense don't get it mixed up and I think Oregon will find ways to get him the ball early and often this next season if I had to pick any of these players on this list any one player to really break it out and have a you know a a individual awardwinning kind of season it could be Jordan James I'm that high on him and especially when Oregon has a pretty damn good offensive line returning next season I know that they're kind of replacing some guys but all the guys that they're replacing them with are highlevel recruits at the guard and Tackle positions and etc etc he's set up well in Oregon's system and with that offensive line and with the fact that he's got a running quarterback who will also take the eyes off of him sometimes on read options and things like that he's just set up to have a great season guys that's I I can't say it any more simply in straightforward than that Jordan James is a guy I am very very high on and the Jeremiah Smith- Ohio State WR last and last but not least this may come as a surprise to some people and this may irk some people because this man has not played a single down of college football yet not a single down not one single snap a true freshman and I I had a bit of a hard time putting up him up there I wanted to pick three players for this video cuz one I didn't want this video to be too long and to I want to kind of do some other videos like this and preview maybe some SEC players that could break out next year and etc etc and again hit the Subscribe button if you want to be notified when I come out with new videos but this next player on my list in case you don't recognize him is Jeremiah Smith who is an Ohio State wide receiver commit a five-star wide receiver commit out of opaka Florida Florida and it's not just that he was a five-star Jeremiah Smith was the number one rated player in the entire country in the 2024 class with a 101 composite score on 247 he is a rare extremely rare combo of size speed in amazingly great hands a lot of people have made Julio Jones comparisons for this guy and a after having watched the film on him I can see it I can honestly see it I I was talking to somebody the other day about the prospect of Jeremiah Smith playing in Ohio State system and I said you know every few years every it seems like every 10 or 15 years there's a guy who comes in uh Jordan or excuse me Adrien Peterson comes to mind and you can name a few other players but namely Adrien Peterson comes to mind guys that come out of high school and they've got that look they've got that size they've got that build of an NFL player if you put Jeremiah Smith in a Minnesota Vikings uniform or a New York Giants uniform I wouldn't bad an eye at it I'd I'd look at him and be like yeah that's an NFL player he is 6'3 214 lounds and if you watch the highlights like I said the Julio Julio the Julio there we go I'm going to leave that in there I'm not even going to edit it out the Julio Jones comps really fit he he can go up for jump balls but he's not one-dimensional and that's why he has again a 101 composite rating on 247 it's not just going up for jump balls that's not his only uh the only aspect to his game he's also extremely fast he runs routes really well and he has great hands in all different types of routes making all different types of catches he was of course recruited by nearly every big university in the country and of course Brian Hartline the recruiting expert extraordinaire was able to grab him out of opaka Florida and with Marvin Harrison Jr leaving with Julian Fleming transferring out I know it sounds crazy to put a freshman on this list but with how highly he was rated and with the fact that there is kind of an open spot now we don't usually say that about Ohio State's wide receiver room going into a season but there's kind of some open spots in that wide receiver room for Jeremiah Smith to come in and be the number two to Mecha Iuka is number one I think it's very possible he is that great and again coming in is one of those kind of generational prospects that has the look and the feel of a guy who could play in the NFL tomorrow really and that's going to really conclude my list I know that's only three players but I'm kind of wanting to stretch this out too I feel like we got a long offseason we got a lot of players to kind of scout and look ahead to but let me know what you guys think of this brief list um who you would have maybe put up here who you're looking forward to seeing in the Big 10 in 2024 and can keep subscribing keep liking the videos help get this one up into the algorithm by hitting that like button that always helps leave comments and let me know what you guys think and I will be back next week with a couple more videos and in two weeks we will be live again for another episode of this week in Michigan football we do that one every other week throughout the off season just cuz it's the off season but we will be going live weekly during the season when that finally kicks off as well so until next time go Blue