No Clemson? College football’s Future Power Rankings for offense
- College football reporter.
- Joined ESPN.com in 2008.
- Graduate of Northwestern University.
From field level at Husky Stadium this spring, the Washington offense appears set up to dominate in 2023.
The Huskies return the nation’s passing average leader in quarterback Michael Penix Jr, two 1,000-yard receivers in Rome Odunze and Jalen McMillan, an offensive line bookended by tackles Troy Fautanu and Roger Rosengarten, and other solid cogs. Coach Kalen DeBoer kept his staff together despite several overtures (including one from Alabama). There’s little doubt, barring injury, that Washington will be among the nation’s top offenses in 2023.
But what about for the following two seasons? The challenge with ESPN’s Future Power Rankings is projecting success over the next three seasons: 2023, 2024 and 2025.
Washington breaks into the top 10 of our future rankings for offense after being unranked last year. Penix is among an excellent group of returning quarterbacks in the Pac-12, but how many have the right players around them — and behind them on the depth chart — to have staying power through 2025?
After assessing the Future Power Rankings for quarterbacks and defenses earlier this spring, we now address the offenses. There will be ample overlap between the quarterback and offense rankings, but the list that follows has some key differences. Several teams with quarterback situations that fell just outside my top 25 made the list below, while others with strong QB outlooks but questions elsewhere didn’t make the cut. Also, the rankings are impacted by incoming and departing recruits and transfers, some of whom made their decisions after the quarterback list came out.
Coaching continuity also plays a role, both at the top with offensive innovators such as Lincoln Riley and Ryan Day but also at coordinator, where Washington (Ryan Grubb), Utah (Andy Ludwig) and other teams retained talented playcallers, while others (Oregon’s Will Stein) added new ones.
Ohio State and Alabama led off last year’s offense rankings. Let’s take a look at the new top 25.
1. USC Trojans
2023 future QB power ranking: 1
2022 future offense power ranking: 3
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