CFB Transfer & Coaching Change Autopsy (January) PT. I
Discussing some relevant developments for CFFers.
With Heaven’s aid I have conquered for you a huge empire. But my life was too short to achieve the conquest of the world. That task is left for you.
- Genghis Khan, Former Khagan of the Mongol Empire
Imported Offences
NORTH TEXAS → OKLAHOMA STATE.
What was once an innovative and bold move executed flawlessly by Zach Kittley and the 2021 WKU football staff has now become a saturated and mainstream trend that we see every offseason. I don’t blame the individual actors involved, but it is just sort of lame to see an entire program get gutted by another these days.
Nonetheless, from a CFF perspective the player movement following former UNT head coach Eric Morris is positive. Indeed, if you’re a G5 talent moving up to the P4, there are two conferences that are more desirable than others, and those are the Big12 and ACC (defences are not as strong as in the B1G and SEC).
This should ease the transition, in addition to the familiarity with the system and with the primary play caller. The CFF relevant players who have followed Morris are: QB Drew Mestemaker, RB Caleb Hawkins, WR Wyatt Young, WR Miles Coleman, and back-up WR Terrence Lewis.
With the exception of Landon Sides (ECU), this influx includes all of the key players from the 2025 North Texas offence. Additionally, former Illinois and Ball St. WR Justin Bowick announced his intention to transfer to OK State on Jan 8. Akron receiver and former Pitt Panther Israel Poke committed in early January, and WF receiver Chris Barnes committed on Jan 10.
The only two things I’m confident in at this point are that Mestemaker and Hawkins will be the starting QB/RB pair in 2026. As far as WRs go, it’s difficult to project what the rotation will look like. Sure, a starting three of Young, Coleman/Barnes and Bowick seems reasonable now (as we are in January), but new names will emerge, and there will probably be more transfer intakes.
Young is coming off a 1000-yard season where he emerged as Mestemaker’s go-to WR in the second half of the 2025 season, and will be the player CFF drafters assume to be WR1 until proven otherwise in drafts this offseason. Bowick, having already experienced a season of P4 ball is a good ‘zag’ idea in the mind of this writer. At 6’4, 210 pounds, he offers a different element from the smaller UNT receivers and may acclimate better to BIG12 ball.
Not including this past year’s statistics, Morris’ QB1 averages 25 PPG (Cam Ward ~20 in 2022, Chandler Rogers ~26 in ‘23, & Chandler Morris ~28 in ‘24). His RB1 average (again, not including Caleb Hawkins’ output) is ~12 PPG, and WR1 averages 14 PPG).
SOUTH FLORIDA → AUBURN.
The other major migration was the group that followed former USF HC Alex Golesh to Auburn. The headliner is QB Byrum Brown, who was the highest scoring player in CFF for the 2025 season.
This move is clearly a downgrade as far as his CFF profile is concerned, as the talent discrepancy between the AAC and the SEC is immense. However, if Brown was intent on upgrading to the P4, remaining under the same play caller and in a system he is already intimately familiar with was one of the better options. Though it is unlikely that he will recreate his 36+ PPG playing at Auburn in the SEC in 2026.
In fact, if he is even able to average over 27 PPG, that will be considered a win in my mind. Auburn opens the year with Baylor, and then plays Southern Miss in week two. Following that, they kick off conference play with Florida, Vanderbilt and Tennessee before their BYE week, and then play Georgia, LSU and Ole Miss immediately after.
Arkansas, Mississippi State, Samford (FCS) and Alabama round out the remaining four games on the schedule.
With that in mind, Brown’s 2026 may be the inverse of his 2025, in that he could be most effective in September, especially in early September, only to struggle following the BYE week.
The pace of play of play caller Alex Golesh, Brown’s familiarity with the system, and his dual-threat skill set should dictate that he is at least still a CFF-relevant QB at worst, and a strong/above-average CFF QB at best.
Looking at the pieces around Brown, Golesh brought even more WR and TE assets than Morris did with OK State. The following skill players are joining Brown and Golesh on the plains: WR Keshaun Singleton, WR Chas Nimrod, WR Christian Neptune, WR Jeremiah Koger, and TE Jonathan Echols, in addition to RB Nykahi Davenport.
I would be a lot more optimistic about the success of this system in the BIG12 or ACC. The schedule in the SEC will make it tough for all, or any, of these USF players to outperform their output from 2025 in 2026.
What will be interesting to observe is how the CFF market prices each of these players. Inexperienced players may overvalue a player like Brown, weighing his 2025 performance strongly and failing to account for the increase in competition. Seasoned circles may overthink it and course correct too hard in the other direction.
For now, I see Brown settling in as a top-10 round selection, but probably somewhere between round seven and round nine if I had to guess. At WR, Singleton and Nimrod are probably going to be the top Auburn WRs drafted in early mocks this offseason, with Koger occasionally usurping one of those for the second Auburn WR drafted.
I don’t see there being a lot of value in the RB assets, and I would be surprised if any of the Auburn RBs are drafted in most leagues outside of 30-round bestball drafts. Between Baylor transfer Bryson Washington, returning starter Jeremiah Cobb, and Davenport, there should be a healthy distribution of carries across the three, thus rendering each useless in CFF.
Dating back to 2021 when Golesh was the OC at Tennessee, his QB1 has averaged ~25 PPG (again, not including Byrum Brown’s ridiculous output in ‘25), RB1 ~12 PPG, and WR1 ~15 PPG.
