By Blake Dowson
With Big Ten football media days beginning in Chicago on July 25, the college-football season is officially upon us.
Sort of. We’re still more than six weeks away from kickoff Saturday, but media days are the first opportunity the media have to talk to the players after they break summer camp. For that reason, The Daily Iowan has put together a list of the five players who have the most to answer in Chicago next week.
Obviously, a team isn’t going to send a player to media days who is going through an investigation. The players sent to Chicago are the faces of the program, but they will still face some tough questions.
C.J. Beathard, Iowa
It’s inevitable.
“C.J., are you guys for real or was last year a fluke?”
“Did you guys benefit from an easy schedule last season?”
Oy, I will not envy Beathard for having to answer all of those questions during his turn at the podium.
All Beathard did was win the first 13 games he started in the Black and Gold, but he and his team were still met with skepticism throughout the campaign. After losing their final two games on the big stage, those questions will be ramped up a notch.
Riley Bullough, Michigan State
Has Michigan State been noticed at all this off-season? The word out of the East Division has been Michigan, the quarterback situation at Michigan, Jim Harbaugh, Michigan’s defense, the versatility of Jabrill Peppers … OK, the point is made. The Spartans, coming off a Big Ten championship and a trip to the College Football Playoffs, are an afterthought.
Bullough, a senior linebacker, will answer the questions on why that is happening. He is the biggest leader on the team, seemingly a leftover from a special 2015 squad.
The cupboard is pretty bare on offense, but luckily for Bullough, the magnificent defense from a year ago brings back more than half its starters.
Tommy Armstrong Jr., Nebraska
This guy is hard to understand. He is a good athlete, but he has never really shown he can be an elite quarterback. It feels like he’s a tweener — a bit too small to play the wideout position, not quite explosive enough to be a back, but good enough to be on the field. So the Huskers run him out there under center and have him throw arm punts.
For some reason, he’s always been given the excuse that he’s young and needs to grow. That time is up. He’s a senior leading a Nebraska team that was below .500 last season.
The most confusing thing for Armstrong will be fielding questions about how he has severely underachieved in his career, how he’s also being tabbed as a dark horse Heisman candidate, and how his team is a dark-horse playoff contender.
Maybe he can explain what he did to deserve the recognition.
William Likely, Maryland
The Terrapins were a bad football team last year, and there’s not a whole lot of optimism around the program that this year will be any better.
Likely has been one of the better players on the roster in the past, so he should assume a leadership role. If he’s not a vocal type of guy, he should have led by example last season after he posted a 6-interception season as a sophomore.
Instead, he didn’t pick a single ball off last year, and his tackles were cut in half. What happened to him?
Jake Butt, Michigan
The swarm of media around everything Michigan in Chicago will be a sight to see. Butt will be at the center of it, as he returns to Ann Arbor as the reigning Mackey Award winner as the best tight end in the country.
He has expectations placed on him, and his team does, too. How can they possibly live up to them?
He has a chance to see a total revolution during his time at Michigan. Can he make the decision to return to school a good one by making the Big Ten Championship game and possibly the playoffs?