The 2024 college football season will feature more than 11,000 players on FBS rosters. Here’s Saturday Down South’s countdown of the best of the best. — — — 100.
Zachariah Branch | WR/KR, USC The gem of USC’s 2023 recruiting class, Branch made an instant splash last August by accounting for 232 all-purpose yards and 2 touchdowns in his college debut, a romp over San José State. That was the high-water mark: Stuck in a crowded rotation and slowed by a mid-season injury, Branch’s impact was largely relegated to the return game, where he finished No. 2 nationally in punt return yards and was the only player to take a punt and kickoff return to the house.
In Year 2, the path to the top of the depth chart is clear and expectations are intact. The only hurdles to a breakthrough are a) getting in sync with a new quarterback and b) remaining in one piece at 5-10, 175 pounds. 99.
Derrick Moore | Edge, Michigan Michigan pressured quarterbacks by committee in 2023, splitting snaps and sacks equally among four full-time edge rushers. The nominal starters, Braiden McGregor and Jaylen Harrell, both moved on. That leaves Moore, a former top-100 recruit entering his third year in the program, and fellow bookend Josaiah Stewart to assume more prominent roles under a new defensive coordinator, Don “Wink” Martindale.
(Yes, like the old game-show host .) Neither projects as the second coming of Aidan Hutchinson, but then with rising stars Mason Graham and Kenneth Grant bringi.