With the 2007 season behind us, it's time to look ahead to 2008. The biggest news this off-season could be the renewed push for a playoff - this time by Georgia president Michael Adams. The only reason this is at all different than Florida president Bernie Machen's push last year is that Adams also chair the NCAA's executive committee and believes he can use his influence there to push for a playoff.

By all accounts, Adams was against a playoff system last year when Machen pushed for one and came out of his meeting with other SEC presidents and essentially retracted his push. Adams states that his reversal has nothing to do with the fact that his own Bulldogs didn't have a chance at the championship and more that the bowl matchups were uninspired. He, along with most other fans, would've preferred to see a USC-Georgia matchup as opposed to saddling the Sugar Bowl with Georgia-HAwaii and the Rose Bowl choosing USC-Illinois.

That last choice of phrasing is key - the Rose Bowl chose Illinois as USC's opponent because they were stuck on maintaining tradition and selecting a Big Ten team. The Sugar Bowl had a myriad of choices but Hawaii was a fair choice among the group. One 49-17 Rose Bowl and 41-10 Sugar Bowl later and we have cries of bad matchups. This is all blamed on the BCS and the many evils it hath wrought.

However, the BCS was not created to make four good bowl matches - it was created to try and match #1 vs. #2. It hasn't always succeeded in that, either, but this year's bowl matchups can not be blamed on it.  Adams' proposal is too drastic to work - using the four BCS bowls as quarterfinal games will never gain acceptance from the bowls and presidents will not want to sacrifice the 12th regular-season game required in Adams' plan. However, this will ramp up the discussion for a plus-one solution once again but, in the end, the Pac 10 and Big Ten will stand with the Rose Bowl as not willing to go to that solution. The plus-one is not an ideal solution - as described here before, there is no such thing as an ideal solution - and would simply serve as a precursor to larger playoffs in the future.

There are a number of stories to follow in spring ball - keeping track of these will help prepare for the 2008 season and future years.

- How will Michigan's hire of head coach Rich Rodriguez and its impact on the Big Ten evolve?
While it may take more than this off-season for Michigan to recruit the types of players needed to run the spread, Rodriguez's introduction of the spread to as staid a conference as the Big Ten could shake the foundations of football. Illinois has run the spread the last couple of years and Purdue has being throwing the ball around for years, but when Michigan, a school known for pocket passers, switches to dual-threat QBs, the rest of the conference will have to react. The impact could be as shocking as Steve Spurrier's arrival in the SEC was to that three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust conference. Within a couple of years of Spurrier's arrival at Florida, the whole conference started to recruit faster athletes as opposed to strength built to stop the run.

- Where will former Michigan QB Ryan Mallett go?
Mallett is a prototypical pocket passer and will not fit in Michigan's offense. He has already declared that he will leave Michigan - his first choices are currently Tennessee, Texas A&M, Arkansas, and UCLA.

- Will Emmanuel Moody bring an actual running back to Florida's backfield?
A USC transfer, Moody came to Gainesville to escape the logjam at USC. The situation he enters could not be more different. Florida's top two rushers this year were WR Percy Harvin and QB Tim Tebow and last year's leading rusher, RB DeShawn Wynn, averaged less than 50 yards per game. Head coach Urban Meyer has had good running backs before at Utah but this will be his first elite back and it will be interesting to see how the offense changes to incorporate Moody. Add in 2007 fourth-rated RB recruit Chris Rainey and Florida should have production from the running back position. If that comes to pass, the offense will be extremely difficult to stop.

- Where will Jon Tenuta end up?
Defensive coordinator Jon Tenuta left Georgia Tech this season after not getting the head coaching position and there are a number of schools he could end up at. LSU and Auburn all need defensive coordinators - at either of those schools, his highly-aggressive, blitzing style would terrorize opposing offenses. This could be the most important assistant coaching hire of the off-season - even bigger than Texas' hire of Will Muschamp.

- Speaking of Auburn, how will the Auburn offense look next year under new offensive coordinator Tony Franklin?
The former Troy offensive coordinator unveiled a little of his spread offense against Clemson in the Chick-Fil-A Bowl, and now he has a whole spring to transform the offense.