Dear Santa, all I want for Christmas is my college football team to be good

The idea of getting back to a previous, dominant form is antithetical to moving forward. By looking back and chasing past eras, schools like USC, Miami, Nebraska and others are envisioning levels of dominance that are extremely rare and difficult to replicate — or in some cases *cough* Texas *cough* didn’t exist.

That’s not to say teams on this list like USC can’t have another run like they did under Pete Carroll, but in order to do that, it’ll take a forward-thinking approach. Relying on what made you successful five, 10, 20 years ago in a sport that’s constantly innovating and changing only works if you build on it.

There are currently nine schools of higher learning that are hoping to not suck again and get their prestige ranking right for the return of EA College Football. They are Florida, Florida State, Miami, Nebraska, USC, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia Tech and Washington. All of them are either on track to fire a coach, have fired their coach or just hired a coach who will get fired if he keeps coaching like this. They have a combined 7,012 wins, 39 national titles, 196 conference titles and 20 Heisman Trophy winners. This year, they are a combined 41-55.

Before you say your team shouldn’t be on this list, or argue who is missing (LSU won a title too recently to qualify) or generally want to call me an idiot on Twitter, read on or skip to your team. I’m going to say some nice things about all of these programs because all the media wants to do is dump on them. I’m not saying they’re wrong, or the schools don’t deserve it, but a change of narrative is refreshing as we go into what will be the final game for a majority of these teams. I’m even going to say something (begrudgingly) positive about Texas.

Here are some holiday hopes for each team next year as we look forward (never back) to try to give you some happiness before or after turning off the game in a rage this weekend. (Unless you’re Florida State and Florida fans, in which case, get ready for a depressing broadcast and an even more depressing rivalry game.)