dismissed by then-coach Paul Chryst<\/a> in October 2021. He again got off to a promising start at Michigan State, but injuries and inconsistency marred his next two seasons. So last year, he headed to a new member of the conference, UCLA, where he\u2019s back for one more hurrah this fall, including a trip back to Michigan State on Oct. 11.<\/p>\nRB: Cam Porter, Northwestern<\/p>\n
First season of college football: 2020<\/p>\n
Here we have a rare entrant who\u2019s been at one school throughout.<\/p>\n
As a true freshman, Porter exploded in the Wildcats\u2019 last three games, scoring a touchdown against Ohio State in the Big Ten championship game and going for 98 yards against Auburn in the Citrus Bowl. After missing all of 2021, the two-time captain spent the past three seasons struggling to regain his freshman form. He\u2019ll get one last chance alongside another fellow blast-from-the-past: ex-TCU quarterback Preston Stone.<\/p>\n
OL: Turner Corcoran, Nebraska<\/p>\n
First season of college football: 2020<\/p>\n
Corcoran, a former top-100 recruit, was the highest-rated member of Scott Frost\u2019s 2020 recruiting class. He became a mainstay at left tackle for 30 straight games, of which an estimated 23 were excruciating one-score losses decided by Huskers special-teams miscues.<\/p>\n
Injuries cut short his 2023 and 2024 seasons, so he took a redshirt last season and will suit up this fall for Nebraska\u2019s 18th straight \u201cthis could be the year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Key backups: Virginia quarterback Chandler Morris, Miami of Ohio quarterback Dequan Finn, Sam Houston running back Alton McCaskill, Penn State receiver Trebor Pena, Ole Miss receiver De\u2019Zhaun Sterling, Clemson OL Walker Parks.<\/p>\n
DefenseDE: Solomon Tuliaupupu, Montana<\/p>\n
First season of college football: 2018<\/p>\n
We normally wouldn\u2019t include an FCS player, but this is an extreme case.<\/p>\n
Tuliaupupu spent the past seven seasons at USC, where he became the new Cam McCormick. He missed his first two seasons because of foot surgery, then the next two seasons because of a knee injury. He finally saw the field in 2022, then missed the entire next season. All told, he played in 21 games in seven years and theoretically has two more medical redshirts at his disposal.<\/p>\n
DE: Romello Height, Texas Tech<\/p>\n
First season of college football: 2020<\/p>\n
Most people have to play an EA Sports video game to sample as many college stadiums as Height. He has moved from the SEC (Auburn in 2020-21) to the Pac-12 (USC in 2022-23) and the ACC (Georgia Tech in 2023-24), then to the Big 12 (Texas Tech in 2024-25).<\/p>\n
He finally had his breakout as a fifth-year guy in 2024, and at the perfect time, as Texas Tech became an ATM for offensive and defensive linemen.<\/p>\n
DE: Akheem Mesidor, Miami<\/p>\n
First season of college football: 2020<\/p>\n
Buried deep on Mesidor\u2019s Miami bio is a nod to his second-team Freshman All-America pick by The Athletic in 2020 at West Virginia.<\/p>\n
He moved to Coral Gables in 2022 and has earned equally prestigious acclaim as an All-ACC honorable mention pick in two of the past three seasons (he was injured in between). Now he\u2019s the top returning pass rusher for Mario Cristobal\u2019s fourth Miami team.<\/p>\n
LB: Justin Flowe, UNLV<\/p>\n
First season of college football: 2020<\/p>\n
Flowe is himself a former five-star Mario Cristobal recruit and was the highest-rated member of a top-15 Oregon class. That\u2019s why it feels like he\u2019s been a name forever, even though his on-field career has been largely uneventful.<\/p>\n
Flowe had 13 tackles in the Ducks\u2019 2021 season opener against Fresno State but missed the rest of that season with a foot injury. He spent the past two seasons at Arizona, where another injury cut short his production. He left Tucson in April to join Dan Mullen\u2019s debut UNLV squad.<\/p>\n
LB: David Reese, Syracuse<\/p>\n
First season of college football: 2018<\/p>\n
Ladies and gentlemen, our second real-life eighth-year senior.<\/p>\n
Reese spent his first five years at Florida, where he managed to go four seasons without using any eligibility because of a freshman redshirt (2018), medical redshirts (2019 and 2021) and the free COVID-19 year (2020). Then, in the fifth season, he notched two tackles. He finally made his mark with 11 sacks in two seasons at Cal, then made what might be an unprecedented 2,800-mile transfer within the same conference.<\/p>\n
LB: Logan Taylor, Hawaii<\/p>\n
First season of college football: 2018<\/p>\n
Taylor participated in Hawaii\u2019s senior day festivities last November. Then Diego Pavia won his lawsuit, and Hawaii\u2019s two-time captain earned a waiver to reclaim a year of eligibility from his one season (in 2019) at a junior college. He told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser: \u201cI can\u2019t believe this rule even passed.\u201d Taylor has weathered two season-ending injuries on his way to becoming one of the Warriors\u2019 most productive players.<\/p>\n
Also, in February, Taylor and his wife welcomed their third child.<\/p>\n
LB: Levani Damuni, Utah<\/p>\n
First season of college football: 2019<\/p>\n
Damuni originally signed with Stanford in 2017 before serving a two-year mission in New Zealand. That Stanford class included a bunch of guys who are already on their second NFL contracts (Walker Little, Paulson Adebo, Colby Parkinson, et al.).<\/p>\n
Damuni played four seasons for the Cardinal, notching 207 tackles, before heading to Utah in 2023. He was the Utes\u2019 leading tackler that season but tore his Achilles last spring.<\/p>\n
CB: Tony Grimes, Purdue<\/p>\n
First season of college football: 2020<\/p>\n
Grimes, a five-star in the Class of 2021 who reclassified to begin college a year early, was one of the biggest recruiting coups of Mack Brown\u2019s second North Carolina tenure. He started most of his first three seasons in Chapel Hill but is on his third school since, after a year lost to injury at Texas A&M and a year starting for UNLV during its 11-win season.<\/p>\n
In January, he followed coach Barry Odom from Vegas to Purdue, where he\u2019s set to become one of 21 new starters for the rebuilding Boilermakers.<\/p>\n
CB: Bud Clark, TCU<\/p>\n
First season of college football: 2020<\/p>\n
Clark is the last remaining legacy from TCU\u2019s run to the national championship game in 2022. He notched a pick six against Michigan\u2019s JJ McCarthy in that year\u2019s CFP semifinal. He has already had a distinguished career, twice earning All-Big 12 honors and racking up 11 interceptions.<\/p>\n
On Sept. 1, he\u2019ll add the honor of having faced teams coached by Deion Sanders (2023 opener against Colorado) and Belichick (2025 opener against North Carolina).<\/p>\n
Safety: Jalen Catalon, Missouri<\/p>\n
First season of college football: 2019<\/p>\n
It does not seem humanly possible that a former Chad Morris-Arkansas signee is still playing college football, but here we are.<\/p>\n
Catalon became a Jim Thorpe Award semifinalist for the Razorbacks in 2020 but suffered season-ending injuries the next two years. After one uneventful year at Texas, he became an all-conference standout for UNLV in 2024. Now he has come back full circle in the SEC and will return to Fayetteville for his last career regular-season game.<\/p>\n
Safety: Key Lawrence, UCLA<\/p>\n
First season of college football: 2020<\/p>\n
Really, all you need to know is that Lawrence, a former top-100 recruit, was a freshman on Jeremy Pruitt\u2019s last Tennessee team.<\/p>\n
He spent the next three seasons at Oklahoma, earning an All-Big 12 honorable mention nod in 2021, then transferred to Ole Miss last year. But after playing sparingly in the first four games, Lawrence opted to take a redshirt and was off the team by mid-October. He landed at UCLA in December.<\/p>\n
Key backups: Texas defensive end Cole Brevard, Arizona State cornerback Xavion Alford, Northwestern cornerback Fred Davis II, TCU cornerback Avery Helm, Memphis safety Isheem Young.<\/p>\n
Special teamsKicker: Bert Auburn, Miami<\/p>\n
First season of college football: 2022<\/p>\n
Kickers need only four years to feel like lifers. In Auburn\u2019s case, he became a national name in the second game of his freshman season at Texas by hitting a 49-yard field goal that nearly lifted the Horns to a home upset of No. 1 Alabama.<\/p>\n
By last season, though, Auburn had become more synonymous with costly misses in Texas\u2019 SEC championship loss to Georgia and CFP quarterfinal win over Arizona State. Steve Sarkisian and his kicker opted to move on.<\/p>\n
Punter: Tommy Doman, Florida<\/p>\n
First season of college football: 2021<\/p>\n
Doman was the punter for Michigan\u2019s 2023 national championship team. No word on whether he had help from Connor Stalions. It seemed like Doman was on the field as much as nearly any Wolverine last season, thanks to that woeful offense, drilling a 68-yard punt in the Ohio State game. Now a grad transfer, the Rochester, Mich., native decided to spend his twilight year in Florida.<\/p>\n
Kick returner: Barion Brown, LSU<\/p>\n
First season of college football: 2022<\/p>\n
I could have sworn Brown was at Kentucky for as long as Mark Stoops, but it was only for three seasons. He returned a kickoff to the house against Miami of Ohio in the first game of his freshman season, then ran one back 85 yards to set up a touchdown in the famous 22-19 Will Levis-Jaxson Dart showdown. He went on to become the first-team All-SEC return specialist last season.<\/p>\n
And he\u2019s not done terrorizing the SEC just yet.<\/p>\n
All-purpose: Luke Doty, South Carolina<\/p>\n
First season of college football: 2020<\/p>\n
Describing Doty as \u201call-purpose\u201d is a stretch, but we had to find some way to recognize a guy who, once upon a time, was the Gamecocks\u2019 starting quarterback for six games (two in 2020, four in 2021). He eventually moved to receiver but is now officially listed as an \u201cathlete\u201d on South Carolina\u2019s website.<\/p>\n
This seems like the most respectable way possible to honor an all-around good person, good student and good teammate who now mostly plays on special teams.<\/p>\n
(Top photo of Haynes King: Vasha Hunt \/ Imagn Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Athletic\u2019s All-Geezer Team began in 2021, the first season of \u201csuper seniors\u201d taking advantage of their free…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[1607,399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-19167","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-college-football","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-football","12":"tag-ncaafootball","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/USATSI_25910943-1024x787.jpg\")
<\/p>\n