re: Class of 2017 Recruiting MEGATHREAD: Say Your Goodbyes Edition

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Have you purchased your tickets to ride college football's hype train yet? Don't worry, there are still a few more months left to hop on board, and there's always plenty of seating.

The long offseason lends itself to anticipation, hope and wonder, and more often than not this translates into boosting the profile of various college football players, coaches and teams. Either because of how they played the year before—particularly at the end of the season, with an extra emphasis on bowl games—or how they're expected to fare this coming fall, certain entities get hyped way more than others.

And there's really nothing we can do about it other than to ignore the noise or embrace it.

We've selected the most overhyped of the hyped in college football, a list of players, coaches and teams you'll end up hearing the most about this offseason. Some of them will be deserving of all the attention, others maybe not so much. Either way, they're going to be facing incredibly lofty expectations when the 2016 season begins.

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Myles Garrett, Texas A&M

Myles Garrett broke Jadeveon Clowney's SEC record for sacks by a freshman then last year improved on those numbers and cemented himself as one of the top edge-rushers in college football. Texas A&M's defense showed significant improvement in 2015, and Garrett is due some credit for that, but more of the accolades go to coordinator John Chavis.

The pairing of Chavis and Garrett is one that drew much praise last offseason, and it's the same this spring. And with Garrett projected as one of the top picks in the 2017 draft—WalterFootball.com has him going second overall—he should be primed for a massive year this fall.

Or the 6'5”, 262-pound defensive end could end up doing what a lot of top pro prospects do in that junior season: play it safe and avoid injury, knowing what's at stake. We won't know if that's the case until the games get played, but that shouldn't change the level of hype he gets or how much that correlates to the expectations for A&M's defense in 2016.

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OJ Howard, Alabama

If you thought O.J. Howard was among the most overhyped players in college football history before, just wait until this coming season. Now he's actually got some results to warrant this attention, having been the unsung hero of the national championship game with an amazing individual performance.

The 6'6”, 242-pound tight end, who hadn't caught a touchdown pass since November 2013, had two TDs as part of a five-catch, 208-yard effort in Alabama's 40-35 win over Clemson. It was almost as if Clemson wasn't aware Howard was on the roster, which made sense since he'd caught only 66 passes in his previous 41 games.

Howard's monster game could have been the perfect springboard to jump to the NFL, where his size would make him a coveted prospect. Instead, he's come back for his senior year, which gives us all another opportunity to rave at his measureables and wonder if this will be the season in which he's a regular part of the Crimson Tide offense.

"Howard will put together that final piece of the puzzle in 2016, become a focal point of the new-look Crimson Tide offense and be the best tight end in the country as a senior," Bleacher Report's Barrett Sallee wrote.

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Les Miles, LSU

We love Les Miles for his quirks, which include a certain way with the English language as well as his love for eating grass and pulling out trick plays. And for this, we tend to give the LSU coach the benefit of the doubt each year when it comes to assessing its chances. Even when the previous year didn't go as expected, Miles seems to always enter the following season at the helm of a team with high hopes.

And that's in spite of the last few teams being made up exactly the same on offense, with too much reliance on the run game and not enough of a contribution from the passing attack.

Miles won 34 games in his first three years at LSU, leading the Tigers to the 2007 national title, then slipped back in 2008-09 before another title game appearance in 2011. Because he's bounced back in the past, the expectation is it will happen again. He might be running out of leash, as evidenced by his near-firing in November, yet most super-early rankings have LSU near the top once again in 2016.

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USC Trojans

Clay Helton is technically both the third and fifth coach USC has had since the ultra-successful Pete Carroll era ended in 2009. He was interim coach for the 2013 Las Vegas Bowl the year Lane Kiffin was fired (and after previous interim coach Ed Orgeron left) and then got the full-time gig late last year after a strong performance in an interim role after Steve Sarkisian's termination.

Such coaching turmoil is just part of the soap opera-like aura that surrounds USC, and with that comes a level of attention that is normally reserved for a team that should be in the mix for a title. And the Trojans could be there this season, much as they've been almost every year since Carroll went to the NFL, if they could just get out of their own way and stick to football.

In a city that—until this fall—hasn't had pro football since the mid-1990s, there's a desperate need to have a championship-level team. UCLA and USC have both seemed capable of this lately, but USC will always be the first choice of the community.

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Johnson, a 6-foot-3, 253-pound DE, has long been trending to Auburn at 100 percent on the 247Sports Crystal Ball, but at the moment, Alabama appears to be the new team trending, with sources near the Mobile product believing the Tide is now the team to beat.

On top of the momentum seemingly turning to UA’s favor, a decision could be coming sooner rather than later.

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