Kedon Slovis: One of college football’s 40 best players for 2020

And you better believe it’s true. The preseason hype continues to grow for USC Trojans QB Kedon Slovis, entering his second season as the starter but first season as the season-opening starter for USC.

He was firmly placed on a bevy of preseason award watch lists, with the most prestigious of them being his place on the Maxwell Award watch list.

And now, he’s been selected by multiple publications as a top player overall, entering the 2020 season.

CBS’ 247Sports ranked Slovis No. 37 overall on their top 50 college football players for this season, one of 10 quarterbacks and one of six Pac-12 players on the list.

247Sports stated their ranking system involved player sorting by position first, assigning rankings and then moving to sorting overall tiers, positional value tiebreakers and ‘what a player had done in his career’ as well as projections for the 2020 season.

They wrote:

Slovis took over for an injured JT Daniels after Week 1 last season, and he never looked back. The Arizona native threw for 3,502 yards, 30 touchdowns against nine interceptions and completed 71.9 percent of his passes, a single-season Pac-12 record that Andrew Luck used to hold. Speaking of records, Slovis’ 167.6 passing efficiency rating was the highest in USC history. Remember, this is the same program that produced Sam Darnold, Matt Leinart, Carson Palmer and many others. Slovis turned out to be a perfect fit for offensive coordinator Graham Harrell’s Air Raid attack.

Sporting News ranked the top 40 players entering the 2020 season as well, listing Slovis at No. 27 overall, one of just six quarterbacks on their list. Also, Slovis was one of just four Pac-12 players on their list of top 40 players.

Their take on Slovis:

J.T. Daniels’ injury opened the door for Slovis, and Daniels transferred to Georgia in the offseason. That tells you how good Slovis was in his place. He passed for 3,502 yards, 30 TDs and nine interceptions. Slovis also had four games with 400 or more passing yards. Now comes the task of bringing USC back to the top of the Pac-12.

The hype is real. The talent is real.

Now we just need to know if the season is real.