Preseason prognosticators like Athlon Sports — the most accurate college football preview magazine on newsstands — use many things to attempt to predict what the coming football season will look like.

Trick shot videos have been a popular offseason craze in college football over the last few years. Connecticut’s Johnny McEntee seems to have started this recent trend, but several other players have attempted to create their own viral videos, including Pittsburgh kicker Kevin Harper.

While Harper and McEntee’s videos were impressive, Texas A&M’s Johnny Manziel might take the prize as the best one. The Heisman Trophy winner recently teamed with Dude Perfect to create a ridiculous trick shot video, which showcases the redshirt freshman's accuracy and arm strength. 

After over a year of evaluation that includes underclassman combines, spring and summer camps, the fall high school season and winter All-Star events, the 2013 Athlon Consensus 100 is finalized.

Names like Mississippi State’s Chris Jones, Alabama’s Derrick Henry and Oregon’s Thomas Tyner saw their stock sky-rocket in the final rankings while others like Michigan’s Shane Morris watched their names fall precipitously in the AC100.

The start of spring practice is still over a month away, but college football coaches have already turned the page from 2012 to 2013. With the passing of the NFL Draft deadline and new recruits coming in after Signing Day, coaches have a good idea about their roster and some of the holes facing their team.

With Alabama’s convincing victory over Notre Dame in early January, the SEC ran its streak of consecutive national champions to seven. The bad news for the competition? The SEC isn’t going anywhere. In fact, it’s bigger and better than ever. Texas A&M is a program on the rise after winning 11 games in its first season in the conference, while quarterback Johnny Manziel claimed the 2012 Heisman Trophy.

The early entry deadline to the NFL Draft is always a nervous time for many coaches in college football. Even though most coaches have an idea of which players will be back for the next season, there’s always a few surprises. And of course, it’s never easy to replace a potential first-round pick with an unproven player.

With college football’s 2012 season completed, it’s time to take a look back at the season that was and review the performance of all 124 teams before 2013 kicks off.

Twenty-eight coaches made their debut at a new program in 2012 and produced a mix bag of results.

Johnny Manziel set the college football world on fire this year and it led to the first redshirt freshman winning the award. Johnny Heisman confirmed his amazing season by putting on a record-setting show in the Cotton Bowl win over Oklahoma. But is the redshirt sophomore-to-be the front-runner to win Heisman considering only once in 77 years has someone won the stiff-armed trophy a second time. And that was in 1975 (Archie Griffin).

With the 2012 season officially in the books, it’s time to take an early look at college football’s top 25 teams for 2013. Alabama will be losing a few key players from its national championship team, but there’s plenty of talent returning to Tuscaloosa for the Crimson Tide to claim their third consecutive national title. While Alabama is a heavy favorite to repeat, determining the No. 2 team is a much tougher task.

The matchup in Dallas will be a familiar one, but the Cotton Bowl will provide the first look at how a freshman Heisman winner will react to the burden of the award.

Only Florida’s Tim Tebow spent more time in college with the phrase Heisman-winner preceded his name. Like Tebow, Oklahoma’s Sam Bradford and Alabama’s Mark Ingram both won the Heisman as sophomores, but both left school after their junior seasons.